CHAZ bounded out of school and towards the bus stop. Like it knew it was a special day, the bus pulled up immediately, and Chaz got on, chose a window seat at the back and pulled out his smartphone and started tweeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cBirthday: so far so brilliant. On way home for family dinner. Recording equipment in the offing? Or even ukulele?? Sick!\u201d<\/p>\n
Five minutes later, he\u2019d already had 46 favourites and 104 retweets. He\u2019d even got 22 new followers today. Ten on twitter, and 12 on his YouTube channel. Life was sweet.<\/p>\n
He got out his phone to film himself for a new vlog.<\/p>\n
\u201cYo brothers and sisters it\u2019s the day of my birth so I\u2019m full of mirth for what it\u2019s worth down here on earth, where we live and love to celebrate and I feel just great\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd it\u2019s you I hate, so just levitate yo ass out of here,\u201d someone who was passing him in the bus chanted.<\/p>\n
Chaz shut off his phone. \u201cSod off, Dan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo happy birthday, Mate,\u201d Dan sang and got off the bus.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, it was Chaz\u2019s stop. Once he was home, he was planning to go straight to his room to download his video into his computer and finish his vlog. But his mum called him over. Both his parents were sitting at the table with a lovely large chocolate cake, covered with candles. God, he loved birthdays. He looked about for parcels but didn\u2019t see any. But that was no reason to worry. Probably his present was recording equipment, and it was upstairs. That\u2019s why they detained him. Sick.<\/p>\n
He wished his sister could be there, too, but she\u2019d left the family more or less years ago. Actually, come to think of it, it wasn\u2019t long after her 16th<\/sup> birthday. Maybe she didn\u2019t get what she wanted. On the other hand, the parents were a bit past it. Always going on about books written by old farts. Whatever. What could you expect? Now he communicated with his sister through Twitter mostly. She was far away in Edinburgh, studying to become a forensic pathologist. Each to his own.<\/p>\n \u201cHey Mum, Dad,\u201d said Chaz, plonking himself down on the couch.<\/p>\n \u201cHappy birthday, Charles,\u201d said his mum.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re 16 now,\u201d said his dad. \u201cWe\u2019d like to have a talk with you about something.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, sure. Can we have the cake while we\u2019re talking?\u201d said Chaz.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a minute,\u201d said his dad. \u201cWe\u2019d like to talk to you a bit about your future.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo we have to do it now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, Charles. I think it\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn the future, you know, I\u2019d rather you called me Chaz.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s sort of what we want to talk to you about,\u201d said his mum.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see,\u201d his father started. \u201cIt\u2019s like this, Son. You\u2019re not really our son. Not our biological son, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat? I\u2019m adopted?\u201d Chaz gasped.<\/p>\n \u201cKind of, and kind of not,\u201d said his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cYour mother gave birth to you,\u201d said his dad. \u201cShe incubated you, so to speak. But your genetic material is completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo, what are you saying?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCharles\u2026 you really are Charles. About 17 years ago, we acquired something very valuable in an auction. It was something belonging to a famous author called Charles Dickens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo I\u2019m named after him?\u201d asked Chaz.<\/p>\n \u201cLet me finish,\u201d said his father. \u201cWe acquired Charles Dickens\u2019s toothpick.\u201d<\/p>\n This was a bit of an anticlimax, Chaz thought. What next? William Shakespeare\u2019s fingernail scissors?<\/p>\n \u201cA magnificent relic,\u201d said his mother.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if we had the idea before or after we got it,\u201d said his father.<\/p>\n \u201cIt kind of all happened at once,\u201d said his mum.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we had this incredible idea,\u201d his father continued. \u201cCharles Dickens was one of the greatest literary geniuses of all time. What a thing to give to the world, to bring back Charles Dickens. To let him continue his great work and bring beauty and literature into the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Chaz could sense that this conversation was not going in a good way. And that, when it was over, he might actually not be in much of a mood for chocolate cake.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we had the toothpick examined for residual genetic material,\u201d his father said. \u201cAnd then we managed to revive it and grow it. And clone it.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a silence. Chaz was first to speak.<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s right, Son. You are Charles Dickens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe clone of Charles Dickens,\u201d Chaz corrected his father.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, but that means you are, in fact, Charles Dickens.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m not Charles Dickens,\u201d Chaz protested. \u201cI don\u2019t want to be Charles Dickens. I\u2019m Chaz. I don\u2019t even like his bloody books.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, come now, that\u2019s not entirely true,\u201d said his mum. \u201cYou\u2019ve hardly given them a chance. You liked A Christmas Carol<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo?\u201d Chaz demanded.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s Charles Dickens,\u201d said his sort-of mother. \u201cHe \u2013 you \u2013 wrote that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTHAT WAS THE MUPPETS!\u201d Chaz shouted.<\/p>\n \u201cAll the same, Charles Dickens \u2013 you \u2013 wrote it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did not! I HATE writing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou write all the time,\u201d said his mum.<\/p>\n \u201cI TWEET all the time,\u201d said Chaz. \u201cI tweet. On Twitter. I do vlogs Video blogs, in case you\u2019re so bloody past it you don\u2019t know or even notice. Not the same as writing huge, effing, boring novels is it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCharles\u2026\u201d started his father.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Chaz, dammit. I hate being called Charles. I\u2019m Chaz. C. H. A. Z. And you\u2019ve just stolen my life from me. You\u2019ve stolen my life. I had a life, and now you say it\u2019s somebody else\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, we\u2019ve given you a life. A very illustrious\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, stolen. I never wanted all those books you keep throwing at me. I hate books. What happened to the ukulele I asked for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s not a serious instrument, Charles. Books are enduring works of art,\u201d said his father.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re past it,\u201d Chaz screamed. \u201cJust like you. I tweet. I have 12,000 followers. And counting. And I just put my first rap vlog on YouTube. I\u2019ve got followers there, too. Not quite as many, but counting. I might even\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Chaz was about to say, might even get a book deal, but that would have been counter productive.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you\u2019re telling me I\u2019m supposed to sit down and write these huge, insanely boring novels that nobody wants to read because, wait for it, because \u2018I\u2019m a gift for humanity\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou make it sound like it\u2019s a bad thing,\u201d said his dad.<\/p>\n \u201cOMG, I\u2019ve had enough of this shit,\u201d screamed Chaz, and ran out of the house, slamming the door behind him. He immediately pulled out his smartphone and started walking very quickly down the street while he typed into it.<\/p>\n \u201comg u can\u2019t believe what psycho tossers mum and dad are. U were so right to escape,\u201d he wrote to his sister Jane on Twitter.<\/p>\n The user imnotjane responded within seconds.<\/p>\n \u201cO I can. It is a truth universally acknowledged that our parents are toerags.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cU won\u2019t believe what they told me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTry me,\u201d tweeted imnotjane. \u201cBut maybe not on Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A version of t<\/em>his\u00a0story originally appeared in the German magazine\u00a0<\/em>Spotlight<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CHAZ bounded out of school and towards the bus stop. Like it knew it was a special day, the bus pulled up immediately, and Chaz got on, chose a window seat at the back and pulled out his smartphone and started tweeting. \u201cBirthday: so far so brilliant. On way home for family dinner. Recording equipment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sketches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}