Yes well hello. This is the beginning I suppose so I guess that you will all want to know what has happened. I was born, hmm, no, I mean yes, I was born but perhaps we don’t want to go there, well not just yet. Look, lets get down to facts. This is true fiction and no lies have been added to this story unless it has been necessary and it seems it has been necessary quite a lot.

My name is Sandy, well sort of, my real name is Alexander however I prefer Sandy. I mean lets face it, Sandy is better than Alex or Al or something. One reason I prefer Sandy is acronyms, yes acronyms. See my real name is Alexander Leonard Lyndhurst O’Way, ALLOW, dreadful isn’t it, so over time I have developed a love hate relationship with acronyms. Anyway as the story develops you will see what I mean.

So yes, I was born at the Inner Cyberia Hospital(ICH) and as little kids we couldn’t resist putting a “T” in there to make it ITCH as we all reckoned that if you ever went to hospital you always came home with an itch. Sorry, what was that, you have never heard of Inner Cyberia? Well it’s next to Middle Cyberia and on the other side of Outer Cyberia. Pretty simple really. Anyway I was born at the ITCH and unfortunately taken home by the wrong family. See I was born right on change of shift which immediately put me off side with the staff. Nurses hate having to do anything during hand over and guess what, that was me. Well my new family were Chinese and they named me Zing Zang however they gave me a nick name, Nick, phew, imagine trying to explain away Zing Zang when the local bullies are just about to bash you.

My dad, Walter, a very wealthy man, was a watch maker and he was very proud of his shop “Walter Wong’s Watches” (WWW) being displayed across the front in large letters. “One day all this will be yours Nick ” he would say. Well dad, my name is actually Zing Zang but hey, never call me a pedant as I don’t even know what that means. I think you have it on toast for breakfast, pedant butter and funny, yumbo.

My dad was always looking to get richer. He used to tinker with computers and one day at a large family gathering my Dad said “You know, one day computers will communicate with each other via the phone line, the information will be broken up into packets and reassembled at the other end.” “Preposterous!!” came the cries and the next day the men in white coats, other wise known as purse carrying nancy boys, came and took my dad away.

Soon after that the police arrived. My mum was feeling bad because she missed dad but more importantly she had just broken a fingernail, as you do, and the policeman said “Mavis” that’s my mum’s name, “Mavis you’ve brought home the wrong child from the hospital” “Yes, that’s right the Wong child, my Nick” replied mum in her broken English. “No the wrong, wrong child” emphasised the policeman “He’s a Wong” said mum, “No wrong, w.r.o.n.g. child meaning Nick isn’t yours” and so I was taken away to my new family, Farter and Mafarter O’Way.

My new family were poor but really good to me. They didn’t eat fish and rice like the Wong’s but lamb and potatoes instead. My dad was a Traffic Control Officer with the Main Roads dept., otherwise known as a lollipop man, good for a lick for a zac[2] to go to the shop, and my mum was a farmer’s daughter. But, my English teachers will cringe with me starting a sentence with but, but hey, who gives a fun, then they went and named me Alexander, hmm.

This was all very different and it took me a long time to adjust. The great thing was that my first mum and dad became good friends with my second mum and dad, so in the end I had two sets of parents. Farter and Walter would debate every issue under the sun while Mafarter and Mavis would trade recipes and take turns at cooking the main dinner, life was pretty good. And of course the real Zing Zang was nicknamed Billy, Billy Wong, hmm.[1]
One day the Wong’s came over, with sad faces, to tell us that they were moving to Outer Cyberia. Walter got a good job offer in charge of trying to put and egg back together that had fallen from a wall, so he took it.

Now let me tell you, you know how some things are a long way, well Outer Cyberia was a long way plus a bit, like another long way. See what I mean. Perhaps even further then a long way, maybe it might even been further then Coals(Thanks Dave)[5] an, an, and you may not even eat cannibals, whats this world coming to, next there will something good on TV except Aunty and her little cousin

More to come so grit dem teeth and laugh so hard you hurt. Please avoid consuming liquids when reading this story. Your cat and keyboard may end up hating you.

Authors Notes

[1.] Think about it

[2.] I think a zac was sixpence and then became five cents, robbed again as usual. You can see that I am still bitter and twisted about 1966

[3] I have no idea about what this story is about but I’m having fun, hope you are.

[4] I dedicate this story to Helvi who gave me much support and encouragement to get Father O’Way into space and to the WDAPAW Crew who have all contributed ideas for the hapless Sandy

[5] Thanks Astyages, loved that one of yours for a long time