DO NOT IRRITATE THE DEVIL

Whatever you do, here is some sage advice: DO NOT IRRITATE THE DEVIL! I must have, because the Devil came during the night and struck me down. He struck with something so fiendishly evil that Death stood by my side—waiting. Here is my story about wrestling with the Devil and his mongrel dog, Death. It is, by necessity of circumstances, a story of despair, anguish, pain, guilt, and agony. But it is more. Ultimately, it is a story of the human spirit facing the abyss and ascending back to the surface. It is also a story of love, compassion and the generosity of the human spirit that saved me. Nothing is hidden. This makes my story raw. I am unapologetic about its rawness because it is accurate, and it is true. This memoir breaks the typical mould of ‘survivor stories’, being a bit unusual in its somewhat quirky literary style and unique prose. I love history and wine, and I have liberally lightened the dark corners of the story with vignettes from both fields, injecting a bit of humour and irony to round it out and give it depth. Quite unexpectedly, you might find some peculiar morsels of varied knowledge here that may even serve you well during the next trivia night – one just never knows when random facts come in handy. In the end, it is a raw and itchy account about how the mind and soul twist and wriggle when hot-poked by the Devil dishing up by an unbelievably rare and vicious illness. About the Author: Just after the last ice age, I trained as a zoologist at the Universities of Salzburg & Vienna (Austria), Port Elizabeth (South Africa), and Notre Dame (USA). Life has been good, and I have been fortunate to live in some cool places (Fiji, Spain, Australia, US) and to work, as a professional marine scientist, on truly fascinating animals and systems (the deep sea, undersea volcanoes, beach ecosystems, foxes & raptors). Flummoxingly, being a shallow character, it is rather surprising that I have deep and irreverent interests. Just to be a bit vain, I reckon I defy vanilla in my life, and this is my debut literary work – dive in.