Chernobyl

The child was conceived in Kiev on the day of the Chernobyl incident. Father was a diplomat. Mother was an art professor. By the time he was twelve, they both had passed away. His mother battled ovarian cancer for five years and succumbed when he was seven. His father, who found large doses of alcohol to be a gradually diminishing comfort, drove into the Dnipro and disappeared into its murky water.

The child conceived in Kiev on the day of Chernobyl possessed an uncanny gift. Whether Chernobyl is the source of this gift is a matter of pure speculation. What can be known for sure is that upon being orphaned at a very young age -- and subsequently moving in with a distant relative in Canada -- the child cultivated a fiery attachment to personal independence. He developed an intense sense of self. He embraced confrontation at an age when other children abhorred it. He was assured that truth was exclusive to his mind, while others were misinformed. This article of faith acted as a foundation for his actions. It was to be the mission statement of his gift and its expression in the world. This gift, which could have potentially redeemed the child and the world itself, indiscriminately laid ruin to all things that contravened his individual world-view. At a very young age, he ceased to be the child and aspired to become the wisest of all tyrants.

He blamed it on Chernobyl. He blamed Chernobyl for having taken the warm bosom of mother away. He blamed Chernobyl for pushing his kind, quiet, and gentle father into the depths of despondency. Lastly, he blamed Chernobyl for his accursed gift. He wanted to transcend Chernobyl by doing what it could not -- namely, the utter obliteration of all that was false and oppressive in the world. Nature's oppression, he felt, was most absolute and, hence, most unbearable of all.

He held himself to be a personage of high regard. He believed his intentions were noble and his cause just. Too much was wrong. Too much had gone array. The world was poisoned beyond all half-measured solutions; only one remedy was left. It was a remedy that only the wisest, noblest, and most courageous one could execute. Only he had to gumption to overturn time.

The remedy was a reset. For the child of Kiev born on the day of Chernobyl, the only world he ever knew was an absurd aberration. It shouldn't have been left standing. He should have never been born. The wretched moments of today bleeding into tomorrow were the cruel jokes of a sadistic clockmaker. For the child of Kiev born in the shadow of Chernobyl, a just world could never see a tomorrow. Time, that timorous tyrant, was to be the child's eternal foe.

---

The child born in Kiev when Chernobyl blew its top admired only one person in his formative years: his cousin. His cousin was born with a name and died with another. Only the latter survived the passage of time. The name was Bobby Orr. No, not "Number Four Bobby Orr" of Perry Sound, but Bobby Orr of Surrey, BC, cousin, playmate, and confidant to the great tyrant.

Six years separated the child from his older cousin...

Stress

Stress hormones accelerate the breakdown of telomerase - a coating protecting chromosomes - in mammals.

An excess of stress hormones causes the body to shut down non-essential functions - including the immune system. This is an explanation of why ulcers, caused by bacteria carried by two-thirds of the world population, occur in some cases but not in all.

Stress and excess body fat also kills brain function. Neurons are less likely to fire while the body is under chronic stress.

Relax, kick back, and then do some serious work.