The Roof Of The World

Who am I?

If confronted with this seemingly prosaic inquiry during any one of the previous 10,865 days that have comprised my tenancy on this bungled sphere where we all harmoniously reside, my answer would have been curt and tinged with a whiff of predictable banality. It would have gone something like: I'm Jonathan Baxter, I'm twenty-nine years old and I live in Docklands, East London. I work for a successful advertising agency in the city. I enjoy working out, dining out, and am regularly prone to prolonged bouts of self-loathing brought on by the hypocrisy of my facile existence. That's 'who I am'. That's my life compressed succinctly into a couple of short sentences, the appalling tragedy being that in truth it didn't really take that much compression at all. There it is for all the whole world to see and it reads like an insipid entry in a lonely hearts column, not alluring enough to raise the pulses of even the most 'cuddly' readers. Besides, on the scarce occasions that anyone ever bothered to try and garner a more detailed insight into my surreptitious temperament, I would instinctively elect to tinker with some of the more dubious nuances of my character. There are a multitude of traits that I possess which would be omitted from the forlorn regurgitation of my finer qualities. Honesty, I feel is a particularly redundant facet of the psyche, forays into which I try my utmost to keep down to a bare minimum.

At any rate, the subtleties of my fraudulent façade are somewhat academic. Despite always having been intrigued by the broad spectrum of human interaction, historically for the most part I've chosen to play the role of an observer rather than be an active participant. Better to slump in the back seat and be judgemental than take the wheel and risk potentially causing a pile-up. My father always used to tell me that it is the way we treat others that defines our humanity. Christ! If that's the case I'm surely living on the most inhumane speck to grace the heavenly firmament's boundless expanse. What it all boils down to is greed. It is our innate predisposition to covet that which we do not already posses that invariably complicates the issue. But that's okay. I'm not exactly an exception to the rule. I'm part of the whole cycle of avarice in my own self serving, spiteful little way. I work in advertising for pity's sake, so it would be wrong for me to be overly critical and recite that tired old 'society's irreparably corrupted' diatribe. The fact of the matter is we're all in such an extreme state of collective apathy that anything I would have to contribute on the subject would be swallowed up by a lethargic torrent of extreme indifference.

My life, such as it is, has been for the most part spectacularly unremarkable. That is up until a few hours ago, where things have taken a decidedly surreal turn for the eerily uncanny. If the truth be told I'm having a hard time coming to terms with recent events. How I have arrived in my current predicament may take a bit of explaining. Originally I came to Bhutan with no real expectations of anything profoundly life altering taking place. My initial motivation for coming here was no doubt tempered by that slightly irritating tendency we Westerners have of travelling to distant, exotic locales in the hope of comprehending some deep, introspective, revelatory truth about what makes us tick along the way. It is such a typical conceit of the society in which we live that affords us the opportunity to dip our toe into a so-called primitive way of life solely for the purpose of massaging our massive egos. Thousands of us every year migrate to the darkest corners of Asia, Africa, and Latin America with the same smug intention of being humbled by the quaint inclinations of the peoples that reside there. I personally question how any of them, myself included I hasten to add, can truly garner any semblance of knowledge of what living in such communities is actually like. A flight home back to a hot bath, comfy bed, and the luxuriant trappings of an assorted glut of cuisines delivered hot to your door beckon the moment life among the savages begins to grow irksome. However, I can honestly say that when I set out on this particular journey, I did so out of necessity, rather than some self-satisfied aspiration to feed my soul.

The necessity I speak of that precipitated my hasty departure from the shores of the United Kingdom was manifest in that specific type of compulsion that if not acted upon immediately, ones sanity begins to rapidly unravel as a result. Circumstances were such that had I remained ensconced in my nauseating nook of civilisation for a moment longer, in all likelihood I would no longer be around to regale this woeful saga. Those of you who have actually bothered to read this far would not have been presented with the opportunity to gloat at my self-inflicted misfortune. Moreover, I dare say you may even go on to learn a little something from my substantial catalogue of errors should you decide to persevere with my melodramatic lamentations. In order to understand the true scope of my folly, I must turn the hour glass on its head and begin shovelling eighteen months worth of sand back through the aperture. This will be an arduous process indeed I can assure you. Digging up the past is seldom a task that is to be relished, especially when the tempestuous life that is being excavated is my own. It is quite impossible for me to review this particular episode of my memoirs without the odd pang of regret encroaching on my typically cold-hearted demeanour.

Regret is by far the most bothersome sensation to blight the expansive array of human emotion. It acts as a disparagingly persistent thorn in the side of one's ability to consign to history certain irrevocable deeds that ought to remain forgotten. Memories are mercifully designed to fade in time, yet if a certain recollection is tinged with the slightest hint of regret, that memory's capacity to withdraw into the far recesses of conscious thought is drastically hampered. The offending reminiscence stubbornly lodges itself at the forefront of one's preoccupations, like a splinter that is impossible to dislodge, lacerating our conscience and taking up long term residence there.

But far be it for me to allow any soul crushing pangs of compunction to get in the way of a good yarn. The prior eighteen months of my life cannot be summarised easily, the details are everything and I am loathe to leave anything out. However, before I begin to divulge the specifics of my blustery tale, I feel that I ought to first relay a few of the particulars regarding my domestic development, commencing with the introduction of the dutiful keepers who presided over the preliminary phase of my inane existence. The individuals who are responsible for moulding this well rounded, cordial individual that you see before you today: my parents (God bless them).
I had a comfortable upbringing, I can't really complain. Although I assure you I no doubt will before long, just give me a moment to set the scene first. I was raised along with my brother on the periphery of the picturesque sea-side town of Brixham in Devon. As the postcards suggest, it's a perfectly agreeable part of the world to have grown up in. Despite the dawning of a new millennium, the place stubbornly retains the antiquated aura of a bygone era. Save for an unsightly outbreak of satellite dishes in recent years and a smattering of other modern contrivances (Pelican crossings and the like), I imagine Brixham looks the same today as it did centuries ago. The town appears to have been hewn directly into the sheer granite bluffs that embrace the natural harbour at their base. Heading out of the town centre, the crags steadily rise to their zenith at the cove's most easterly point, a rocky peninsula that goes by the name of Berry Head. That's where I grew up. In the Berry Head Lighthouse no less, which boasts the peculiar accolade of being the world's tallest, shortest lighthouse.

Contrary to most people's understanding of how a light house ought to appear, it isn't a tall cylindrical structure, but rather an awkward looking two storey building. The top floor houses the beacon, which is enclosed within what looks like a green house that hasn't been put together correctly. The fact that the building itself is only two storeys high accounts for the lighthouse being the shortest in the world. The fact that this two storey building rests atop a 218 foot precipice, with the lamp itself lying a record breaking 237 feet above the waves below accounts for the lighthouse being the tallest in the world. Pretty impressive stuff, at least it was to the nine year old who lived there all those years ago. I would constantly berate my classmates for not being able to say that they lived somewhere of global significance. I'd chide them all with such an unashamedly cocky swagger, it was as if I was the one responsible for all of it. Little wonder that I went on to a career in advertising. Despite my predominantly retiring disposition I was certainly more than capable of a little embellishment when it suited me.

My father's name was Ernest Gregory Baxter, he was a heavy set, grey haired individual with a moustache. Moustaches are at the best of times an ill-advised undertaking. Even if one is exceptionally easy on the eye, the presence of a moustache straddling the upper lip can drastically curtail the number of prospective mates an individual can expect to attract. If one doesn't happen to be graced with a particularly alluring aspect, electing to grow a moustache is tantamount to wearing a sack on your head and changing your name to John Merrick. Enticing prospective mates becomes nigh on impossible when you've effectively narrowed what started out as quite a small field down to a patch of grass that would struggle to cover a modest window box.

This brings me nicely on to my mother. Born Mary Elizabeth Riezeiger, she was a bony thing with an austere look about her. Suffice to say she was never particularly fussy when it came to men. She grew up in Mönchengladbach, West Germany, which is where she met my father. He was stationed at a British army base there. Their paths first crossed in the winter of 1967, he was 29 and she was 21. The recurrent recital of their first encounter had been a time honoured tradition in the Baxter household throughout my childhood. I must have heard my mother's schmaltzy rendition of the fateful day she became acquainted with Lance Corporal Ernest Baxter at least a thousand times. Conversely, I recall hearing my father's matter-of-fact rendition of that rainy day he met Mary, the butcher's daughter, at least once.