"It's time to do your medication, dear," she said, to her husband lying there, on the bed.

"Almost dead?"

"No, he wasn't sick as you might have thought and said about it, but..." they were newlyweds, so... She had just given it to him, the book she found among her things.

She got him to agree to do it in bits and pieces over tea, didn't have the time to do it in one sitting line you see. Even though it was small, they were newlyweds after all.

Since they'd fished it out of the medicine kit, they would have gotten the hunch to do it in dosages, short and quick, like, over lunch. Or on any other such normal habits, like biscuits to crunch. That was it; daily doses to sip, now, this is day number one, so, the story now begins.

This story is told from a Carib-Jamericanadian perspective, with a twisted comedic edge. Presented (sometimes) in a richly blended language mix of, nonsense talk, sensational spelling, double entendre, and Jamaican patois inserted here and there throughout, as may be found fitting. Yeah, man, a Jamaica yaad mi cum fram. Sorry, I meant to say, I'm Jamaican-born and bred, okay? Yes, wordplay is the order of the day around here. So...

Day One: The Newly-weds.

Look, that's the shirt depot right there. Aloada's shirt depot is just across the way from where he prays for some helpful beings to come someday and usher him into his home of abode, yes, his habitation down the road. But it never came, that help remains somewhere out there on the fertile plain.

Prick and his mother; Mrs. Long, live on the ground floor of the building sinting, or something. Yeah, say it that way, if you want to be proper, okay? Good. The basement apartment is reeling him in. Prick is headed there right about now, hunched over the arguing cow. Arguing yet some more about the pole and the way he's dragging it between his feet and near the hole.

That's his favorite horse-and-jockey position from way back in the days of old, even though he isn't that old to be shaking cold in his soul. But he has been doing the stick-riding thing from way back then. Like, when he was just another child about the children's playpen. He's almost alone here in the frigid zone and riding again. But he ain't having fun none. Not like he used to do, no. Not at this time.

But really now, tell me something, friend of mine. What if you should find that, that thing you thought you were seeing, was not what it ought to be being, and wasn't what you were seeing? Because it wasn't what it was? Like, Kiss me. Kiss mi nuh man. Kiss mi damn teeth, though, it's like kissing mi granny one teeth, no?

Yeah, "the tooth, that's what I meant to say." Seeit yah. Look at it.

He was stuck to the pole, halfway between the shoulder and the sole, of the foot and the shoe you know. Of old, he would pp-hiss up against the stick. Or at least, he acted the part of doing something the sort of this so, whenever it was convenient for him. Or even when it was not, you know, like convenient. He would pull for the fullest length of it, and... oh, sheet.

He wasn't known as "Prickly Pole" yet when it got set settled and started. But things weren't turning out as they had wanted. Born in the tropics, he was just like any other jacket about the pits. Just like any other bouncing baby boy; beautiful was he, like, a mother's joy tree.

There was nothing to indicate that he would have to wait with a skin issue to protect himself before meeting up with his fate and the misuse. But as he grew, it began to show. Showing up for him and you, no?

"No."

"Okay then, I'll go."

By the time he was ten. He was all covered up and over, in them. Then came the habit of running, hiding, and abiding, while covering up to cover it up. You know, like, to cover up the shame.

He stood out from the crowd very early, and very loud too was the slashing of the sword, e? Yes. For all the wrong reasons in a crowd, most assuredly. Over there in that square, they called him Spikes or Spikey, which was because of his skin condition, most unsightly.

Come to think of it, I've heard them say that you have a skin condition of your own too. Is that true? You do? Do you have a skin condition, in truth? The swelling type? No? Okay, I hear what you say, but...

What's that? What did you say? It's not about you? Yeah, I hear you, well, goodnight booboo.

He's right though. We're talking about the spike show, yeah! You're right too, we're talking about Spikey Prick here, not you. Anyway, as the young boy grew, he became more and more reclusive.

By the teen years, he was hiding and abiding behind a lot of clothing.

In the tropics? Not a good topic to fix and fit in with the mode. No, not a good combination code. That was not a good thing for a young boy in any condition Hingh, let alone, in a tropical setting. His mother had to get him help or get him out of there. The latter came when he was seventeen years of age. To be continued.

An excerpt from a book called "The Shirt Factory." It's a Christmas tale to warm your heart. The perfect gift for the person who has everything; get it early. It's available where books are sold.