Cast
Sam: 20s. Wears a loose tracksuit over the top of army fatigues.

Scene
I never knew my mum. She died during childbirth. Lived long enough to hold me in her arms, look me in the eyes and say, “Sam.” Dad said the very last moment of her life was the happiest one so at least she went out on a high.

Dad was a drug addict when I was born so I only spent a few months with him before they shipped me out to foster homes. The first people who had me were arrested for kidnapping a child in the eighties and I was forwarded on to an elderly couple before I turned one. I’m sure they were the best parents I ever had but they didn’t last very long. Enid passed away in her sleep when I was eighteen months and Rex died of a “broken heart” soon after.

I was sent to an upper class couple after that and lived with Carlos and Anastarsia for the next eight years. Anastarsia hated me right from the get-go because Spot – her bunny rabbit – died of shock the day I arrived. It’s hardly a toddler’s fault that rabbits have zero constitution but all the same I was scorned by her for half my childhood. She was the least hands-on parent in the universe, and I think I was technically raised by Nintendo. My first words were “Donkey Kong.” I was home-schooled for those eight years and when I was seven I’m pretty sure I topped the state in The Legend of Zelda.

Just before I turned ten, my dad convinced the courts he was off drugs and got custody of me. He was over the moon. I was put on a train to Arcadia Station and dad met me there with a Labrador puppy he’d named Lucky. Lucky was so excited to meet his new best friend that he leapt right on top of me as I arrived, except I was still on a moving train and the poor thing got minced. It was a fairly mixed reunion.

A few days after I moved in to dad’s pokey flat he started coughing. At first it was just a little “hack, hack,” but it quickly grew worse and worse until his entire breathing cycle consisted of a gasp in and a choke out. Cancer got him when I was ten years and ten days.

Off I went to another foster home. After less than six months, my two dads Charles and Charlie were killed in an accident on the motorway. When my next foster mum died of a stroke at twenty-seven, I knew something was wrong with me. I relocated again and went to see a priest.

“What would you like to confess, my child?”

“Father,” I replied. “I think I’m possessed by the Devil. A lot of people around me have gone to Heaven: my mum, my dad, the Charleses, the old couple. Even Lucky and Spot. I’m not very good at maths but this many deaths seems very unprobable. How am I supposed to live if everyone around me goes to Heaven, Father? …Father? …Hello?”

The next guy I lived with is still alive today. He worked at a warehouse and was terribly fond of marijuana, smoking it on a daily basis when he got home from work at 4am. I don’t know how he was legally entitled to adopt but I suspect he hired someone from Gumtree dot com to be his “de facto partner” during interviews.

Dae-mo and I didn’t have much to do with each other, but all things considered he was a reasonable parent who got me through school and into my own apartment. I moved in with two nerds I met through World of Warcraft, but I was the only one who survived the fire.

By the time I was living alone and working from home as a programmer I was over it. What the hell was wrong with me? What evil spirit did I piss off to end up as the town death magnet?...

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