The Eternal Triangle
“Fear is pain arising from the anticipation of evil.”
They say there’s a black sheep in every family.
This is patently untrue; sometimes there are no sheep in a family. However for the purpose of the metaphor, we may assume that Roger Jessop, fifth of the Jessop brothers of which Edgar was the youngest, was that mouton noir.
Roger grew up with myriad complexes, some of which may be attributed to his feeling of inferiority (well founded, some may say) to his mercurial sibling, Edgar; he the champion of the track, unabashed lothario, and darling of the social set. So chronic was this sentiment of weakness, Roger often talked of a burning desire to one day “see his name in lights”. To that end, upon attaining the age of 21, he changed his name to Hot Chips.
Even then, the inner persecution gnawed at his soul, phobias intensified, and he drew further away from society. In no particular order he developed Bromhidrosiphobia (fear of giving off body odours), agyiophobia (fear of crossing the street), catagelophobia (fear of ridicule), coitophobia (fear of sexual intercourse, an affliction definitely not suffered by his youngest brother), autophobia (fear of oneself), and helminthophobia (fear of worms), to name just a few.
In desperation, he fled Giggleswick for a peripatetic life with fewer streets to cross, fewer mirrors reflecting his image, and definitely fewer worms. For a time, Hot Chips lived in Madras, where he gradually overcame many of his fears, including, crucially, ochlophpbia (fear of crowds), became fluent in Tamil, and even hosted a regular radio show called Chips on my Shoulders. With his newfound celebrity status he was frequently invited to sit on panels, judge beauty contests, open orphanages and attend motorcycle races as starter and judge, as he was often confused with his world famous sibling.
However the increased attention soon began to play upon his fragile mind, to the point that he developed the most chronic of all phobias, phobophobia (fear of being afraid). Under cover of darkness, he caught a steamer to seek a new life in Adelaide, and for a time, things seem to go reasonably well. Overcoming aichmophobia (fear of being touched), he formed an increasingly amorous relationship with a young lady, Penny Farthing, and even purchased a new
AJS motorcycle.
It took little time however for cracks to appear, Penny becoming insanely jealous of the gleaming
AJS and declaring he must choose between her or ‘that infernal machine’. Stricken with hedonophobia (fear of pleasure), he made the agonising decision to choose the latter, riding the unsuspecting motorcycle with Penny on the pillion to a secluded place, under the pretention of enjoying a picnic. Police later found the lifeless bike, and Roger’s .22 rifle nearby with the trigger linked to the gear lever by a piece of fishing line. A jury found him guilty of First Degree Motocide and he spent the next twenty years of his life in the Public Colonial Lunatic Asylum of South Australia in Glenside, a suburb of Adelaide. During his internment he became recognised as a model prisoner, and after overcoming bibliophobia (fear of books), became the institute’s librarian.