I'm the type of person who doesn't like looking back. Not because I'm a forward-thinker with my eyes fixed on the horizon.
No. I look ahead because the past is problematic.
Nonetheless, there's a memory I can't expunge. He is omnipresent: an enfant terrible, who jeers and sulks, offends and sneers - a bad boy with a bad haircut.
You want to avert your gaze but can't: Australia's most embarrassing export is compelling. In the same way a Greek tragedy would be, if the protagonist is a garish young prick.
However, I do have empathy for him. Because, you see, I'm responsible for unleashing on to the world Kyrgios the Terrible, whom I first met when he was a polite 13-year-old training at a Canberra tennis facility.
"Good morning, Mr Bode, I hope you're well."
"You too, Nicky. And please, call me Mark."
"Sure thing, Mr Bode. You know something. I reckon it doesn't matter how successful you are. If you're not respected, it's pointless."
That insightful boy was exterminated when my mad scramble to racquet swat a wasp, in a changing room of the Canberra tennis facility, ended with Kyrgios unconscious on the floor and, I'm certain, irrevocably altered: the charming boy inexplicably begot the slouched, lip-curled advertisement for double protection during sex.
The change was immediate and halting: "My name's not Nicky. It's Nick. Got it, Marky?"
"I wanna be rich and famous so I can tell every nine-to-five loser to get f---ed while I speed past in my Lambo, with a hottie up front and two more in the back."
"Even the lamest Xbox characters are more interesting than youse lot."
Wow. What's happening? I had thought. Am I responsible for this? Did that head blow create a monster?
"You're responsible for this, you careless bastard," said George Kyrgios, again, after his 15-year-old son responded to losing a match by telling the small crowd present that the only thing worse than playing tennis was watching it: "Get a life, losers."
"That's a p ... That's a piss p-poor attitude," said a frail old woman.
"Hilarious. Who invited the comedy relief? Listen lady. I don't c-c-care what you think. I'm the one dating hotties and gonna be famous and worth millions. Yeah, baby!"
"Dickhead."
Mark Bode is an ACM journalist. He uses satire and fiction in commentary.
