Near Enschede, in the east of the Netherlands, is a village called Eibergen. I was born there in Iepenstraat (Elm Street). Elm Street. Do I have your attention? Here we go. The assassination of US President Kennedy happened on Elm Street, and that event is part of a web of remarkable coincidences. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a horror film first released in the United States on 9 November 1984 (11/9) and in the Netherlands on 11 September 1986 (9/11), with 9/11 referring to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, yet another event marked by a remarkable array of coincidences. Here begins a tale riddled with coincidences and a story inside a story.

Eibergen means egg mountains, a possible cryptic reference to fallopian tubes. The initials of my last name, KI, make the Dutch abbreviation for artificial insemination, a way to make a virgin give birth. It is also the Dutch abbreviation for artificial intelligence, and this world is likely AI-generated. The name of the nearby city, Enschede, is found to be referencing the female reproductive organ. And Vagina, you could make of it. The initials of my first and middle names, BH, make the Dutch abbreviation for a bra. The song ‘A Boy Named Sue’ by Johnny Cash is about names of this kind and the strong character they build. But Sue had it easy. His funny name was the only thing he had to deal with.

Until age four, I lived in Eibergen and recall a little of that time. Nothing unusual happened. You might expect more if you know the remainder of this story, but to my knowledge, there were no spectacular omens of any kind. Often, I went out on a tricycle to feed the sheep in the pasture at the end of the street. The clock on television instilled anxiety. If it appeared, I took cover behind the sofa until it was gone. Unlike the clock in the living room of the renowned traditional pendulum type with the well-known ‘Nu Elck Syn Sin’ (Now, let everyone have it their own way) lettering, that one had a second hand, which made it particularly intimidating. Time was ticking. Tic toc tic toc. That was most frightening indeed. I remember my mother being pregnant. She was ironing. My sister Anne Marie was born in 1971. I sang songs for the baby in the baby room while my mother changed nappies.

Our home was on a block of similar houses. Next door lived an elderly lady, probably in her sixties. She came from the former Dutch Indies and had a fish tank in the living room. On the other side was a young family with children like us. They had a daughter of my age and a younger son. I remember playing together with them. They told me that rabbits eat grass. I tried it as well, but not being a rabbit, I didn’t appreciate the taste. And I once electrocuted myself by putting the chain of the stopper of the kitchen sink into a wall outlet. Others later said I had used scissors, but I am sure it was the stopper’s chain, which my mother confirmed. It suggests most of my memories are of good quality.

My father usually went to work around 6 AM and returned around 9 PM. He loved his job. On Saturdays, he went out hunting with his friends. And so, I hardly saw him. At home, he caught up on his sleep on the couch to wake up when sports started on television. So, at age three, I once said to my mother, probably jokingly, ‘Who is that man sleeping on the couch?’ That is what my mother later told me. My father probably took the hint, as he all of a sudden took me out of bed every morning before he went to work and played with me for a few minutes for a few weeks, which I do remember.

At the age of three, I once fell on my teeth on the wooden table in the living room in a most brutal smash. A piece of the wood broke off. My front teeth turned black shortly after, until my permanent teeth came in, making me an ugly duckling for years to come. We also had a bicycle accident. My mother was bicycling, Anne Marie was in the front, I was in the back, and my mother had trouble handling the bags full of groceries on the handlebars. And then the bicycle fell over. In early 1973, we moved to Nijverdal, which means ‘industrious valley’. It suggests we left the mountains for a life in a valley, but the Dutch mountains are imaginary, and the name of a song by my favourite band, The Nits. The music you love may reveal your character. And that might be correct in my case.

I was standing in the valley of rock
Up to my belly in an early fog
I was looking for the road to a green painted house
In the Dutch mountains
In the Dutch mountains
Mountains

I met a woman in the valley of stone
She was painting roses on the walls of her home
And the moon is a coin with the head of the queen
Of the Dutch mountains
Mountains

The Nits, In the Dutch Mountains

Latest revision: 20 April 2026

Featured image: my mother, my younger sister, and I (in the foreground)