The smell of food.
I was to receive food and the sense of it was to the fore. What might it be? No matter, I would savour it. I always did. My wife derided me for that. My sons didnt. It was a gender issue. And I hailed from a large family. Members of large families savour food. They fight for food. They die, die for food
however
No however, howevers. The food would come to me and the auxiliary staff person would not see me while serving.
A tired woman. I could draw her, her face. She concentrated on the work. I would have communicated with this woman. I would encourage her smile. I would remark in an amusing manner as to the nature of the world, a Stoical perspective assumed, and she would respond to that.
Nor need communication imply a new relationship. Tomorrow she could resume her normal working practices in silence, her blinkers donned, oblivious to one’s maleness; not any maleness, simply that of the patient, one’s humanity.
I would so advise her. Do not nullify our existence. Nor is there a need to worry; and certainly not about me. Who has the energy for such nonsense? let alone hospitalized parties the likes of myself. Even prior to the present situation, and location, I was not the man to overstep the mark, certainly not.
I would prefer being elsewhere. No harm in such a confession.
The list of dietary details. Nought special for me. I ate anything, red butchermeat a delight. Even salad. Ho hum. I studied the leaves and other food. Oh well. But when I lifted my fork I found that I could not eat. I pushed a forkful of cold meat and lettuce to my mouth, into my mouth, but could not nibble.
There was no space in my stomach. Where could I put the food? If I swallowed what would happen? Would the meat and lettuce settle in my throat. Perhaps if I masticated thoroughly the food might squeeze its way down. But my goodness it surely was a nonsense. Was I expected to cope. How could I.
A fellow patient could no longer swallow. The food settled between his cheeks and gums and was a concern for the medical staff should a particle have entered the lungs, pneumonia? something like that. I watched for signs myself. But I was nowhere near that stage.
My stomach should have had space aplenty for food. In recent days I had eaten less than normal. So why should it now be full? I reached for the notepad. Any phenomena, any at all.
Nurse Liddell materialized. I prepared to smile but she did not glance in my direction. She returned to the bed nearest the window, old Mister Somebody — McGuire.
The nurses called me him, but they called Mister McGuire old Mister McGuire.
Old Mister McGuire. How could one but pity the man. He was always asleep. Or unconscious. The staff spoke about old Mister McGuire within earshot of other patients.
Beyond earshot what did they call me? Him. But apart from him. The good-looking older guy!
Has the good-looking older guy been given his bedbath this morning?
Bedbath. A fantasy for many. Joe Smith always referred to bedbaths in his wee chats. But he was wrong: such events take place free of erections. The nurses, in full professionalism, merely brush the insistent manifestation to one side, get thee beside thee, and dight one’s thighs in a formal manner.
Poor Joe. Unless he had gone home. People did go home, and as full human beings, resuming their personhood. Each time a bed became empty I presumed the death of the patient. It was nonsense!
Joe would be missed. But even he failed to engage old Mister McGuire in conversation. Nobody managed that. Not even his middle-aged daughters who appeared most days. They did. That old man was the most regularly visited party in the entire ward. He must have been a great old fellow. Otherwise why would they all come to see him?
Because he was about to drop dead. And he was rich, and they all had an eye on the loot.
Whereas me.
Who the hell came for me! My sons were in England. And people forget. They do. I pretended indifference to my wife, if the subject arose. What did it matter if one’s visitors, one’s visitors
Few, very few; few, fewer and fewest, in completion of the sentence, which is life itself, life itself is the sentence
And I needed to piss to piss. But I couldnt. The need was not serious. The entire piss was psychological. It was one for the doctors’ rounds.
How are you today mister errrrrr?
Oh I had a psychological piss you fucking nincompoop.
Nurse Liddell would smile. I too. Unless I frowned. I had no mirror. I wanted no mirror.
The idea of seeing oneself!
The philosophers were wrong.
If I smiled it was self-consciously done. Otherwise impossible. A horse laugh could have worked.
Another nurse was there now, alongside Nurse Liddell. Who was she? Merciful heavens. I had never seen her before. A thin skull, high cheekbones, lightly the nose, lower lip; hair — and so reminiscent, reminiscent, she was, my god, I knew this woman
and tense right shoulder tense right shoulder, I could see it from here, the line of her neck, the line of her tits; her hand rested on the patient, near to my neck. ’Twas the same, the same.
But the eyes of this nurse! Her eyes could not be drawn. Her eyes were so full of the life the life. In the most remarkable of remarkable ways, so full of life, vigorous and beautiful, moving to the other side of my bed, one wanted to kiss her, just embrace, an embrace, who was this woman
and beyond there the old fellow, Mister — who was it? — somebody, Mister Somebody, dead to the world, shot full of dope, fucking dope
The sigh was allowed. I had sighed. I sighed. Okay. Settling back on the pillow now, where the pencil, and notepad, the pencil and notepad. Close to the edge oh so close. Thank god she was not attending me, it was not a time for strange nurses.
Here lieth I, sometime known as Old I, for whisper it: this indeed is I. In sore need of a breath, perhaps so, if not breathing hardly, hardly
at all, thus might one sleep, have gone in sleep so far, so far, that the pulse, the old pulse, as when the tiredness hits, and the way such tiredness also affects, has affected, effected, so strange, how it happens, occasionally also when my wife is there, sitting by me, as if from nowhere, the plumped pillows.
Bangs & a Full Moon
A fine Full Moon from the third storey through the red reflection from the city lights: this was the view. I gazed at it, lying outstretched on the bed-settee. I was thinking arrogant thoughts of that, Full Moons, and all those awful fucking writers who present nice images in the presupposition of universal fellowship under the western Stars when all of a sudden: BANG, an object hurtling out through the window facing mine across the street.
The windows on this side had been in total blackness; the building was soon to be demolished and formally uninhabited.
BANG. An object hurtled through another window. No lights came on. Nothing could be seen. Nobody was heard. Down below the street was deserted; broken glass glinted. I returned to the bed-settee and when I had rolled the smoke, found I already had one smouldering in the ashtray. I got back up again and closed the curtains. I was writing in pen & ink so not to waken the kids and wife with the banging of this machine I am now using.
A Sour Mystery
The security entrance buzzer sounded. It was somebody who used to be a friend, a firm friend; what they call an ‘intimate’ friend. Obviously I invited her in. Otherwise things would have gone from bad to worse. She was there to give me her troubles. Why else would she come! It was funny, but not amusing; funny peculiar. Her troubles had nothing to do with me. I was no brother-confessor, if that was what she wanted. I was not in that category. The category included ‘objective bystander’. It was annoying she could think such a thing.