Christ, aye.
Your memory is not good.
I know, it is like a mental collapse has occurred. My synapses have collapsed. Death by collapsing synapses. For all I know it’s a recognized industrial disease, brought on by constant nightshift.
We need to get away.
Mayo!
Not Ireland.
I’d love to go to Ireland.
Not me.
I wish we could.
We cant.
What about the Hebrides?
Oh god.
Sorry.
I just wish …
What?
Nothing.
I closed my eyes tightly. There are choices to make and we’ve got to make the right yin. We do, we have to! I slapped my forehead with my right hand, then again. And this time a real fucking sore yin and it made a loud slapping noise. Jesus christ, I said, that was sair!
Dont expire yet.
I gave an exaggerated groan, clutching at my chest: They’re taking my life’s blood, the last breath in me body.
Relax. Come to bed.
I’ll no sleep.
Ye will.
I’ll have to masturbate and I’m too old to masturbate. Honest, I blush when I do it
Ye’re just exhausted, yer last shift of the week.
My last shift period.
Oh so ye have been sacked!
I smiled. I opened the window wider, to let out the tobacco fug. Not to jump, I said, to let in some air. I feel kind of jittery, like I’m defenceless.
I scratched my mouth, wiped round it quite roughly. It is true, I am defenceless. The next time the gaffer looks at me the wrong way I’m liable to burst out greeting. That is the kind of man I am, the kind of guy you’re married to.
I like the guy I’m married to.
Naw but nay kidding ye Cath … I stopped and stared out the window, straining to see farther below, my head angling. My goodness look at that, I said.
What, what are you looking at?
God knows.
Is she attractive?
Not as attractive as you. I faced her now, folding my arms. You thought I was past it?
Past what?
Would ye leave me if I was?
You do get some juvenile ideas.
I shook my head, looked back out the window. Sometimes I just want to lie and stare up at the sky, see if I can spot some stars.
During the day?
Sure, why not? If ye want to look and see ye should be able to … I wiped spittle from the corner of my mouth. I could do with a smoke myself.
Well you’re not getting one, she said.
I dont want one.
That’s all we need, you starting again.
It’s the smell …
Cath smiled. She left her cigarette smouldering in the ashtray and came towards me. I made space for her to see out the window, put my arm round her shoulder. Far below a woman was passing along the pavement and entering our very close. It made us both smile. I find that very positive, I said.
Cath chuckled.
Who is she? I said.
Missis Taylor, she lives one up.
Honestly?
Yeh.
God! I laughed.
She looked at me steadily, unsmiling. I kissed her on the forehead, cupped her chin in my hand, angling my head to kiss her on the lips. She was always so cool, so calm, but I could never have told her that, never.
And she wouldnt have believed me, she didnt believe me, it wasnt true, it was just shite, it was nonsense. I broke from her and she frowned, then smiled. What’s up?
Nothing, I said.
On Becoming a Reader
by rail daily to school, thus my penchant for departing class prior to the schoolday’s rightful conclusion that I might not disintegrate through the unutterable boredom of the subjects under consideration, my being forced to consider these subjects that I might the better advance beyond my fellows on the hierarchical ladder that was the greatbritishsocialsystem, the place of my parents and family not deemed of the lower orders but affixed therein through no fault of our own how-somever the school subjects under consideration purported to bring about the opportunity of escape, nor yet the fault of my parents whose apparent acceptance of this greatbritishsocialsystem ceded to myself a marked nauseousness largely indescribable but by authors whose ability to transcend that same indescribability by virtue of the act of storytelling exhibited not only the sad limits of an inferior art but an open-armed adherence to that system, inducing within myself a consolidation of purpose, effected by that same nauseousness, the predictable outcome of right reasoning, my unconscionable assumption of the dubiety of all adult authority, my consequent contempt being ill-concealed, barely disguised, leaving withdrawal from that society my only duty, the last straw being the charred remains of a book I had purchased, found in the fireplace, having been adjudged licentious by my mother and set in flames, though the book were purchased on my own account by means of a monetary gift from a grandmother, that was mine and mine alone to do as wish should take me, so that now, approaching a birthdate of more than passing interest its being the age by which a youth may decree that the departure of the education system is the one route by which the guarantee of sanity may be
as if from nowhere
I reached for the notepad from the back end of the cabinet. Nurse Liddell and colleague had entered the ward. The cabinet was by the side of the bed. I only had to reach, it was very convenient. Of course it was convenient for god sake I was hospitalized, a patient. Awaiting the results of further tests! Oh the drama, the drama!
Yes. One eschewed negativity. To hell with negativity. This is what one uttered, within the sanctity of one’s own brain.
Still and all, still and all. The truth. Yes the truth; breathe in and breathe out: the truth is I knew it was not good, I was not good. Otherwise, otherwise I would not have been there, not like this.
Something less than good.
Good!
What other terms do we have? Pleasant. Nice. Joyous. Smashing. What else? I could not think of many more. Unlike bad. Evil, crappy, unpleasant, shit, horrible, terrible, malevolent, worsening, maleficent, malodorous, pestilent, horrendous. Hell’s bells, a million of them. Thus the human condition. But truly, my condition was not great, otherwise
oh man, man man, man man man
I opened my eyes. I had to. It is good to open the eyes; one’s eyes; mine; my fucking eyes.
I reached again for the notepad, to hell with it man, one reaches for it, grasps. Impaired memory. The lapse into melancholia was to be guarded against and one did. One guarded against it. One exercised oneself, one’s faculties. Yet reaching for the notepad happened prior to the thought itself. A surely remarkable phenomenon. Ergo
Now aware of the intestines. Interrupting the thought, the last thought. Aware of my intestines.
In what respect aware: simply aware, that is all. But overwhelmingly so.
What about them? Clogged tubes. Clogged tubes.
The chart hung on the rail at the foot of the bed. If only I could read it. Telescopes: patients are not supplied with them thus one cannot read from a distance. But for something horrendous why not inform the patient? Patients too are people.
I used a notebook to monitor the situation, noting symptoms, physical changes, thoughts, feelings. Anything at all. Wee doodles and drawings. Any damn thing I pleased. It was my damn notepad and my damn situation; my physicality. Drawings. Any damn thing.
I wanted to draw a face. Why not. Yes. In summation of my plight I would draw a face.
I knew a face. A face. I knew a face. Where was the pencil? My thought of the moment as pictorial representation: set it down set it down set it down. Urgency urgency fucking pencil the nurse had removed the damn thing as per fucking usual stop swearing.