Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Maybe it will lead to something. A knock on the head has led to all kinds of things in the past, most notably temporary amnesia in the soap operas Francina watches, where I’m guessing Ridge Forrester (R.I.P.) comes from. That could be the beginning of something. I open my Moleskine, crack the spine and pick up a pen. Man passes out in shower and when he wakes up, he doesn’t know who or where he is. It could be interesting. Innumerable plots jostle in my head, the various confused, amnesiac protagonists elbowing each other and shouting to be heard. And then as soon as hope flickers, it is snuffed out. Amnesia is the lamest idea ever, by far the least original, hence its popularity in American soap operas where they can’t have the CEO of the major fashion corporation die again… unless you write it in a brilliantly innovative way, which has itself been done. Damn that genius Aranofsky. It’s not often that I question my talent but today I feel I should be doing the coffee run for the writers of Days of our Lives.
I sigh and twirl my pen. Francina brings in a bottle of Italian mineral water and a sandwich on a side plate, then goes back for a paper serviette.
She must be feeling sorry for me – she is never usually this kind. It’s ham and tomato on rye, with enough Dijon mustard to singe your sinuses. She must have done the grocery shopping. The cool heat travels up my nose and spikes my eyeballs. It feels good. Perhaps she thought I really was going to die. I suppose that’s enough to make anyone feel generous for a day. Death definitely has a way of kicking you in the arse, forcing you to live.
If you survive it.
I spend the rest of the afternoon smashing my already-wounded head against the wall. I try free-association, reading the paper, reciting poetry, brainstorming, masturbating, listening to Lady Gaga, flipping a coin. It doesn’t help. Poet Friedrich von Schiller had a habit of keeping nasty apples in his writing desk and sniffing them before starting his work. Auden preferred tea; Coleridge, opium. Kipling fantasized about having his own Indian ‘ink-boy’ to grind him fresh ink every day. I, on the other hand, would be happy with a burnt stick and a cave wall, as long as the words came. Writing has never been this hard.
I skydived once. I’ve been scared of heights ever since. It started well with a lovely lady-instructor, who went on to give me ‘extra lessons’ in my chalet the night before the jump. I was pretty blasé about it (the jump, I mean, not the sex. I was rather enthusiastic about the sex) and it sounds dull-witted, but it didn’t actually occur to me that I would end up so very high in the sky. When the realisation struck and I decided that I couldn’t possibly go through with it, I turned around to my lady-friend and told her. Either she didn’t hear what I said, or she thought I was joking. She threw her head back, laughed, and pushed me out of the plane. In an instant I forgot everything she’d taught me, extramurally or otherwise, as I was caught up in sheer bowel-dissolving panic. I was so shocked by what was happening I didn’t even have time to indulge in the whole life-flashing-before-my-eyes phenomenon, which I think I would have rather enjoyed. Luckily for me I was on a static line, so the cord I forgot to pull didn’t kill me. My parachute lines were tangled, so I screamed and rocked from side to side which somehow loosened them. It seemed that Jesus (Bless You) was on my side and I remember a few moments of utter exhilaration as I took in everything around me: the topographical map beneath, the overwhelming amount of sky and, most of all, the silence. I have never since heard that startlingly clear complete absence of sound. I remember saying my name out loud as a way to assert my – meagre – existence. I was definitely having a moment. It was thrilling to the toes. I wondered why I had never done this before and swore it would be my new hobby. Which was when I saw the power lines. By then it was too late to do anything about it, even if I had remembered how to adjust my toggles to land.
I know it sounds like I knock myself out a lot but I don’t, not really. I mean it’s not a thing I’m known for. At a cocktail party you wouldn’t introduce me as the accident-prone guy, or the bandaged/broken/concussion guy. I’m not the guy in slapsticks who falls into manholes and skis into trees. I don’t even have a lot of scars. One fine line on my cheek from a scratch when I was a child. A small button on my back from the tomato-crate-stake. A silver gash on one of my fingers, hardly noticeable. Oh, and I don’t have all of my teeth, not the original ones anyway. I can’t tell the porcelain veneers from the real ones anymore. I’ve been bashed up a bit, that’s true, but I’m just not that guy, despite all previous evidence presented to the contrary.
But I did have a concussion when I woke up in hospital the next day. Fractured ribs, smashed scapula and a collarbone broken in three places. A sprained ankle that took the longest time to heal. That’s how I met Eve. She came to me like an angel in the night: a beddable Florence Nightingale. Sifiso had sent her with the latest artwork for a book cover that needed ‘urgent’ approval. How urgent can something possibly be? I had just looked Death in the eyes for God’s sake.
Despite being exceptionally cheerful on all the morphine they were pumping into me, I disliked the artwork and told her so. As I was trying to check her out through the dark clouds of pain, the conversation went a little like this:
(SFX: convincing hospital equipment bleeping in the background, squeaking rubber soles of nurses on linoleum, et cetera.)
Eve (looking hot): “So this is where we are at the moment. Obviously it’s still quite rough, a work in progress which needs crafting, but Sifiso wanted to make sure you bought into the concept before we refine it any further.”
(Shuffling of papers and then: awkward pause.)
Me: “What? Is that it?”
(Everyone in the room pauses to look over at us.)
Eve: “Yes.”
(Everyone in the hospital stops what they are doing to hear what comes next.)
Me: “Two months of work and I get this?”
Eve: silence. (Still looking hot. Red cheeks. Blushing. She must like me. I must show off.)
Me: “It’s dogshit. I hate it.” (Actually it wasn’t that bad.)
Eve: “Oh… Okay. Maybe if you could you be more precise with…”
Me: “Precise? Sure. I wouldn’t use it to wipe my arse. I think the artist should be stripped.”
Yep, I’m that powerful.
Did I just say stripped?
Me: “Whipped, I mean. Whipped.”
I make vague cuckoo gestures at my head to communicate the large amount of drugs circulating in my battered brain.
Eve crosses her arms. I am hooked.
Eve: “What I meant was, could you be more precise about what you don’t like about it?”
The black clouds are getting thicker. I am riding on pink-purple pain-laced delirium.
Me: “The writing is post-modern, for God’s sake. Avant-garde! It needs more chaos! More shaking up! Tell Sifiso I never want to use this piss-ant artist again. He has the talent of an… an… aardvark; and he clearly hasn’t read my book.”
I hammed it up a bit because Eve was particularly attractive and I thought she might end up thinking I was more important than I really was. Also, I was very high.