365 Ways With Words

A Cold

I have one. It's not a massive stonker, but it's the first I've succumbed to since leaving Hong Kong. For months I smugly congratulated myself on having been without sniffles, shakes, coughs and sneezes for so long, and I attributed what was perhaps the longest interval in my life between rhinoviral invasions down to two things: lots of garlic and good beer. Thus, I have reasoned that to have caught this particular cold can only be because one thing alone – I now work in a school again.

Schools are notorious repositories of nasty bugs. It's not that children are unclean, or that these places are unhygienic in themselves, rather that contagions thrive in an atmosphere endemic to the sort of place where young bodies' internal defences are immature. It's just easier for kids to get ill. And then they pass it on. Never mind doctors; teachers are front-line troops!

No one loves a cold. It's not that it kills you, but the wearying 5-days coming, 5-days staying and 5-days leaving means there's oh so much misery to go round, no matter how plump the pillows, how hot the lemon tea and how much head-rest is obtained. Food loses some of its flavour, energy disappears and life is conducted never very far from a tissue box.

 

Man colds are obviously worse than the other sort. There's no getting away from the fact that one gender suffers worse than the other, but statistical evidence actually points to women calling in sick twice as much as their male counterparts on account of flu. Of course, quoting that old survey to a sick female partner/wife/girlfriend is to court severe disapprobation, not to say a full blast of disease-laden venom.

So tonight I will try to rebalance the chakras with a dog walk to the pub and a pint or two of a local anti-cold recipe concoction (read 10°Staropramen). I will no doubt spread my mutated virus through the very air I exhale and infect some innocent soul out from the office or home for a few hours. Poor bugger!

The Shadow

There was a definite shadow. No mistake. Quite large, really. He stared in disbelief, but there it was. And although the pleasant young doctor was talking in mindful and calming words about just how much medicine had advanced over the past few years, he could not quite listen. A habit of politeness made him nod and say “uh-huh” every now and again, but if he had been quizzed about any of it he would not have been able to repeat a single word.

The bus journey home was equally vapid  – he would have stayed on for the entire journey had another passenger not brushed past him when exiting at the bus stop after his own. He trudged back, completely unaware of the passing half kilometre distance. It was only at his door that he had to snap out of his reverie – he couldn’t find his key. Actually, that was not strictly true; he just could not remember which pocket he had put it in.

The phone rang. It was his brother checking about the next weekend’s upcoming party. Amidst the usual chitchat about work at the office, the nieces and nephews, the car in repair, their mum’s house repairs and plans for a summer holiday, there arose a distinct and almost violent necessity to vomit. So with a, “Gotta go. Sorry” he rushed to the kitchen sink and filled it with the retched contents of his stomach, which didn’t amount to much because of the hours that had elapsed between his breakfast tea and now. Sweating with effort, he grabbed the kitchen stool and sat himself down, hands over either side of the sink, and hung his head down until it touched his knees.

So this was it. The end. The Shadow of Death was approaching and there was nothing he could do about it. He leaned over the sink again for two more fruitless heaves, then resumed the position. This was not how he wanted it to end.

Throughout his life he had occasionally considered death, as do all living and thinking things. Was it final, or would there be some sort of heaven? Would the method of his departure involve memorable heroics and posthumous glory, or some miserable descent into a world of pain and ultimate oblivion? Well, at least the latter of those scenarios was now abundantly clear. He would certainly die in a cloud of opiate-mitigated agony. It would be a final moment of the deepest and darkest profound inconsequence. And prematurely, as far as he was concerned, for he still had so very much to do – what a soul-crushing pity…

His mind brought up his parents’ deaths, in hospital beds surrounded by the nearest and dearest, although with his father there had been fewer present partly because of the timing of his departure – 5:16 am. Well, he cheerlessly reasoned, at least that wouldn’t happen to him because of his single status and having no darling progeny to hold the expected bedside vigil. No, his last moments would most likely be seen out alone.

He went to bed, full to overflowing with self-pity and pain. Within the forgiving embrace of familiar mattress and duvet, the remnant of his time on planet earth appeared to be evaporating – as so much empty breath. Like the kettle that was whistling downstairs. That was strange: he did not recall putting it on. Yes, there was the high-pitched steamy whistle. And it descended quickly, as if the gas was turned off.

He went down the stairs with as much stealth as he could and hesitantly peered around the corner. Beside the kitchen window, putting the kettle back onto the stove top, was the shadow of a man. Only it suddenly occurred to him that this man was dressed exactly like him – down to the socks! He abruptly stopped stirring his mug of tea, teaspoon in hand, and turned around: he not only dressed like him, but also looked exactly like him; a mirror image – a doppelganger!

“Who the hell are you?” he called out, still peering around the door frame.

“Oh, hi! There you are.” came the response in the same voice as his own, only calmer.

“What do you mean by, Oh, hi? I asked you who you are. And what are you doing in my house?”

“Hey, just chill out, will you?” said the doppelganger, who returned to stirring his tea, then tapped the rim before placing the spoon onto the draining board, just as was his custom. “And it’s more who the hell were you, not are you, by the way. 'Cos I’m you! Or was. It's a little confusing.”

“I’m calling the police!” he shouted, turning to find the remote charging in the hallway.

“Sorry, mate, but you haven’t got time. Not if you want to find out who I am.”

He stopped and returned a glance at his twin standing in the kitchen doorway taking his first sip. He smiled, “Ooh, lovely! You were right.”

“What?” He stood hands on hips. What on God’s good earth was happening to him? This was truly the day from Hell. First the diagnosis with six-months to one-year at best, if the doctor’s words could be remembered at all, and then this… interloper!

“You, that is I said, and correct me if I’m wrong, that shagging Phyllis Cornwallis was a waste of time and that you’d have rather had a nice cup of tea.”

Stupefied, he could only respond with the same, “What?”

“Well, here I am. I’m having that cup of tea!” He took another slurp. “And, despite the rather dubious reasons for saying it in the first place, I think you might be right. This really is a nice cup of tea.”

“And how do you know about Phyllis Cornwallis?”

“I’m you, remember?”

He stood confused and not a little angry. There was this stranger taking tea and passing the time of day about a bad date with an old girlfriend – how did he know about that?

The strange him smiled his rather patronising grin, the sort he used when disclosing vital information that only he knew, yet was vital for the other person to hear. He saw it and found it excruciating – as excruciating as everyone else who’d had to suffer it over the years. “Look, it’s quite straightforward really. The following day you, that is I, said to Eric that you’d –I’d– rather have had a nice cup of tea than shag Phyllis: that it had been a complete waste of time. So, you’ve, I mean I’ve, now got the opportunity. Cheers!”

So saying, he tilted his mug, his favourite mug, in his direction and took a slurp.

“Mmm… smashing! Can’t quite beat a nice cup of tea. I wonder whatever happened to Phyllis.”

“Phyllis? I don’t know. Wait…” He sat down at the bottom of the stairs. “You mean, you are me?”

“Got it!” He gave that same self-satisfied smirk. “And I must say, really, I’m so sorry about the news – you know, about this morning. Must be a bummer. But without it, I’m not here and your wasted time was… well, wasted!”

At that, he stood up smart. Frowning, he was going to demand answers, but was pre-empted.

“Calm down. It’s quite simple. You see, for every moment you/I said it was wasted, the time has been given again. Or rather, whatever you said you’d prefer to do has been enabled. Don’t ask me how; it just is – that’s all I know. And from memory, there are quite a lot of regrets that will be putting in an appearance. I’ll certainly be popping by from time to time: you wasted a lot of time by saying the ‘Rather have a cup of tea’ one regularly.”

“I did?”

“And remember that dalliance in New York with what’s-her-name?”

“Carmel?”

“Yes, that was it – and she left on the first night? Well, that regret is being chased up quite soon. I think ‘I’d have rather had a rusty harpoon inserted up my anus!’ was perhaps over-exaggerating the whole impact thing of that admittedly disastrous weekend, don’t you think? I mean; you hardly knew the girl.”

He stared blankly back at his cocky mirror image. “So, you mean I can have those times, those regrets again?”

He took a good gulp and stood there nursing the remnants of the tea.

“Well, yes. Kind-of. Only, of course, it won’t exactly be you enjoying all those wasted moments – I suppose that would be unfair. So, from time to time a You, or more exactly an I, will appear and all those things you regretted will be accounted for. You do understand this, don’t you – you are, after all, a chartered accountant.”

And with that, the mug was drained, taken to the sink, rinsed under the hot tap and placed on the draining board next to the spoon.

“Cheerio, then.” He impishly smiled. Vanishing, like mist on the wind, he just had enough time to say, “Thanks for the tea. Oh, and by the way, after the news this morning, any more regrets are invalidated. So you can’t just go around regretting your whole life or some such.”

The Woman

She walks funny; that is, the teenagers laugh. Her maroon polyester trousers are nearly at half-mast, flapping as she steps gingerly forward across the cobbled street. Her gait is an awkward half-shamble; part-nervous lack of control, part musculoskeletal. Or maybe it’s the old, odd black formal shoes, firmly polished? One arm is out, near straight – it swings with each pair of steps: there’s a certain pride.

For she is clean and cleanly dressed, her purple-tinged grey hair brushed, if comically unstyled. And she nearly always carries a bag, probably to shop if she can find a bargain, more likely for habit, and to hold a purse. In heat, rain or freeze, she slips on a shabby jacket.

To coincide with the inner monologue, her eyebrows rise and fall involuntarily and her face occasionally convulses into a twitch. With these she focuses; they keep her from the gutter and the park. She is not always with us, you understand.

It may begin with a satisfying late afternoon beer in Ponorka – the smoky spit-and-sawdust hostelry that is a byword for camaraderie across tabletops, between income gaps and lifestyle choices. Her one, consumed in meditation, might bud into two, or even three, depending on the number of brown coins that sit between the ID and shopping coupons. Then, when her tongue is untied and nerves are satisfactorily soothed, when friendly talk breaks a laugh, the converse may naturally step outside and string along the street.

There, under Neptune’s fountain, beneath the baroque orange spires of St Mary of the Snow in Republic Square, opposite the imposing public library and the convent building that became the Museum of History, she will find the rest faithfully sitting in order to acquire their spiritual inspiration. She will sit down between them, legs always crossed, and take her contented time with wine. Through the lovely night hours they will look out for each other: if one is without, the other will supply, if one is in trouble with the law, the rest will increase their obduracy, if one has pissed their pants, the others will not get up from the mire to shame. For this is the world of the worn – where the dictates of the dull-sensed and the pedagogy of the pissed are effectively espoused. What need for clarity? What demand for riches and possessions? It is the honest wisdom of the sated.

And there, sometimes, she’ll be; her vision free from focus, away from eyes of family shame, her voice joined by the slurring, away from the coarse and angry demands of kith and kin. When moved on to the park benches beneath the trees, the funny walk will come back, the exaggerated movements, the stagger, the collecting of blurred convulses to meet the next few steps. But her bag remains on her outstretched arm, her jacket still drapes her brittle thin body. She tries to be a good girl - she really does.

Negativity

                            I walk in the shadows

                            I watch you go

 

                            I live with the weeds,

                                On damp discomfort

                                    Blessed by a stock of darkness

 

                            My eyes in nearness

                                Are your constant accompaniment

                                    Driven by the necessity to overcome

                                        To overwhelm

                                        To subdue

                                        To drown

 

                            I sink the soul

                                Divide the heart

                                    Cloud the mind

                                        Smother the spirit

 

                            I am here always, behind the door;

                                It takes a second

                                    To plough through defences

                                        Carve up your shields

 

                            You are defenceless –

                                You are a determined solitary;

                                        I am power beyond your skill

                                You bring out the sun;

                                        I send the snow filled cloud

                                You spend your way to a smile;

                                        I sing out the price tags to the whole world

                                You nestle in comforting arms;

                                        I pronounce dishonesty at the highest levels

 

In the festering pit –in the mask of command–

I love the nuance of derision

Without lift I sit breathless for the fall

For there’s always a fall

Depression is my middle name

Come on, let go;

My emptiness is so filling

 

                            Sounded, I drop the charge, and scoot –

                                But not far, not ever, no-no

                                    For as there are gentle rains, there are swollen rivers

                                        As there is a little heat, there is raging bushfire

 

                            Detach as much as you like

                                Flee and take cover again and again

                                    But I’ll be a-nippin’ at your heels

                                        Nip-nip, nip-nip, nip-nip – bite!

                                            And down you'll go

 

                            From the shadows…

                            Watching…

Suddenly Filled With Cement

It was the same yesterday – a thick nebula of opaque suffocation, a darkness beyond the panic of drowning, a flat-line dumping of experience un-piqued by the usual high-voltage shocks of an exciting daily life. Opening the curtains, the sun was about to cross the mountainous horizon, breaking through the light mist of cloying clouds that nightly settle over Hong Kong. He saw the beauty, but it did nothing to raise spirits, to lift the mind, to arouse excitement. All he wanted to do today, like yesterday, was have his mind taken up with something that would mean escape from the intense heaviness of the overwhelming feelings that occupied existence from hour-to-hour.

But the children needed to go to school, there were breakfasts to make and homework to be packed before the bus – who else would do it? The shower was hot. Each rivulet ran down to the plug encouraging the shedding of grease and skin, of sweats of 3 a.m. when eyes wide open he had dived through the silence again. Getting up to check mail, watch TV or just sit reminded him how futile everything was: if he fell, to ease the way beyond, to remove the rock-hard heavy heart, would anyone really care?

Through the day he tried to present the right angle to left and right: "Morning! About that meeting... Call me. What do you think? No, you go to lunch; I'm fine. What are you doing for Christmas? Yes, I know we need to do it. See you tomorrow." With each exchange someone inside, something greater than him, scrunched up his heart into a paper ball ready to be kicked into the bin and left his head stuffed full of nothing. Thinking about what happens next was the greatest, Herculean challenge. He was useless in meetings and merely agreed to whatever was being said.

It had been like this for about a year, as if he was 'suddenly filled with cement'. Movement beyond breathing was tired. Walking, exercising, cycling, swimming and even sitting still was too much. He'd involuntarily given up. He even tried not breathing to see if the body would also give up on that too. Each time his chest refilled he had mixed feelings – perhaps death would have been a welcome release, but perhaps also the end was not downward to the yawning dark chasm of oblivion. Nonetheless, forever hidden behind the never-ending fog sat the light on the peaks. He knew it was there, because he remembered it. All the same, the way there was hidden in a deserted emptiness, let alone signposted.

Days off work cropped up now and again, but the hours sat alone only increased the melancholia. They made it chronic, beyond leaden where an ounce more would have him crashing through the floor, down into the earth, passing right through to the other side of the world. He passed his indolent solitary days in patience, with cards or with the stupid Microsoft version that took up hour after hour after hour. Resolutions to quit came and went, and with each failed deadline another fibre of his spine pinged until the jelly of impotent existence submerged mind, body and soul. Yet he sighed when the kids came home, their cheerful little faces appearing round the door, animated like the cartoons about to blare from Nickelodeon. Epic spousal support helped through the narrowest, darkest times. The ever-pouring love, however, made him ashamed. Why wasn't it enough? Sex was nice, when it could be achieved, eating until beyond-sated dulled the thickness of thoughtless thoughts, even alcohol, beautiful mind-numbing alcohol, transported towards the open sea of calm, but all of these weren't lasting solutions.

Finally, he obtained Prozac. It took a while to dig in, causing further weight gain in the process. It may have enabled a clearer head but also animated the desire for an end. It had to be stopped. St John's Wort helped a little, though it also caused intense reaction to sunlight. Reading Climbing Out of Depression worked, a tiny little book within which the most significant advice was that each day one thing should be attempted. Gradually, after weeks of daily accomplishments of one thing, an arsenal of one thing achievements lay like a buoyant raft beneath his feet, daily lifting. But to where – normalcy? What was that?

For him it was all about feelings. Keeping the spirits up took courage in itself. Sudden crashes of the most simple sort would deflate that raft – missing the bus, not remembering to do something, over-remembering mistakes. It would take days to re-float and move on. Even this stop-start existnace, however, was better than the terrible anchoring to the deep sea bed of before.

Did he see it as it a cure? Was it gone forever? No. It remained a shadow that shortened and lengthened across the landscape according to factors beyond control. Churchill's black dog would insolently creep out of the shadows ever-seeking to nudge him towards the edge of the platform. In the end, he would have to live with it resting on the street between the cars, sitting with the church's gargoyles, staring out from the forest edge, all the time watching him and waiting. Keeping it at bay would involve elaborate scams, motivational distractions, daily walks and lots and lots of friendly help.

 

The Last Resolution

I resolve to make this my last resolution. I resolve to not take up anything I will later want to put down and resolve to continue with whatever is currently going on. This I resolve to do for this is my final year. Yes, I resolve this will be my last resolution.

Last year's resolutions were a sham. I resolved, perhaps for the 45th time, to give up smoking. But smoking is something I really enjoy – the play of the lighter, the opening of a new packet, the feel of one smoking away in your fingers.  The whole tobacco thing had me hooked at 15, or was it 13, and I don't intend to stop what is a very peaceful and calming activity. I harm none by it (a considerate smoker) and can go for nearly a day without lighting up – well, almost. But December last year, the insurance on the car went up again. I calculated that at 40 pence or so per cigarette and an average of 20 each day I would save about £3000 each year – way over the price of the hiked-up insurance which, as an added bonus, would then be reduced. Then I thought of the pleasure of smog-free lungs and of vigorous exercise, hiking across the downs courtesy of my nice, smokeless car. And as I thought about it I found myself lighting up to enjoy that very thought and I knew I was a gonner. I knew I'd have to continue paying for my pleasures. January 1st was, therefore, not a day locked in a titanic struggle against the demon weed, but was instead a nice relaxing sunny day spent at home recovering from a great night out with the additional help of nicotine. After all, hangovers would be perhaps the worst occasions to quit smoking.

The other resolutions were equally ineffective – yoga, reading more, taking up painting and trying to leave work earlier. Actually, the last one was a bit of a surprise, but obviously not in the way I had anticiated. Who could have forseen the following twelve months? I suppose leaving work would have enabled me to take up the yoga and to read all those unfinished books and to start painting again, but it's a strange thing that with all the time available none of those have happened.

My last year. Wouldn't have believed it on January 1st, that's for sure. The Grünfelder project was only just in its infancy and there were so many things to complete from the previous scheme. So when I entered Mike's office on March 22nd with the news that I was scaling back my input, he was dumbfounded. We both were. I'd never seen him cry before. Silly old duffer. Got me going too.

In a way, I expected it to go on forever. Maybe we all do. Not that I had any delusions of immortality, but I really didn't expect it quite so soon. Death is so drearily emphatic. There is a full-stop to the book; a last page without a joyous and miraculous post-script. I suppose I hadn't given it any more thought than pension payments.

That's another funny thing. Now I have a pension in full, and life insurance and mortgage paid up, I would really rather have the drudgery of payments and a question mark over retirement age than have all of that money and be so near the end.

So, Mike has allowed me to continue adding drawings and attend meetings. Quite frankly, I haven't noticed much of a difference as far as my capacity is concerned, but the sideways glances and the sympathetic handshakes have added an emotional strain. I could do have done without it. By emphasising my condition they have unecessarily distracted themselves from tasks at hand. I really can't stand it. One day after loosing my hair I came back into the studio, to which Shirley gave out a particularly heavy sigh. I'm afraid I lost my temper. It made me shout, "On-on!" rather defiantly. I definitely couldn't stand another 12 months of that.

My resolution for this upcoming year, then, is to enjoy what is left and do no more. I will not add or subtract, deviate or dally. I want to go right through to the end without any tacky and desperate grasps at straws. I am neither going to take up saintliness and moderation or self-pity and anger. אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה – I am who I am, and in that I am resolute!

Richard Peters is Unwell

Gastroenteritis has struck again – all night long and into the day.

Bane of my life: more feverish shakes than Scooby-Doo before the chase, so cold that teeth are chattering uncontrollably like a jibbering idiot, more wind and rain than a Hong Kong typhoon.

Nothing for it but to sit it out in misery, or until the Memsahib fetches the revolver.

In the words of Bluebottle, "Farewell cruel world! Sinks slowly into underpants."