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February 24 Cake... A kid comes into the hospital with a swollen elbow. Suddenly, he collapses to the floor, thrashing uncontrollably, and in a few seconds is unconscious. There seems to be no reason for it. He's fit, he's healthy, and now its all going wrong...
It's ok though - there's a doctor available. An offbeat, irascible, bloody-minded maverick who has just been dumped by his wife (who ran off with her eyebrow shaper.) He takes one look at the boy and, pushing aside all the medical equipment and staff, looks into his ear and nods.
'It's quite clear.' he says. 'He is suffering from a rare form of poisoning caused by these earrings - made in some unnamed foreign state and coated with mercury! I knew because of the swollen elbow. Dizziness caused by the poisoning caused him to fall in a particular way, causing a y-shaped bruise and swelling.'
What a guy.
Well. So goes the world of t.v. medicine which I've been watching on continuous dvd loop today, seemingly unfit for anything else. In the real world however, things never go so smoothly or so well. There is no doctor for certain things. There is no cure. There is only the sticking plaster of booze, cigarettes or perhaps a little sniff of 'something-to-make-you-happy.' But what to do when none of it is any good? Or it makes no difference, or you promised not to?
'You're quiet today'
'Yeah. Sorry'
'Why is that? Are you ok?'
'Yeah. Yes. I'm fine. Thank you.'
'Want a cream cake?'
'Sure. Why not. I've only had three after all. I figure they'll kick in soon and then everything will be ok.'
'You make me laugh.'
'Really? Wow'
It's Saturday and I'm here, missing the rugby, in this nice wooden hall taking bread and wine from someone who doesn't know that God and I are not actually speaking.
I've quite enjoyed the bit before this - the verbal sparring, the questing and debating that's gone on. Dry intellectual argy-bargy I can do. Walking the plank of whats and maybes because it doesn't really matter anymore. There's something strangely freeing about walking the plank naked, over a sea of noise with the sting of salt battering your tender and dangling bits, while the flying fish of buggeroff make snapping leaps at the same.
However, when everyone moves into the hall for contemplation, and meditative silence and you're outside in the lobby having volunteered to wait out there for a late comer -
'That's so good of you.'
'What a noble person.'
'Thank you for giving up your place in here to wait for Ethelread and her battalion of Yorkshire terriers.' and so on...
... you're thinking, 'noble??? don't be daft.' Just a severe case of avoidance. Just feeling like a pirate at a princess party, a foreskin at a Bar mitzvah, a glass of brandy at a temperance meeting. Besides, I don't like silence much right now.
So I sat and I listened to the traffic going by, and counted my heartbeats, and the gentle throbbing in my temple.
When I got home and watched the rugby on tape - Wales had won by a landslide, and that made me smile.
February 09 Olympic SportWales won its rugby match today. I'm still turning on a sixpence, upside down, back to front, inside out. But this:
Really needs to become an Olympic sport. February 02 Strange ShiftThis last week or so has seen me in a strange mood. Up and down on a sixpence. I can't tell what I'm likely to do from one moment to the next. It's like someone leaned on the control switch, or some crazed monkey has got hold of the joy stick. Twice, at work, I've grabbed my coat, completely decided - by some incident that I'd normally brush aside - that I'm jacking in my job. The first time, as I headed to the office to do the deed, some kid spoke to me, grinned, and I turned round and went home instead. If the kid hadn't turned up, I'd have been gone.
I make myself go to bed and read a book at about 3 am because I'm not tired, then I can't get up at 6.30, or I call in at Tescos for some bread, and wake up half an hour later having fallen sleep in the car with the hot air blower humming, the rain spattering the window, and a programme about delinquent chimps playing on the radio.
Tonight was a real doozy. While I was on a late shift, I heard a dreadful noise outside the building. I could tell it was a drunk shouting - but it was the awful sound of a cat shrieking that took me outside. There was this guy, holding a dog and a cat by their necks, kicking them and punching them while he bellowed 'LET GO YOU BASTARD. LET GO!' It became apparent that the dog had the cat by the throat and the drunk was trying to seperate them. The cat was in agony, and I shouted at the guy to quit, but he took them into this little carpark and the noise got worse - agonised yowls and shrieks, and punches and shouts. I went back inside to get a torch, and when I came out, he was walking away, still shouting and kicking his dog, and the cat was silent.
I went down to the carpark to look, in case it was injured, going in at the narrow gateway. Then I heard a noise and turned. Behind me, and between me and the gate was a big bloke - holding an enormous metal pole which he was bouncing from hand to hand. Did he think it was me attacking the cat? Was he just some stray nutcase? Either way, he was between me and escape, and he was not looking friendly.
I looked at him, he looked at me, and I imagined in one or two of those stretched out seconds, that I might possibly be in big trouble. I wondered, 'what the bloody hell am I doing here? at almost midnight, looking for a cat, about to get my head smashed.' then I decided to just be cool.
'Hi,' I said, 'Nice pole... I'm just going to go back inside now...' and walked confidently past him, hoping he wasn't going to be a git and bomp me one. The ground was muddy. I didn't fancy lying face down in that - cheek to cheek with the wriggly things.
He stood there as I slipped past him, then I legged it back into the building like my arse was on fire. I'm not proud - his was much bigger than mine. Half an hour later I went back out and he was gone - two fox cubs there instead, totally unafraid. I stood and admired them for a bit. The sky was clear like a wide, deep pool, ringing with stars. Just looking down and watching.
The rugby starts tomorrow. I'll wrap my brain round that, while I still have it.
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