I went for my annual Covid and flu shots four weeks ago last Tuesday. Within two days I had fallen into the clutches of what seemed to be terminal snyphlis. It may have been a coincidence. “When you’re with your honey and your nose is runny, don’t think it’s funny, ’cause it’s snot.” It has been almost a month. I am now slowly recovering but still feeling like what fell out of a high-flying goose. I spend most of my time in bed decomposing.
While I was trying sleep last night I had an attack of the farts. It was a weary barrage of short sharp reports. (FLAK Fart Like a King) When I finally drifted into a troubled sleep I dreamed that my body had become covered with open, suppurating lesions that all farted unstoppably. I sounded like a spring pond full of toads. The doctor called it a terminal case of “Deterioritis.” Doesn’t life get better when you can hang a name on something? I survived my dream although there is a bad odour in this room. Ah yes, the writer alone in his garret. There’s a reason!
Today, deep in the wretched state of this damnable flu, my cell phone pinged with a text message. “Are you in the store today?” Clearly a wrong number but I sardonically replied, “Yes, but we’re out of edible panties.” I sniggered at my cryptic wit and drifted back into my snotty coma. A while later came a response. “Is this Dr. Mary?” “No.” Now I’m looking for Dr. Mary’s porn shop. Yep, that’s me, a right old bull in a sex shop. Then another text came. “Do I have a wrong number?” I didn’t reply.
Still the calls are coming from people who promise to be my literary saviour. It’s an atmospheric river of false hope. Yeah right! I wonder at this avalanche of scammers all singing a similar song. How did they appear all at once? It must be a new idea they picked up at a scammers convention.
And so I stumble on into mid-November. On the first day of the month I stared through my reflection on the window into a jet black sunrise at 07:30. There are swirls of fog but nothing else. We turned back the time that night, the dark season is upon us. I’m still staring out.
So what the hell am I writing about? Everyone knows what time it is, everyone has their own box of tick-tocks slowly emptying itself. The sound of that gets louder and louder. I’m fighting the old man blues, desperate to do something meaningful. I can’t seem to get beyond repairing the neighbour’s snow blowers. One friend is in Mexico on his motorcycle and sending me videos of it all. My little antique Honda Trail bike is still in the workshop waiting for parts. There is a whole damned black winter ahead.
It was full moon last week. Folks still seem edgy. The evening is bracketed by the usual November gales. I turned in to the local grocery store just after darkness fell. Two young boys careening through the parking lot on a grocery cart barely missed the front of my truck. If I had not braked it could have been a sad story. They were having a grand old time. Two people were standing nearby. I asked politely if the two kids were theirs. Mentioning that they were very hard to see I suggested many drivers would not have seen the two. The response was angry and aggressive. Who am I to care about anyone’s child? “Just stay calm and carry on and… mind yer bizniz!” When I told my wife this little story she had her own from the same parking lot. She pointed out to a man in his car that he had one headlight burned out. He flew into a rage and began to curse her. Say wot? November grinds on.
I recently heard a lyric from a cowboy song that says “I’m not anti-social, I just don’t like people.” Uhuh! It is now past already Remembrance Day. I’ll keep my thoughts to myself. With all the suffering of innocent people at the hands of military actions there’s not much point in remembering anything if nobody is prepared to learn a damned thing. Eleventh hour, eleventh day, eleventh month, think of Gaza, Ukraine, Somalia, Sudan to name a few.
Yeah, remember!
“Often people are the least lovable when they need love the most.” anon