This week I managed to finish Part One of Troublesome Times - 30k of words done. Have Part Two pretty much formulated in my head, it should be a similar length, although characters tend to do unexpected things that lead to a different neck of the woods. Hoping this section will be easier than the first; with all the set up in place you’d think things would just follow along naturally, but even though everything is all your own plan, with your own plot and characters, it’s funny how many nooks and crannies and secret compartments you stumble across when writing a story.
Part Three, I have some defined yet vague ideas about, it’ll probably be the trickiest section and I’ll need to do a bit more research. Part four should be fun, bringing all the various bits together and tying up most of the loose ends.
It’s about this stage, now, I start to feel the characters fill out and grow into being themselves. There’s one or two I feel who are telling me their story, rather than the other way around, which is always fun. I’m enjoying the feedback I’m getting from my trusted beta readers, even the critical stuff - the obvious sometimes isn’t obvious till someone points it out.
I wake again.
The morning blinks itself free from the drowning dark beyond. Blessed with ignorance of broken ambitions and corrupt betrayals, I arise and go out hopefully to the beautiful new day. This day is glorious, the summer sun gods have kissed the earth with warmth and light. We shimmer beneath their brilliance and our spirits raise themselves up in an unending hymn. We run naked through glittering beams of cancer, invulnerable in our mortality. We rejoice. We glow. We burn. We cherish those fleeting moments when our flesh shines bright with the lie of how things could be, when the delusion of what we might become fills us with infinite self belief. We sparkle like stars, one amongst a ten thousand million others and all of us together more magnificent than a galaxy of suns dancing on the head of a pin. What we will be is all we can be. What we can be is all that we allow ourselves to be. What we allow others to give us freedom us be.
I wake again.
It rains, relentless as the tears of an angel for a dying god. Burdened by dreams of ungodly tribulations and craven weaknesses I struggle towards consciousness in the morning gloom. Beyond the window I watch the grey falling rain forgive the world, cleanse it of venial sins and grant life anew to all that was barren. I resurrect myself once again, stand and bathe myself in the sodium spill of street lights. I let the morning wash over me like a poison, baptising my wretchedness in bleak apathy. Each shallow breath I breathe stealing a little more time from death, something to hold onto with silent fury. And so it flows. A river of days to drown in. A sea of meekness to lose one’s self in. An ocean of detritus that weighs me down with insidious doubts and brutal half-truths. And there, below all the scum and the shit and the waste that floats on the surface, some part of the I that was lives on like a shared memory. All that remains of once glory days is a crown of shadows, the glitter of purpose and worth long since corrupted by cheaper coin. Is this all I have been, forgive me for I have failed. Is this all that I am become, pray for me for I am failing. Is this all I am willing to be, bless me for not wanting to be more.
I wake again.
And again.
And again.
Hospital.
Interior.
Late evening.
Standard issue four bed semi-private room which, even with the best will in the world, isn’t remotely private in any real sense of the word. From the hospital’s point of view, and by that I mean the administration and marketing and consultants and insurers, semi-private sure sounds a lot more profitable and a lot less fucking offensive in brochures than saying ‘no scum allowed in here, boss’.
You know who they mean: the dregs of the city, the filth dragged in kicking and screaming from gutters over-flowing with piss to have bits of themselves stapled and sewn back together, or flushed away. The ones who don’t try, won’t try, who glory in self pity and blamelessness and choose not to rise themselves above it because that takes too much fucking effort. The leeches and cockroaches, scurrying about the periphery of everything good and decent and shitting on it so no one else can have it. They laugh about it, the way their poison infects the city with fear and corruption like a cancer taking over street by street by street until you can’t go here or there in case you’re swallowed up and consumed and never seen again. Yet they’re the first in line for handouts and gimmes when things get fucked, expecting to be held by the hand and led to salvation. Because they’re what? Special? Give me a fucking break.
Best to keep all the dregs hidden from view in the cheap seats, the trollies in the corridors out back, while they spoil the ones of us trying to hold down a shit job and make just enough money to pay the insurance. Wouldn’t do for us lot to get upset.
So, here I am.
Lucky me.
My own pupils have become sharp etched bottomless pinhole lenses sparkling with shards of a precise gastric pain caught teetering on the verge of ripping apart at the seams. The jaundiced freckled skin of my arm steadily sucking on happy happy juice from a merry morphine machine, drip by drip by drippity drip at a time. My brain trying to pretend to be back home safe and sound with my family, just about half a stoner’s smile away from getting there for the first time in 72 hours when the fuckwit in the bed next turns on his poxy TV. Loud. Too Fucking Loud. Arsehole. Some fucking manners would be nice, pal. You know, a smidgen of consideration for your fellow sufferers who might not be interested in watching whatever you want to watch as loud as you want to watch. Self centred cocknut. Fuck, man, that’s really annoying. No. That’s not quite true. It’s just typical. Of people. Which is worse. Because it’s disappointing. Disappointing more than annoying then. Aye. Everyone’s a cunt. Including me. Which is about as disappointing as it gets.
Who’s here then?
Deaf Jeff, not his real name, lies in the bed diagonally across the room from me. To my right by the window. His hair’s white, spikey, a bit like Spenser Tracey; the older grumpier version. His foot’s bad again today, brusied black, but doesn’t look too rotten. His hearing aid packed in this morning, so he’s a bit shouty. He doesn’t notice because he can’t hear himself. Obviously. But he keeps to himself in his quiet loud way. Must be in or around his 70s, just like the other two fuckers.
Next to him, facing me, is the new lad: Crazy Llyod - not his real name.
His hair’s white too, a Christopher Lloyd shock of white trying to escape his mad head. He’s got big baggy bulging scary staring eyes perched on a skinny long sack of pointy angled bones that look as though haven’t ever really felt completely at ease with each other. He sounds like an old actor of consequence when he speaks, Burton or Harris - you’ve probably never heard of them, which makes me old too I guess. A resonant voice full of earthquake rumbles cracked through with dissonances that convey the requisite raw range of edgy emotions any self respecting lunatic needs to be able to tap into. Whatever’s wrong with him he just looks like your everday Mad Scientist, somehow familiar and oddly safe in his quirks and twitches and spasms and tics.
Llyod can’t settle. The TV going on seems to have pushed a big red button in his head. He’s muttering. Uhoh. Religious mutterings. That’s never good. Not in movies. Or books. Or on buses late at night when there’s no one driving and you can’t remem…
“OoooOOOoooOOOh sweet Jesus. Fucking Christ. Make it stop”
Fuck. He’s gone off on one. I err on the side of caution: take a hit from the morphine machine. Drip, drip, drippity drip. Start counting down the five minutes till I can push it into me again.
Next to me, on my side of the room facing the other two twunts is Timmy. Timmy’s not his real name. Obviously. Because he’s an arsehole. Correction, a bleeding arsehole - if we’re defining people by their medical condition. One of those unctuous preening slithery wee fucktards who love themselves much too much; probably comes every time he takes a shit. He’s so false even his shadow looks ashamed to be associated with him. A miasma of corruption, lies and false sincerity gathers about him like a plague.
Sounds like some Pride & Prejudice tosh on the 15 inch TV that hangs from the ceiling at the foot of Timmy’s bed. I can’t see the screen because his bed is the only one with it’s high curtain drawn about his semi-private bed space, shutting out us riff-raff while protecting his petty privileges.
I think about switching my phone onto recorder and sliding it across the floor to underneath the Crazy Lloyd’s bed to record a few hours of tortured profanities. No idea why I’m thinking that. Probably because the man’s got a terrific voice, like a car crash you can’t stop listening to.
Timmy sniggers childishly in his bed. Must be all those big country houses filled with suitably accented gentry torn between virgin prim ladies and bad-toothed servant wenches hungry for cock, all that dialogue dripping with innuendo and humourless civility giving him the horn. Timmy sighs appreciatively. Mutters something flaccid about the good old days. Christ, I really can not stand the man.
Deaf Jeff catches my eye. Raises his to heaven. That makes me smile. I press the happy button again. Exit: stage left.
Timmy is the kind of person who won’t look you in the eye when he talks, he’s too busy looking for a way to be as vague and non-committal as possible while covering his arse. I doubt he’s ever done an original thing in his life. Or a selfless thing. Or even tried to. I don’t think that sort of thing occurs to his sort of people. He introduces himself with a ‘hello’ that sounds like it’s a series of questions:
- Are you safe?
- Will you hurt me?
- I’m important, you know, and you must appreciate that I know important professional people whom you have probably never even heard of and am wealthy enough to pay for their highly sought after services?
The only way to respond is with a civil ‘hello’ back, one that takes the time and effort to answer all the questions his ‘hello?’ raises by saying, succinctly:
- Fuck off, Timmy.
Drip, drip, drippity drip.
Oh shit. Crazy Llyod’s jumped out of his bed like his cock’s just caught fire.
“Will you please turn that abomination down? Please.”
His raised voice rolling across the room as fast as his indignation can carry him on a ram raid collision course with Timmy. There’s a shuffling sound behind Timmy’s curtain. Can’t see. Sounds like he’s pulling his underpants up around his scrawny neck. Llyod yanks back Timmy’s curtain.
“Please!”
Timmy quivers.
“You’ve no right to demand anything, this is a private room and I’m allowed to listen to what I want.”
“You scumbag. I haven’t slept in days and you and your selfish ways. I’m in pain. Why can’t you see that. Don’t you care about your fellow sufferer. Can’t you just turn that thing off.”
“Get away from me. I’ll call the nurse. I’m perfectly entitled. I’m a man of some importance.”
“You cunt. Fucking useless greedy self serving cunt. Your kind are all the same. Cunts. Dear Holy Jesus. You have no right to make me suffer. You are a horrible horrible fucking little man. Turn it off now. I demand it you do so. At once.”
“No.”
“I haven’t slept in days. Why don’t you care? Scumbag. I’ve asked you nicely. For the last time please turn that fucking shit off so I can get some sleep. Please. You wretched leaking cunt.”
“You’re a pathetic excuse for a man. Have some dignity. I have the right to watch what I want when I want. I’ve paid for the privilege. It is my right. And I know my rights.”
“Scumbag cunt fucker. You and your kind ruined this country. Sucked at the tit of Mammon till it bled, and then sucked harder till there was nothing left of this shitehole but a corpse. And then you fucked that and sucked the marrow out of the bones. You traitor. Is this what our heroes died fighting for? Did they give up their lives so you and your bleeding arsehole could knock one out while the BBC symphony orchestra serenades some posh totty and her fey stable boy?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact that’s exactly why they gave up their lives. It’s called freedom. Now go back to bed before I have you arrested.”
Ah here. It’s been fun listening to a couple of old farts go at each other. But it’s all getting too tiresome now. And the morphine’s not working any more. I sit up. Deaf Jeff is already sitting up. Must be loud if he can hear it.
“For fuck’s sake will you two shut the hell up.”
It’s out of my mouth before I can shut it. Lloyd stops ranting and looks at me.
“He started it.” Timmy snigger and snorts, like a fat-fuck pig high on helium.
“Go back to bed, Lloyd. Relax.” I just want this to be over.
“So, you’re taking his side. That scumbag. You’re standing up for him.”
“No. I’m not. But you’re making more of a racket that his poxy TV.”
“You don’t understand. I’m in pain.”
“Lloyd, there’s four morphine drips in this hospital and I’m the only one in here hooked up to one and it’s just run out, again. Exactly how much fucking pain do you think you’re in?”
“But I haven’t slept in days. It’s agony. It’s a constant agony to me.”
Lloyd begins to shuffle back to his bed. Deaf Jeff pipes in.
“He’s right, you know, you are creating a disturbance.”
Too loud, Jeff.
“I am not the disturbance. I’m a sick man. I want my privacy. That’s all I want. And that scumbag fucker is smirking and doesn’t give a shit about his country.”
“It’s not a private room, Lloyd. Believe me, I wish it was.”
“It’s just not right that this weasel gets to dictate to us. We have to have some dignity and respect for each other or we’re all lost. We’re doomed.”
Seriously! He said ‘doomed’, just like some Scottish harbinger of, well, doom.
I need a piss.
Llyod’s has his wind back. Getting up out of his bed again. Looking like he’s going to go at Timmy. I really can’t be bothered. I press the nurse call button on the side of the table.
“It’s miserable fucknuts like him who make life a pile of steaming shit. His type don’t care. They never care. Not about anything but themselves…”
Yesterday I saw mosquitoes that had syringes filled with shimmering blood for their bodies and blue laser beam eyes made from glittering disco balls and elephants ears for wings. Yesterday was a good day.
Pit pat pitter patter.
The soft shoe shuffle of the seventh cavalry arriving.
“Lloyd, what are you doing out of bed?”
Lloyd’s eyes bulging. Eyebrows recoiling to the top of his head. Snared midway between beds, his exposed bony white arse quivering with all the rage of another scumbag rant. Nurse Vinshy, a small Indian woman in a perfectly white uniform. Her perfect white teeth with an easy smile that isn’t smiling now. Lloyd scuttles his bony body back to bed muttering under his breath.
“What’s going on here, Lloyd?”
“I can’t sleep, nurse. Him. He has his television on too loud and he won’t turn it down.”
Sounds like a little boy.
Fragile.
Abused.
Nurse Vinchy looks weary.
Goes over to Timmy behind his curtain.
“Tim, would you mind turning your television off for tonight?”
“I’d like to finish watching my football match first, Nurse.”
WTF! three letters write large on my eyes in a typographic cartoon shock.
You lying toad.
“Is it that important, Timmy?”
“It’s a final, Nurse. European.”
You insufferable cock. It’s 10pm on a friday night. In March. There’s no European football tonight. And there’s no fucking finals till May. Women!
“What time is it over?”
“Twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour. It’s important.”
I can almost hear his monied smirk slither across his face.
Honestly.
I can not be arsed.
Too tired.
She concedes. Walks over to Lloyd.
“It’ll be over soon and then the television will be switched off.”
“Okay nurse.”
Lloyd.
Deflated.
Misused.
Confused.
“Who pressed the nurse button?”
Bugger.
“That’d be me.”
“What can I do for you?”
“More morphine, please.”
She smiles, refills my machine.
I press the button and blow her a kiss.
She shakes her head and leaves us to it.
Timmy sniggers.
I wish he’d stop doing that.
The smug wee shit.
Lots of ooohing and ahhhing and sobbing, some of it coming from the TV. It’s all a bit hazy, a bit vivid, a bit confused. Did the Bronte sisters write about football? Was Jane Eyre a WAG. Has Colin Firth broken an eyelash while heading a ball into the net? Where’s the sense in that? Horses hooves galloping. Smell of medicine. They’ve sent the stretcher on by the sounds of it. More sobbing. Emma Thompson weeping inconsolably over the body of John Terry, numb to the shells exploding bloody toilet rolls over the Wembley pitch. Things must be dire indeed: Cliff Richard is crooning about Jesus. Gunshots. That’s better. Put the miserable whiney fuckers out of their misery.
Drip drip drippity drip.
Just need to sleep.
“Oh Lord Jesus protect us. Save us from corrupt vile masturbaters and money-lenders sent by Satan to afflict us in our hour of anguish with their selfish traitorous ways. Spare us their fucking lies and lusts and betrayals as they cower in your almighty light…”
Shit.
