Writing

Since I've had my website online many people have said to me that they write but that their writing isn't anything like as good as mine. I must say that always makes me feel slightly uncomfortable mainly because I have never really seen that my writing is all that great. For the last few days I've been considering what it might mean to be a good writer.

 

Until I thought about this my view had always been that you just recognise good writing. I guess I'm quite a snob when it comes to other people's work. I often read other people's writings and cringe at how awful it is. However I also accept that I'm not really that good at reading other people's work. At university I was never very good at English Literature I could just never really get to grips with what the hell was going on.

 

I remember reading a thing that Steven Fry wrote about Douglas Adams shortly after he died saying that Adams' writing always made you feel like he had written that piece especially for you. That others wouldn't quite get it the way that you were getting it at that moment. I think that is what writing is about if you can write something that somebody else can read and relate to then you have written something good. If you can write something that can have an impact on somebody else's thought processes if you can alter their course in some way then you have a responsibility to write what you write.

 

There are six billion people on this planet if you can write something that can have an impact on just one of those people then you have written something that is worthwhile. It doesn't matter if the rest of the population thinks it is tripe!

 

Perhaps we are all born into the old mindset of publishing houses having to be the conduit that all poetry is published through. Unless a work fitted within the classical framework of 'good' poetry, story, or whatever it had very little chance of ever finding a market. With the advent of the internet we have all been given the power to become our very own publishing house and hence able to find an audience that has an appreciation for whatever style of work is written. If it is something that you can write, there is somebody out there that can take something from it.

 

The human race has a great legacy of storytelling it is part of our nature to pass on our stories to others. If we are lucky our stories will survive long after we are ash. At around the 7 BC Homer wrote an epic poem named The Iliad for nearly three thousand years this story has been passed on. For hundreds of years the poems of Shakespeare and Keats have been revered as the pinnacle of human creation. They have captured the stories of these people and passed them down through the centuries. There will be poets and story tellers from this era whose stories will be remembered through time. Perhaps it will be founded from the things you are writing today. Perhaps your work will become the modern equivalent of Keats. Perhaps somebody will read what you write and be inspired to become today's great poet. The one inescapable fact in all of this though is that your experiences and your life have given you a unique perspective of the world that nobody has ever witnessed before. Your viewpoint has never been expressed previously and will never be seen again. In this world of such easy publishing it would be a terrible waste not to put that viewpoint into the public domain let others see the world that you see. Let others reap the seeds that you sow for none of us know what it might become.

 

Trust

I have long been accused of having too much faith in people of being too trusting to quickly. I am an easy one to take advantage of. For quite a while I was concerned about this because it appeared to be something I couldn’t change I would often find myself trusting someone about something all the time my mind would be telling me that I was about to get shit on from a great height and most of the time I was right too. Then I realised that I didn’t trust people for their benefit I do it because it makes me feel good to do so. I gain from the trust I give to people. I think I do it because it is an amazing feeling when that trust is returned it is good to prove my mind wrong occasionally. Naturally there is nobody that deserves more trust than a woman that I would share my time with. It would not be a trust to be earned, it would not be a trust that would need to develop it would be offered implicitly from the start. My theory goes that knowing that I see her beauty will make her feel good being with me. Knowing that I trust her will allow the confidence for that to grow.

 

Time

I think one of my biggest problems with finding somebody to have a real relationship with is that I am looking for somebody that I believe is beautiful. I don’t just mean physical beauty – although that is a large part of it – I am talking about finding someone that I find beautiful to be in the presence of. Somebody whose beauty I can read in her words, hear in her voice, feel in her spirit. I want that because I want her to know how the power she has touches me and how it affects her life. I have slowly begun to realise that I have no right sharing a bed with a woman that I do not believe to be beautiful and if I don’t have that right then I am being unfaithful to myself by sharing my life with that person.

 

I have long been accused of having too much faith in people of being too trusting to quickly. I am an easy one to take advantage of. For quite a while I was concerned about this because it appeared to be something I couldn’t change I would often find myself trusting someone about something all the time my mind would be telling me that I was about to get shit on from a great height and most of the time I was right too. Then I realised that I didn’t trust people for their benefit I do it because it makes me feel good to do so. I gain from the trust I give to people. I think I do it because it is an amazing feeling when that trust is returned it is good to prove my mind wrong occasionally. Naturally there is nobody that deserves more trust than a woman that I would share my time with. It would not be a trust to be earned, it would not be a trust that would need to develop it would be offered implicitly from the start. My theory goes that knowing that I see her beauty will make her feel good being with me. Knowing that I trust her will allow the confidence for that to grow.

 

Imagine for a moment going into the future twenty years and having a conversation with yourself where you discover that you are absolutely and completely in love with someone now this could bring some concern, what if you now fail to find him because of your new found knowledge? What if when you first meet him you hate him? You share these concerns with your future self and are told that it doesn’t matter that there is nothing you can do to jeopardise meeting this person. Can you imagine how that would influence your relationships with people? You would no longer have a need to pretend to be something different, you could approach relationships with a completely clear conscience. You could give yourself over to instinct completely because you would know that if something you said or did met with disapproval then the person who disapproved was not the one you were looking for anyway. Well I have never managed time travel but I do know that I will meet the woman I am searching for. The only thing I know about her is that we will share the power of the feelings that attract us. My attitude here does quite often scare people away but I am actually quite glad of that fact because it clears the path to continue the search. I allow my instincts to rule how I interact in all such encounters. It is those very instincts that are sharing these facts with you now.

People ask me what I will do if I am wrong, and I get to my deathbed and find that she didn’t turn up. To that my answer is simply that I enjoyed the search the search has brought me into contact with people that have touched my soul in a way that brings me to tears. The memories I have collected over the last two short years are more than worth the risk of not finding her

The Gift

On the bus you see her, blazing hair, shimmering eyes, pretty smile. Trying not to stare, knowing you are failing, tasting her discomfort from your gaze, your eyes disobeying the orders to retract. Your head ignores the order to turn. What is it about her that has captivated you? Is this her? Is this the girl you have been searching for? Is this her? How could it be? Not even a word has been shared, this is not what was told, this is not the promise. But, you cannot deny the screaming from your unconscious, “THIS IS HER, THIS IS HER”

Your hand moves to that pocket where the gift has been for what seems like centuries good, it is still there, it would not do to have forgotten it today. Your unattached mouth practises the words in the sacred line, they still feel brittle and lumpy but you have argued that point a thousand times, that is the line, that is what must be said.

The argument is still raging in your head, this cannot be her, you are just being zealous in your attempts to pass on the gift. “THIS IS HER, THIS IS HER”

Trepidation, excitement, fear, joy, every human emotion is now building up inside you, pounding inside your head pouring adrenalin into your heart.

 

Then she alights, what now? Follow? Stay? Utterly self conscious of how very strange this behaviour could look to her, but unable to change that, unable to change what you have planned for. So, do you run to her and make yourself known? Not yet, when she is further into town, where it is busier so not to rouse her flight instincts. Making your way through the crowds attempting to keep a reasonable distance

 

Questioning the arguments building in your head, are they the words of your cowardice? Or are they the real doubt of this woman’s worth? Would you spend your life wondering if this really is she? Of all of the stupid ideas you have had, this has got to be the absolute worst.

 

Still following, still arguing, still doubting. She lingers to study a suit in a window. Your mind re-clothes her, it would not be the most flattering piece, but fitting of the mental image you have had of HER. She smiles, you are sure you see the ghost of a school girl giggle lurking behind those lips but before you have chance to study further she is gone, continuing her stroll.

 

Still unable to devise a game plan, still not entirely sure this is what you should be doing, but trusting that the right thing will occur trusting the promise.

 

Whilst you are distracted by these thoughts she disappears from view, relief and despair battle in your mind. You fight the growing urge to flee.

 

She is there, at the bar of the sandwich shop, you continue walking, and stop at some benches a little further on. You make the decision to offer the gift when she walks past you.

 

An eternity passes and still no sign, arguments continuing all the while. This should not feel so wrong, does it feel wrong? What is there to compare it too? You have never, been in this situation before, nor will you encounter it again. So how can you define wrong? Good question, very good question.

 

Here she comes, straight at you, this is the moment you have waited for, this is it. Is she looking at you? Has she spotted you? The sun is joining the conspiracy in your mind to distort the facts. No, she is not looking at you, you are not that important, perhaps you will never be, perhaps she will discard the gift, misunderstand it’s promise, have no comprehension of the meaning. Then again, perhaps the gift is not for her, perhaps the gift is for you, you will never know her reactions, isn’t that the intention?

 

You do not have time for that discussion right now, she is coming, she is approaching, she turns towards a shopping arcade on your right. She vanishes from sight.

 

Already moving before the thought has formulated, comprehension is dawning, this is the test, you need to be at the other end of that arcade when she comes into view again. If she is, then that is the moment, if she isn’t… well, lets not get bogged down in technicalities at this stage. You take a slow walk around the block, she is nowhere in sight.

 

You spend a while walking, examining the thoughts that have occurred during the last ten minutes,  something happened today, something important, you were just to close at this moment to see it.

 

Walking, enjoying the sun, enjoying the euphoria your morning has now brought you listening to your unconscious mind giving you directions – isn’t this schizophrenia? – walking past a fountain you follow orders to sit, to wait for a time (five? Ten? Twenty minutes? Who knows? Who cares!!) while waiting you realise that this is still part of the promise, you are waiting because she will be back in a moment the angel to the Shepard (shouldn’t that be sheep?) 

 

Heading towards the shopping centre, she is there, that makes sense, you understand that. Under the towering knot sitting at the edge of a flower bed, offering a perfect contrast to the soft green beauty a dark angel awaits. If the ironmongers palette is detracting from her beauty then you have truly never seen her equal, just as you are about to tear you eyes away, the instant before, her smile burns a hole through your chest and sets fire to your heart. You catch her eye, and they are wondrous. You want to stop, you realise that the delay was so that you would have this moment with this woman, this is why you did not know this is the reason for your day. You want to stop, your cowardice does not it keeps your feet walking.

 

The cool air conditioned building offers no protection from the war that is going on in your mind, should you return? Is a smile all it took? This does feel so much better now, understanding calms your mind. The promise is true, when you find her you will know. This feels right. This feels much better than before. This could be. Then why are you still walking away? That is not what you should be doing. You stop, alone amongst the multitudes, in this desolate crowded place. Returning to that place, instructing your cowardice to be quiet, as ever it ignores you. You walk.

 

You return and she has vanished, this is becoming a very strange day, you have carried this thing around for close to six months now, and have never seen a single face that has made you think it should be gone. Today you have seen two. Today that ghost escaped you once more.

 

A cup of tea to consider the events of the day over, to muse over what on earth happened to your mind, what happened to the promise. A familiar face serves your tea, a familiar voice, the familiarity is now recognised as the ghost you have chased today, you wait for your cowardice to argue. You are greeted with silence.

The Lover

The Lover’s Complaint.

I would like to bring to your attention some issues I have had since I took out a subscription to your service. While some of these issues have been minor with no major disruption to my personal well being, other issues have had a major impact on my abilities to execute my duties.

Firstly I believe that your product has been responsible for an illness that has affected me since I started using your product. I am confident that these are a direct result of your product because they are most pronounced whenever I come into contact with it. The first time I noticed the condition was, as I recall, within hours of my initial contact, I do not see how this could be a coincidence.

The symptoms started with a slight stomach complaint, with a discomfort in the lower abdominal area. As time progressed that stomach complaint has grown in both intensity of duration. While initially it would come and go in a matter of minutes, now I find it is almost constantly there. I believe your product has also introduced some psychosomatic condition as it appears that the symptoms are most pronounced when your product comes to mind.

It also appears that your product has some addictive property as whenever I stop using your product I yearn for the next time I will have the opportunity to use it again.

This would be a manageable state if it wasn’t for the fact that your product also appears to contain a strong hallucinogenic compound that must have been devised by a very cunning marketing department as its major effect is to make me hallucinate about spending more and more time with your product. This would at least be manageable if these hallucinations did not occur at such inconvenient times but they seem to come at the times when I most need to be concentrating on other things, the most concerning aspect has been occurring for the majority of today though, as these images in my mind are getting ever more vivid they have now started to give me heart palpitations this is very disturbing, and has forced me to go and consult professional medical advice earlier today.

After a protracted medical examination, there was no medical condition found, I can only assume that your insidious product has some method of hiding itself when in the presence of medical staff. Although I assured them that the upset stomach and heart palpitations were still present even during the examination. While there I consulted with an immunologist in case I had the symptoms had been caused by an immune reaction to something.

After a lengthy, and detailed discussion of my recent lifestyle, I happened to mentioned my recent interaction with your products, at the very mention of your organisations name I felt the psychosomatic effects come into play once again, as I felt flushed and slightly euphoric. I believe the doctor picked up on this and determined my diagnosis. I also believe I discovered the reason for these extreme lengths you go to, it is clearly a marketing ploy to force me to extol your virtues on complete strangers. Unfortunately the doctor was clearly mistaken in his diagnosis as his suggestion was patently absurd.

so I am wondering whether you could offer an explanation for what has been occurring lately, because I am very concerned about the long term consequences of what you have done to me, have you received any reports of lasting effects? How long can I expect these symptoms to continue? Do you have some antidote available to relieve the suffering I am feeling at present? Although if it would be possible to simply limit the effects just a little, as I have been enjoying the occasional moments that have occurred as a result of this invasion. 

I am looking forward to hearing your professional opinion regarding what it is that you have done to infect me with this condition. I am sure you can provide a much more believable explanation than the patently absurd one the doctor managed to provide, it is a simply ridiculous assumption that I am in love! I mean, you don’t even, well, I don’t need to explain I am confident you see the absurdity also. Now if you could just release your grip a little, as I’m not sure my heart can take the added excitement you have been putting it through.

 

Scared

it sometimes scares me that I was born out of time, I think that maybe I should be living these days in the 20's I think there is such confusion over things like gender roles today. I’m tired of having to debate the simplest things on every date I go on, I want to be able to pay the bill at the restaurant because I am male and that is the way it is, it doesn't make you less of a woman it just means the moment can be enjoyed with out the tiffs over irrelevancies. I’m not trying to say that a woman's place is in the kitchen in fact I mean quite the opposite I want a woman who is simply comfortable enough in her femininity to enjoy letting a man enjoy what has been classed as masculinity for centuries.

I guess my ultimate desire is for the fairy tale, I want to rescue the damsel from the tallest tower. If I happen to encounter a dragon along the way then I'll bring a sword too.  The fairy tales of old were so full of magic and enchantment that even just remembering the stories brings a smile. I think that real life has exactly the same potential but we get so bogged down in irrelevant tiffs that we never see it any more.

Bring me the girl who won't allow her worries of being fat, thin, beautiful, or ugly. Find the one who can be comfortable knowing that there is more to beauty than that so she can enjoy exploring the magic that occurs when too people are attracted to each other. For that girl I will slay a thousand dragons. To find that girl I am scaling a thousand towers for it is not a thousand castles I wish to breach, merely that girl's heart.

 

Warped

It is a reasonably well accepted scientific fact that men are more inclined than women to have sadistic sexual fantasies than women, and likewise, women are more likely to have masochistic tendencies than men.

For the majority of women these tendencies are reasonably benign, and have little influence on their day to day life. I would guess that a large percentage of sexual relationships have had some sadomasochistic aspect that usually manifests itself as an occasional bit of bedroom spanking or the like.

As with most human fetishes there are extremes, both physical and psychological, there are those who can only feel sexual satisfaction at their limits of physical pain. Quite often the bruises, cuts, and aches being erotic reminders of excitement of the experience. Though of course these bruises would be hidden as few people want to share their subversive nature with those who might not understand the concepts behind it.

The psychological aspects can be equally extreme, the desire to dominate, and to be dominated, is a strong desire for a huge percentage of the population. Although all combinations of gender are accommodated perhaps the most common is the male dominant and a female submissive. Perhaps in its most simple form, the women of these relationships are fulfilling the basic desire to make their partner happy and what better way of making a partner happy than to do his bidding. From that premise it does not take a huge leap of faith to envisage a situation where a woman will give herself entirely to a partner allowing him to do absolutely as he desires, without question regardless of how humiliating or degrading his desires might be – and often because of the humiliation and degradation.

When these two aspects of masochism are brought into a relationship it can become a powerful stimulant. Where a woman can say to a man, I will allow you to do whatever you desire with me, or to me and I will accept that willingly and unquestioningly. I would suggest that every person in the world can feel a touch of excitement at one side or the other of that concept.

These scenes can have considerably darker sides though, as the core factor is to have power over another individual, it somewhat detracts when that power needs to be given in the first place. It is a considerably more exciting concept when that power can simply be taken – I suspect that psychologists would concur that this is the driving motivation behind most rapes – there are a huge number of erotic sadomasochistic stories that involve forced sexual slavery because perhaps this is the natural conclusion of these desires.

For the most part, the people who enter into such a defined lifestyle are reasonably enlightened about their sexuality. They have discovered that this is a sexual desire, and they have set about fulfilling it and are generally extremely strong minded about what they do, and don’t want from a relationship.

So what would a woman do who neither knew nor understood her sexuality to this degree? Perhaps she would find herself naturally inclined towards dominant men who were equally oblivious to their inclinations. Maybe, in the context of sadomasochism she would be lucky and find a partner who took away her power, and regularly punished her for her wrong-doing. Perhaps she too would have bruises that she would need to hide and lie about to her friends. In the context of sadomasochism she would be a very lucky girl. In the context of conventional thinking she would be a battered wife.

Now I’m not trying to suggest that all battered wives are secret masochists. I agree that some women find themselves in terrible situations that they are desperate to get out of. However I have long had the idea that some women do seek out such relationships, because it is what they need to fulfil themselves. In particular the apparent serial battered wife, who goes from one abusive relationship to the next.

It could be said that these women are considerably more honest in their sexuality, because they don’t need to build these convoluted fantasies to show their servitude towards their partner, all they want is to make their partner happy so they don’t get punished.

Well it was just a passing thought that I figured I’d write down. Perhaps I’m completely off target and just being a stereotypically chauvinistic male. But the whole thing kinda makes sense to my warped brain. Guess I’m just hoping that you, the reader of this, is at least a little warped too.

 

 

Hiroshima

Whenever anyone asks me about computery type stuff, I usually give vaguely the same answer, that it is dead easy and is merely a case of jumping in and doing it. Yet in my time working in the industry it is blatantly obvious that some people simply don't find it as such. I have people working with me now who I consider to be intelligent well adjusted people but just don't seem able to jump in and do anything that they haven't had specific training / hand holding beforehand.

 

Mathematics has always been a subject that I think I have an understanding of, I understand the concepts and have a reasonably mathematical view of the world, I see that there is maths behind everything and that comforts me greatly. I think if I had the perseverance to put the time into learning maths I am pretty sure I would have a great deal to offer the community.

 

And therein lies one of my great downfalls, I see people like Cara who has an obvious natural flair for the whole academia thing, I have little doubt that she will accomplish all of her academic aspirations and it makes me feel good to know that there are people that can do that. However I have pretty much accepted that the ability to do that is not something that is part of my makeup. As much as I would love to, I am totally aware that I shall never experience a graduation ceremony at Oxford. This fact did make me sad for a while. In fact I guess if I dwell on it, it still does but only in the same way that it makes me sad that I'm unlikely to ever walk on the moon.

 

For sometime I have wondered what I would be if I were back in the days of being a hunter gatherer. I am pretty sure I have told you about the fact that I have dyspraxia. It surprised me when I found this out that it is not considered to be a brain defect but merely a genetic difference. Which by my logic means that it is something that evolution decided was a necessary thing to assist it. Now as a hunter gatherer dyspraxia means that I would be a rather lousy hunter my physical clumsiness would definitely get in the way. As for the gathering part I just don't have the attention to detail that is required to ensure I don't kill myself within the first picking. From that I think it is pretty clear that I would not become the Alpha male in any great hurry but then the alpha male would not really have anything to gain from evolution the men who were successful hunters would have little to gain from evolution we are at the top of the food tree where do they need to go from there. To me evolution was driven by the ones who couldn't hunt it was driven by the ones that stayed in the camp and came up with ways to make sharper axes and high yield atomic weapons. Whenever I am in a club watching the modern day alpha males going through their mating rituals it comforts me to know that no matter how good a hunter they are, no matter how many they can slay with their axe. They would never be capable of even imagining anything on the scale of Hiroshima.

Islands

For the last few days I have considered some of the poems that I have written. I have considered the fact that there are so few in there whose topic is actually about being in love. About the moments of love that exist. There appear to be a great number aimed squarely at falling in and out of love but much of the middle ground is missing.

 

So I decided to start making headway into writing some of that middle ground, and I found it immensely difficult to even think of events or situations that would be the embodiment of that love.

 

I started to suspect that my problem was that I have never actually been in love, so I did not fully understand what it means to be in love. It is a foreign land that I can only peer at across an immense ocean.

 

Occasionally I have been thrown headlong into, what I believed, where the sandy shores of that distant isle. Alas they were the cliffs of a much closer island, an island that we all occasionally land upon and believe it to be that fabled land. The terrain looks similar, it has the same lush foods, and the same exhilaration of waterfalls and rapids but there is an immense fog that floats over this isle, it blinds us to the dangers that lurk in the many dark places here, it leads us in an assumed safety across rolling fields filled with the most beautiful flowers. Until suddenly we reach the event horizon of that fog and we realise that we have fallen off the cliffs of lust.

 

People sometimes experience lust and mistake it for love. They believe they have touched that special place with somebody. Maybe they did, the border between lust and love is a difficult one to map. Perhaps the measure is that the moment is shared between all parties involved. I have felt exceptional lust towards a few people that have entered my life and I am reasonably sure if circumstances had followed a different path that those feelings may have developed into love. Though somehow in my mind, in hindsight, I know that to be rubbish but in the moment that those feelings occurred did I know that it wasn’t real? As I sit here considering that question I am pretty sure that I knew I was just playing along with the feelings letting them run away with me.

 

I think from an historical stand point we have been rather brain washed with the concept of falling in love with someone within minutes of meeting them. Whether it be Greek mythology or Hollywood block busters we are constantly spoon fed such concepts as being quite normal. Maybe when society was much more ordered and women were creatures to be owned and exchanged for favour this thought worked for an assortment of romantic and practical reasons. However dragging that concept kicking and screaming into the 21st century where everybody has choice where everybody has the right to find and choose there lifetime partner. Maybe in that environment love at first sight is a much more difficult concept to grasp.

 

But still, we are brainwashed with the thought, but still it is our ultimate desire.

 

So what would love at first sight be? Obviously the affected parties are unlikely to fall into each others arms decreeing there eternal devotion to each other as social etiquette isn’t that kind. There would have to be a mating game played. Motions would need to be gone through. Affections exchanged, kisses shared, moments lingered in. this does all take time though, so what does love at first sight mean? Maybe it is a concept borne purely out of hindsight, maybe once the mating game has been played the players will look back and realise the connection that was felt from the beginning and suddenly label that as ‘Love at First Sight’

 

In fact I can see that there can only be two types of people who are in love. Firstly there will be the group that were friends for a while beforehand, a couple that had moments but never truly realised that there could be something between them until some encounter showed this to be a possibility. The second scenario would be strangers that meet and fall for each other. If after a particular amount of time this second group is questioned I am sure that the majority would suggest that they experienced love at first sight.

 

As a child I spent quite a considerable amount of time around cars, and hence also spent quite a good degree of that time rummaging around car scrap yards. It always occurred to me the number of perfectly serviceable cars that could be constructed from all of the assorted wrecks that were there. All it would take would be the time to sieve through the wrecks for the appropriate parts to complete the one working vehicle. You could randomly walk up to a particular shell and decide that that was going to be the one you would make complete. Only to find after considerable hard work that a vital component was missing perhaps the methodology would be to find one that appeared to be reasonably complete and work up from that point. At the end once you have your serviceable vehicle you would look back and say it was obvious that that one was going to be it because it was the most complete to start with.

 

So maybe that is all love at first sight consists of finding a shell that is most complete and just keep building. Maybe half way through the build you will realise that there is a vital component missing and you will need to abandon that build and find a fresh shell. I do suspect that once you had found your shell and built your serviceable relationship you would look back and say that it was obvious that it would be that one as it was so right to start with.

 

So the next time we are wandering around on that strange new world, and the fog has descended upon us. As we travel the fields of gold, and ride the rapids we should remember that the road to love does travel along the pathways of lust. However we only know the pathway won’t plunge us over the cliffs once the fog has lifted a long time down the road. I am sure that love at first sight does exist, and happens constantly around us, but the participants never realise it until they have travelled a long and winding road to that distant isle. Once they are there it will be blindingly obvious. Until then they will just have to go with the gut feeling that there might be a serviceable automobile somewhere in the future.

 

But as I have said, I have no idea what I am talking about when it comes to that distant isle. So perhaps all of this is utter tosh.

Godly Behaviour

Once upon a time there was a god, a very powerful, and well respected god. He was kind and benevolent towards his subjects. He performed his godly duties with aplomb however he often felt there was something missing in his position as deity of all he surveyed. He sat in his heavens and performed miracles, answered prayers, occasionally had fun with volcanoes when he was feeling really bored.

 

So one morning, just after breakfast, he decided to go and walk amongst his subjects. To become one of them and explored their ways as one of them. So off he went, he walked his domain touching lepers so they may be healed. Touching wrong doers so they may be punished. He spoke to old men about what their lives had meant to them. He spoke young mothers about what their children’s lives meant to them. Sometimes he would shape the future lives of these people depending on the impression they had made with him. He would bring them the things they deserved.

 

He spent many centuries in that domain, he got married and bore children, just to explore what how his subjects behaved. He enjoyed being amongst them he enjoyed being viewed as powerless. To explore this powerlessness more fully he went to parts that did not recognise him as a god it was a place that had developed to believe in a different god.

 

One of the first people he met in this domain was a young girl. A girl who had no belief in the divine. Yet was still able to comprehend right from wrong. Moral actions from immoral ones. He spent a lot of time talking to this girl. He watched her life very closely. When he met her she did not have any great strife that he could clear away for her neither did she have any burning desires that he could steer her towards. So in his mortal skin he allowed her to befriend him. She was a confident girl who knew and accepted the mistakes she was going to make in her life. she knew that some of her decisions would be bad and bring about unsavoury results. She also knew that some of her actions would bring about positive results. The most important thing she knew was that she had no knowledge of which of her actions would bring which result. This outlook surprised the god. For she did not seem to be advanced enough in her years to understand such worldly matters. He knew which actions would bring her which results but he also realised that she did not wish to have any comprehension of that. He stood as her friend at her wedding watching the man he knew would bring her so much pain lying as he said he would love and cherish her. He did not change the course of her life because it was her wish to live what it brought.

 

Over the years this girl’s husband inflicted many a wound, but she always had her friend to come to. She came into his home and he tended to her pain. He provided her with nourishment and fortitude.  In time her husband was gone and she sat talking to her friend .he revealed his true identity to her and apologised for not using his powers to ease her path through life for allowing her to suffer such pain.

 

She looked bewildered and confused, she asked why he was telling her this. Why he felt the need to bring such a topic up. She asked if he thought she had not known about his powers all of her life. she asked if a friend could be a friend without knowing what they were capable of.

 

In response he asked that if she knew his powers why did she not ask for his help when her life was at its lowest.

 

‘I did, and you tended my wounds and brought me bread’

 

 

Friends

I was reading some random column the other day where someone had decided to have a child fathered by her best friend. This concept dwelled around in my mind for a few days. And I realised I have a great respect for the people involved in that idea. It just seemed like such a more grown up idea that what is fastly becoming the standard relationship method of the 21st century of finding a boyfriend marrying him, having children, see his affections be diverted towards his 18 year old secretary, go through messy divorce that results in children eventually going through the whole same affair when it becomes their turn.

 

Back in days of olde, life was considerably easier. The woman you married became your property to do with as you wished. There was little need for divorce because society put her place as subservient to her husband. In time women were slowly given the rights that they now have. In the earlier parts of the last century the gender gap had significantly closed but the male of the household was still the major bread winner and society still put the woman’s place in the home making bread and babies. A single working woman in that age was something odd someone who didn’t fit. The result of this is that within a few generations there has been a complete sea change in the social structure of human interaction. This has upset the balance that has been the human way for millions of years. This change has happened reasonably over night and I don’t think that society has yet managed to catch up.

 

it is reasonably commonplace now for a woman to put her career above the option of getting married and raising a family. When a woman chooses to make that choice it is not frowned upon it is merely accepted as her choice.

 

And choice has become the keyword of the 21st century, whether it be how our food is grown to which hospital we choose to have open heart surgery performed. Everything we do can be chosen to fit our lives perfectly. Compromise within the consumer society is a very dirty word if it isn’t perfect we throw it away.

 

Yet when it comes to matters of the heart, when it comes to chosing the person who will be our partner in bringing a child into the world compromise is expected. If you find yourself with a partner who is crap in bed, compromise. A partner with a roving eye, compromise. A partner who gets drunk and gets a bit handy, compromise.

 

Last year I spent two months looking for an apartment to rent, I knew I would only be in the place for twelve months at most. Others in the same position took the first place they saw. I stayed in hotels for two months because I didn’t like what I found. Two months of missing dinners so I could go and look at yet another matchbox overlooking a car park. Eventually I found the place I wanted and was there for just 8 months. For me it was worth the wait because when I sat at work I looked forward to going to my apartment because I enjoyed being there. It wasn’t just a box to put my goods and chattels in during weekdays while I was away from my proper home.

 

So I now find myself looking for a woman to share my life with. You really think I’m going to compromise on that? I’m accused of nit picking, of being fussy. so you take three hours in the bathroom every time we go out, right now I’ll think that’s cute in five years time I’ll divorce you for it. I just want to do a little forward thinking. So hell yes I nit pick and I’m fussy.

 

Now I’m not saying I’m looking for a completely flawless woman, I’m not flawless I doubt she will be. I just know myself well enough to have a good idea of what sort of things will always remain cute and which will end with a Decree Absolute. So you watch TV in bed, I may complain about not being able to sleep but when you’re not there I may just put it on because it reminds me of how cute you are.

 

I don’t know how relationships will change in this brave new world of ours but I am pretty confident that they will. I know I would rather the new world of being single and looking for my slice of perfection than the old world of being married and having to put up with compromise. I’m looking for my happiness and nit picking makes me happy.

 

So when I’m looking to father a child again, perhaps next time I will give my best friend a call ‘cause I know she doesn’t spend three hours in the bathroom, and even if she did I’d never have to experience it let alone divorce her over it. 

Clean

I was listening to a radio programme the other day that was talking about the western worlds obsession with cleanliness and discussing how this is a surprisingly modern trait of the human race. For thousands of years we have generally been a filthy bunch. It has only been in the last couple of decades that baths and showers have become the everyday ritual that they are considered now. I can remember having to heat water on the stove in order to have a weekly bath and that was only in the early 80’s. Today however we have become a nation, neigh a whole hemisphere of obsessive compulsives. We take two or three showers per day, and understand that as being quite natural.

This isn’t intended to be knocking the desire we have to be clean, there are fewer simpler pleasures than spending a little time getting ourselves clean. We all have our own personal ritual we go through it becomes a few moments of the day when we can relax and forget the world for a time. However I do wonder whether this desire is borne from an innate biological need to be clean or is it due to some other external influence.  Surely if it was a base desire we wouldn’t have been the filthy creatures that history has proved we have been.

I guess my question here is a curiosity to know where this has come from, in twenty years how have we managed a twenty fold increase in how often we feel the need to bath. Is it simply the constant availability of hot water twinned with the enjoyment we feel from being clean. I think that a large part of it is to do with that aspect of, but there is also the social pressure of needing to be constantly immaculate. If I went into work this morning and declared that I hadn’t bathed that morning would the reaction be that much different than if I had gone into work proclaiming that I had the plague.

The thing I am curious about is how necessary our new found cleanliness is, if we all took to being a slightly less bathed species would we suddenly start contracting the worst of every virus and bacteria that we came into contact with. It is true that our life expectancy has massively improved over the last century is this due to our better understanding of the human body, or is it true that we have bathed ourselves to health? 

There has grown a huge business out of this desire I am unsure of what the price tag would be on value of the associated cleaning market, once all of the products were included from cloth cleaning to toothpaste but I would guess it measured in tens, if not, hundreds of billions. The problem is that once we have any market worth that sort of money it attracts the attention of very clever business people. It is reasonably obvious business sense that to make more money from a product you either need to sell it to more people, or make people use more of it.

From this simple premise it is easy to see how our logic was used against us. Science tells us the dangers that lurk in the unseen for very obvious scientific reason we all understand the need for a surgeon to scrub up before reaching for a scalpel. From this a very treacherous logic is conceived. We say that if a doctor needs to take such meticulous care over being clean then we should mark that as the gold standard to which we should be living our lives.

However the human body has evolved to fend off most of the microorganisms that would conspire to destroy it. All of the entry points in the human body are very well guarded and when something does get through those defences we have an immune system that is exceptionally we versed at removing foreign attackers. The reason a surgeon needs to scrub up is because they are bypassing so many of the body’s defences.

This is where the treachery comes into play we are so obsessed with keeping the unseen from harming us, that our body’s immune system isn’t getting the practise it needs to keep it efficient. The immune system is a muscle that needs to be flexed in order to stop it atrophying and because we are so clean it doesn’t get to work out very often so when a particularly nasty and virulent bug comes along our immune system lacks the skill and the stamina to fight it. Unfortunately it is now getting even worse than that. Whereas previously we simply used soap and water to wash off and clinging bacteria, now we use antibacterial products which leave a chemical residue behind to wage biological warfare on them. While this stuff used to kill any bacteria it came into contact with, the bacteria is now getting wise and learning to cohabit in these toxic micro-landscapes. When these superbugs get into our systems modern medicine doesn’t do a lot for us because we’ve made them immune to it.

I also wonder what the environmental costs of all of these products are. I wonder how many tonnes of chemicals, carbon dioxide and all of those other nasty things we’re told about are used in the manufacture of the goods consumed by the average person when keeping themselves clean. I’ve no idea what the process is for making washing up liquid, for instance, but I would guess it is made in factories that produces an amount of waste products.

I wonder if it would be such a hardship if we were to keep ourselves slightly less clean, would it be such a bad thing to shower half as much as we currently do. To not automatically throw the clothes we take off into the washing machine, but instead see if they could handle another round of wearing before being washed.

Maybe if we could start to realise that we don’t actually need to be so meticulously clean, and realise that in fact we are doing ourselves, and our a future generations, a great deal of harm by breeding new bacteria that can no longer be killed by a simple course of antibiotics and simultaneously weakening our immune systems so that it can’t fight off these superbugs either. If we could realise that a little dirt is the normal operating environment for the human body. That it is required to keep our immune systems working at full capacity. If we could realise these things and stop believing everything we are told by advertisers maybe we can start changing the world we live in. If we could stop believing everything we are told by advertisers and instead started thinking for ourselves then who knows what other benefits we might discover.

What I am ultimately saying is simply that we should take all things into consideration before we do something. If you decide that your own personal values outweigh your personal gain from missing the occasional shower then don’t change that aspect of your life. The only thing I am advocating is making a personal decision based on your understanding of the facts and where you aren’t just being a sheep and doing things because the TV told you to.

 

Growing Pains - Snippets

 

 

The Engagement

 

Family Matters

 

A choice

 

Retribution

 

Amy knew it was inevitable that this night would come, with her growing strength and abilities, she knew she would eventually stand up for herself. It would just take the right combination of events for her to be shocked out of her standing there and taking whatever it was he felt like dishing out to her. Unfortunately it was the hospitalisation of her brother and some extremely bad timing by him that finally pushed her over the edge.

They were out in a wine bar, when her father called and explained that her brother had been shot while on a training exercise and was in hospital on the critical list, he was scheduled for surgery the following afternoon, it was unknown whether he would survive. She said she would be on the first train there the following morning.

She explained to him what had happened and said that she was going to go there the following morning. He remained quiet, as they left the bar, Amy recognised it as him being annoyed and knew he probably wouldn’t speak to her until he got home. Her relationship with her brother had been pretty close, he had always been the archetypal big brother, looking out for her protecting her. Which is why her husband had taken such a quick dislike to him, she knew very well that if he knew what her husband had done to her he would kill him, which was the reason she had lost contact with him like she did. She wanted to protect him from what he would feel obliged to do. Right now though she missed him, she missed his black and white view of the world, she regretted allowing her husband to come between them, and now he was annoyed that she was going to see him. She knew he was going to try to stop her going, but equally she knew there was absolutely no way she was going to allow him to do that. She also had a pretty good idea of what he was going to do to try to stop her and she knew what she was going to do about that. Amy knew a lot of things that night, every word he didn’t say on the drive home made Amy’s clarity of the matter all the clearer. All of the rage and anger she pushed aside for the duration of her marriage had suddenly been thrust into such an overwhelming desire for retribution against him. She breathed in his silence, lingering in these last moments of a chapter of her life because she was full in the knowledge that before the night was out she would be a new woman. She breathed in the silence and felt incredibly sad at the loss of all she used to be.

At home, for what seemed like the longest time, still nothing was said, he sat at the kitchen  table, while Amy tried to work out how to avoid what was about to come. She knew it was inevitable but she just wanted this to stop, for him to just let her go see her brother and be with her family. Quietly sobbing she knelt at her husband’s feet to ask him to not do this. Before she could speak, he pushed her aside, and stood up. Landing against the breakfast bar she tasted the familiar taste of her own blood filling her mouth and the unfamiliar taste of vengeance coursing through her veins.

“you already know you’re not going anywhere, why are you even bothering trying, but don’t worry you’ll be crying for something other than your brother soon, now get up and take what you’re getting”

She raised, and walked to him “I wasn’t crying for him, I was crying for you, but the crying is over now, I’ll never cry for you again, so come on, hit me show me how much of a man you can be”

“You’re not going to talk your way out of this one baby, you’re getting what’s coming” the back of his left hand cracked against her jaw, knocking her slightly off balance.

“is that it? That your best shot baby? Come on I know you can do better than that, maybe you need a little bile to help you along” with that she spat the blood from her mouth into his face “now fucking hit me” after an instant of shock, he wiped the blood from his face then pulled his right arm back to bring a punch to her face. She easily moved out of its path then deflected the left that was following it with her right arm, landing her own left fist sharply into his stomach. He collapsed to the floor, curled up, unable to catch his breath.

“you little fucking whore” came in his gasps between obvious pain

Once again kneeling at his side, stroking his hair, softly whispering “I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry that I let you do this to me, I wish I had been stronger before” he flew his arm out to grab her, she dived back out of reach, returning with a punch into his kidney. “please don’t make this any harder on me, I need to go see my brother, I want to leave now, I want all of this to stop, I don’t want to fight you’

He writhed on the floor for a moment, then turned to face her again “I’ll fucking kill you for this, I promised you that if you ever went against me I would fucking kill you”

She reached out to stroke his hair, he winced away, sliding her fingers against his cheek instead “then you give me no choice baby, I wish you hadn’t made me do this, but I have no choice” taking a fistful of hair she pulled him up to take another handful with her other hand and with the whole weight of her body and every grain of anger she forced his head back down onto the cold granite floor. Unconsciousness slipped from him as his blood seeped across the floor.

 

When he came to, Amy was sat at the breakfast bar, in fresh clothes with a small travel bag on the stool next too her, with a glass of wine, watching him rousing. As he came round enough to look at her she picked the phone up from next to the wine bottle she was drinking, dialled a number and held it to her ear, never taking her eyes from his.

 

“hello, yes can I have an ambulance please... yes... thank you” after a short pause “hello, I need an ambulance my husband is unconscious... yes he has a head injury and a compound fracture to his left leg” he began to rise as he heard this, feeling his skull unsteadily walking towards her, as he got closer Amy stood from the stool, finishing the call she wrapped her fingers around the neck of the wine bottle. “now baby, you are probably going to be in hospital for about a week, should give me enough time to get to see George and make sure he is alright, then I’ll come to the hospital to you, and we will sort things out, and oh yes, before I forget, I need to borrow your car, you don’t mind do you?”

 

The last memory he had of that night was watching the blood pouring from his leg through the wine bottle that was exploding around his face.

Amy picked the bag up, collected his keys from the hook, and walked out, leaving the front door open to allow the ambulance people in. She then drove through the night to be at her brother’s side by morning.

 

Hospitalised

Amy’s estimate of her husband being in hospital for about a week was slightly off, it took three days of intensive care treatment to even make him stable enough to have his leg operated on to reset the bone properly. By the forth day he was regaining consciousness, but still heavily sedated.

On the fifth day Amy arrived to see him, but between the one working eye that he had, the other had required surgery to remove a piece of glass and so was patched up, and the drugs he was on, he it wasn’t until a week after he had been the catalyst to Amy’s metamorphosis that he finally regained enough state of mind to recognise her. Or at least recognise her enough to be able to react.

Since she had come back she had spent pretty much every hour at his side, when she first saw him lying in a hospital bed because of what she had done she felt physically sick through the guilt that had apparently nearly killed her husband. She spent the first day wallowing in the guilt of this thought. Then she thought about all of the times he had hospitalised her, of all of the times he had come close to killing her, she knew that there was no guilt for him, he never came to the hospital to her, he never apologised, when she called him from hospital he didn’t ask if she was ok, just when she was coming home because the housework needed doing.

“how long have you been waiting there?”

“couple of days, you’ve been out of it for a week now, how you feeling”

“pretty shitty”

“ever likely, you took quite a beating it seems”

“feels like it”

“Sure you’ll be glad to know that George is on the mend though”

“well that’s a load off”

“we had quite a heart to heart actually, patched up a lot of bridges that you made me burn”

“I never made you do anything, it was your choice, you wanted to be there”

“yeah I remember the choices you gave me”

“so what do we do now then?”

“I’ve no idea, but you’re not going to be hitting me again”

“looks that way”

“I’ve been sat here wondering for the last couple of days what we should do, I only did this because I wanted you to stop hitting me, I figured if I could stop that, I could get back with the man I was in love with, without all of that shit getting in the way, maybe we could even have kids and have a normal family I could go back to being the good house wife at home, you go out and work, and just live our lives.

“it isn’t going to happen though is it, too much has changed now”

“nothing has changed baby, I’m just not going to let you hit me anymore, I still want you, I still love you”

“yeah it feels like it” rubbing bandages around his head

“you know how many times I’ve lay in this hospital feeling the places that you love me, get over it you’ll be fine in a few days”

“I know”, bringing his eyes to meet hers for the first time, “I know”

“so do you think you could live that life with me?”

“I don’t know,  I don’t know anymore”

“you don’t want me to have your children anymore?”

“we can’t remember, we don’t seem to do that bit very well”

“we don’t do that bit because I had a coil put in”

“you did what! How could you do that to me, you know how much I wanted us to have kids”

“and you know why I didn’t want your kids, but that time of our lives has gone now, it is simple to reverse, another twelve months you could be a daddy”

He lay there in silence, no longer looking at her

“I know you’re scared baby, I know this is all new to you, but it is pretty new to me too, we can make it work if you want it to work”

His silence continued.

“but you don’t want it to work do you, you can’t handle this relationship anymore, because you can’t control it anymore. That heart to heart I had with George, did you know he’s known about what you’ve been doing to me for a few months now? Apparently he guessed it when we went up there last, he told me then that you were a fucking coward, and I didn’t really understand what he meant, thought it was just because he didn’t like you, but he is right, you are a coward, you only want a relationship that you can control with your fists. When I told him what I’d done, he was pissed at me because I hadn’t killed you, told me I should have taken my revenge against everything you’d done to me, he said you’d never want to live a normal life with me, you’d never want to give up your control, I thought you would, looks like I was wrong doesn’t it”

“guess it does”

“so the other thing I’ve been sat here wondering, is what I’d do if you decided you didn’t want to live that life with me, because maybe he’s right about the revenge part to, we’re a vengeful family, I’d hoped I could rise above it, but now I know what you were really about, I’ve no intention of doing so”

“what, so you’re going to kill me now”

“you think that is the worst thing I can do to you! No, I’m not going to kill you baby, you know I’ve always been a big believer in an eye for an eye, so get used to this place, because you are going to be in here a few more times yet”

“don’t talk stupid, you’re not going to do anything of the sort, I’ll leave you, you’ll never get chance”

“ask yourself a question, if I had left you two weeks ago, before this happened, would you have just walked away and left it at that? Or would you have spent every minute you had trying to find me so you could teach me the lesson, so no, you’re not going to leave, you’re going to get yourself all fixed up and you are going to come home to me”

“so you can send me straight back again, sounds fun, can’t wait”

“give me some credit please, beatings don’t hurt after a while, they fade and heal, no we are going to have much more fun, I’m going to give you a taste of some of the pain and humiliation that you have heaped on me, I’m going to have three little sessions with you over the next month, each one will be an example of the worst things you ever did to me, so you know the pain you inflicted, give you something to remember for your next encounter”

“a month?”

“I want to get on with my life, when I’ve finished with you I will tell you to leave, from which point if I ever see you again, I will kill you, I’d suggest you take your brother up on his offer of going to live with him on that farm in Australia”

Again he was silent

“you’re looking pretty tired baby, you’ve a lot to think about, I’m going to go home get showered and things, I’ll come back tonight to see how you are, do you need anything?”

“no, I don’t think so”

Amy got up, kissed him on the forehead, and headed to the door

“Actually, can you ask the nurse to come in, I’m feeling a little queasy”

“sure, see you later baby”

As she closed the door on her husband, she had to take a moment to compose herself, for all her brother had said to her about him being a coward she had desperately wanted him to just accept what had happened and allow them to go back to the way they were before he turned into the monster she married. Before this started he used to be so caring and sweet and kind, and then in a heartbeat he changed to this. She was sad for the fact that she had lost her husband, she was sad for the lengths she had had to go to in order to stop him hitting her. Most of all however, she was sad for the vengeance and need for retribution that she had discovered in herself.

 

She took a deep breath, wiped the tears away, straightened herself up and came face to face with Doc Brown, after the initial startling he gave she felt a wave of shame for the thoughts and actions she was currently in the process of orchestrating. 

“hey there, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you”

“It’s ok Doc, you didn’t, just startled me a little, was away with the fairies a little bit there”

“I noticed, you ok? Anything I can do?”

“no, No, I’m fine thanks.”

“so what you doing here? This is a fair distance away from the accident unit”

“I could ask you the same question! I’m just, urm visiting someone” pointing a thumb over her shoulder to the door she’d just left.

“they’re a little short staffed today, so I’m standing in” he said as he moved closer in order to look through the glass of the door

Amy stood still as The doc came closer to her, for the first time she realised the freedom she had reclaimed, the ability to stand next to another man and enjoy his closeness and his scent, without the subtext of fear beneath it.

“so who’s that?, it’s not” He looked at Amy with a slight raise of his eyebrows “is it?”

“Doc Brown, meet my husband” gesturing an open hand to the door

“he’s in a pretty bad way, what happened to him”

“you know what happened Doc”

“you did that!”

“remember I told you that when I was ready I would sort my life out, well I’m thinking you’re not going to be having much need to patch me up much more”

“I’m sorry to hear that” stumbling over the words as he realised what they meant, “I mean it’s good that you won’t need patching up, but, well...”

“I always said you’re a sweetheart Doc, it’s ok I know what you mean, and I’ll miss you too, you helped me sort my life out a lot, and I’m probably going to be here visiting him for a while yet”

“he isn’t going to be here for much longer, few more days and he’ll be discharged”

Amy stood in silence, unable to speak the thoughts in her head

“you’re planning on doing this again aren’t you? This isn’t over for you is it? Don’t you think it is time to just walk away now, you’ve proved your point, he’s not going to be hitting you again”

“I’m sure he won’t, but I’m equally sure that if I were to leave him now, the first woman he got close enough to he would take his revenge out on her for the humiliation he feels for what I’ve done”

“sure it isn’t about you getting your revenge for the humiliation you’ve felt?”

“can’t it be about both?”

“I know he has put you through pain that I can’t even begin to comprehend, but don’t let him drag you to his level in order to get closure on this for yourself, talk to the police, get him arrested for the things he has done to you, I know your records I’ve seen what he has put you through”

“and the first thing he did when he got out of prison would be to beat another woman up, just to prove to himself that he hasn’t been beaten, that he can still be the man he is”

“so how is that different from what you’re going to do”

“it is impossible to spend an amount of time being beaten up by a person without learning a lot about what sort of person that’s beating you, equally you can spend your life beating somebody and never really know the first thing about who they are, I know my husband, I know what this is about for him, and I know how to purge it from him”

“and what is it about?”

“fear, everything he does is done through fear, but he has never really known real fear so I’m going to introduce him to the fear he has shown me”

“I think you are wrong, but I understand what you are saying, I think that this is much more about your retribution than you are allowing yourself to believe,

“you could be right Doc, but you’ve seen my records, you have seen the things that man has done to my body, I’m sure you can only begin to imagine the things he has done to my mind, so ask yourself this, if somebody had done those things to you wouldn’t you want just a few weeks alone with them for no other reason than to take your revenge for the things they have done. How wrong would retribution be in your eyes under those circumstances”

It was the Doc’s turn to be quiet

“I doubt I could have done this without your support. You’re a good man Doc, that wife of yours is a very lucky woman, she has my envy, Thank you for everything you have done for me, from the bottom of my heart, and with all of my love, I Thank you Andy” and with a kiss on the cheek she walked away. 

 

Now it was time for Andy Brown to compose himself outside that room, as he watched Amy walking away, he took a couple of minutes to ponder her words and went to talk to her husband.

A matter of record

Andy Brown had encountered an uncountable number of abusive husbands in his time, he always felt a little uneasy in their company for some reason that he couldn’t quantify. It was being in the presence of Amy’s husband that finally made him realise how different he saw her. He usually had a degree of animosity towards such men but this man brought forward the vilest of feelings in him. His role as a doctor meant that he should put such feelings aside in all of his professional interactions. He was finding it very difficult to do so at the moment he walked through that door.

“Doctor?”

Talking a deep breath, and shaking the thoughts from his mind “Yes, sorry, it has been a long shift so far” walking over to read his charts “well we’re glad to see you awake now, you’ve had quite a bit of work done the last few days”

“yeah, I’m feeling like it, are things supposed to be hurting this much?”

“after what you’ve been through you’re likely to feel some tenderness for a while yet, are you feeling any particularly sharp pains? Or are they just general aches?”

“Don’t suppose it is anything in particular, just feeling not quite with it”

“you’re on a strong pain killer they will make you very drowsy”

“when would I be well enough to be able to talk to the police?”

Andy hadn’t quite anticipated this question, and it slightly threw his state of mind for a while. “urm well if you are feeling well enough to talk then whenever you feel you want to, I need to do a few tests to make sure there are no signs of brain damage. Don’t worry it is just a formality, is pretty rare that anything actually comes of, but once that is done if you want me to I can inform the police that you wish to speak with them”

“what sort of tests?”

“just a little poking and prodding, questions mostly, nothing invasive”

“then you’re done poking and prodding I would appreciate it if you would inform the police that I would like to speak with them”

“I’ll let them know, now let’s get on shall we, let’s start with the easy one’s, what’s your full name?”

 

 

After the tests Andy Brown went to the reception desk to let them know that a patient wished to speak to the police. While he was filling the paperwork in the local beat officer came in on his rounds around the hospital grounds. “hey Tom, I was just filling in a green sheet for you”

“Hi Andy, can’t you keep hold of it for a while, I’m going off shift in ten minutes, was only coming in so Deirdre could make me a cuppa tea” said with a wink to the girl behind the reception desk

“You’ll be lucky, anyway I’m glad it is you I could do with having a word with you about this one, be good if I could get your ear before go”

Tom took the green form from Andy’s hand  “so what’s wrong with him?”

“he was found at his home with severe head injuries and a compound fracture of the left Tibia, basically took one hell of a beating”

“so he’s going to tell us who did it? Sounds simple enough”

“I’ve no idea what he’s going to tell you, but that is what I want to talk to you about”

“ok, I’m hooked, tell me what you got”

“come across to my office, then let me show you something first”

 

In his office Andy rummaged through a pile of medical records on his desk, slid one out from near the bottom and handed it to Tom. “the medical record of the girl I believe this guy is going to say beat him up”

Tom looked at the front of the record, then at the green slip he still had in his hand “a battered wife then?”

“read the file, I’ll go and get you that cup of tea you wanted”

“that’s bribery you know, but white with two since you’re there”

 

“ok, so they are the facts, now tell me the things I don’t know, you see a thousand battered wives a week, what makes this one so deserving of your attention, is the good Doc playing away a little”

“don’t be absurd, no, I’ve been treating her for a while now, and well” he paused as the memory of the feelings he had when he entered Amy’s husband’s hospital room returned “She’s just a nice girl who fell in with a bad guy”

“yeah yeah Doc and I’m the easter bunny, but if you say so, what’s he doing in here then?”

“she started on some karate lessons a few months ago, I guess she finally decided to start putting them to good use”

“so the courts will take her medical history into consideration, I’m sure she’ll just get a slapped wrist”

“I was hoping you would help it not even get that far”