Down since Friday night. Down deep and dirty and distressed. Down among the deadmen. Swine Flu at least. Swine Flu at last. After weeks of their predictive text and schadenfreudige malice the Yellow Press and the Talking Skulls have convinced me. I am, no doubt about it and totally gan amhras, a goner a goner a goner. So I am. Soon my bones and still palpitating heart will lie and fester deep beneath the soggy bogland turf shadowed by willow herb and yellow gors
e, mummifying gently to the dun consistency of a soda bread crust. I shall metamorphosize. I hear the siren song of Kafka calling me through fever and nightmare to a far worse place than this. I shall become the Bog Man of Curryaun. It is the Man Flu I have! It is surely the Bog Man Flu!
Flashback: The Nuisance Factor
Humans were too hard to approach. They were like monkey trees. Too prickly to hug, let alone climb on. He searched for gods. They were supposed to understand. But they were prone to disease. There was a dead leaf,
rimed with frost, lying on the earth like a diamond brooch. He reached to pick it up. It crumbled coldly between his fingers. It had been stuck to the ground. Like the old trick with a penny glued to the pavement. He walked on, coldness in his chest, disappointed.
That winter sickness returned.
He had been calling out for a long time.
Eventually she gave in and fetched the wireless. He listened from deep within his bed to the grudging footsteps labouring up the stairs.” You are such a nuisance! Such a nuisance.” She made room among the books and medicine bottles. The sun shone very brightly outside. It cauterized the wound. It was blue hot, like an acetylene torch across the sky. He wondered if the trees would burst into flame. She does not believe in my sickness. I am in the way. Even up here in bed, out of the way, I am in the way. He did not voice the words. They formed internally, each like a dark crystal laid down to age. The wooden stairs groaned again under his mother’s displeasure. They fell silent. She was gone. Only her reproach remained. He waited. He watched a sharp beam of sunlight inch like a scalpel across the bare boards from the window. It cut into the chair by the bed and rose towards him. Only when it reached the wireless did he stretch out his arm and switch on the programme.
He was ill until the spring. When the snow was all gone and the Maple sap started rising they said he was well. When the summer came he was allowed out into the sunshine again.
Sometimes it was hard to bear, the sweet smoothness of the sunshine. He sat back on the grass and the stream gurgled and splashed among the bulrush stems and flexed its green muscley arms over the reeds. There were four frogs linked together with white string and tied loosely to one of the stems. They had given up trying to escape. They had been there for three days. They sat on the cress beds and waited dully like prisoners in the death cell. He was the slave master now. He wondered if he should kill them or let them go. He listened to the peaceful flow of the water. After a while he dozed off. He awoke to a sharp blow in his side and pain and another blow and more pain. “You disgusting little brat!” He was being kicked and slapped by three big girls in hiking boots. Another boot winded him. He scrambled up. They were too big to fight. He couldn’t even have reached their hair. He spat defiantly over the nearest sweater with all the brown snotgob he could dredge from his sinuses and ran off across the meadow planning revenge.
“Do not bring snakes home again!” He had never seen his father angry like this before. It was a revelation. Was i
t fear? The axe rose and fell three times. The blade sank deep into the turf of the lawn with a chunk chunk chunk. The snake wriggled away in three directions at once like the Holy Trinity disguised as an earth worm. “You could have been bitten! That’s a water moccasin! They are extremely dangerous!” He did not think it was a water moccasin. Did they even have them in Quebec? He didn’t think so. It was just a grass snake with big teeth. It wasn’t even aggressive. It had been easy to catch. He’d stood on it and put his noose around its neck and lifted it up on a stick like a fish on a fishing rod. It had lived in a shoe box. It hadn’t seemed to mind, after objecting a little at the start. It slept most of the time. It didn’t do enough to make an interesting captive. He had even thought of letting it go. That was the Royal prerogative. He’d only brought it home to frighten his sister. Now it was too late. He put the pieces on a shovel and took them to the orchard to bury. He should have known better than to bring it into the house. It belonged in his world, not theirs. His father was a pastor. He did not understand cruelty.
e, mummifying gently to the dun consistency of a soda bread crust. I shall metamorphosize. I hear the siren song of Kafka calling me through fever and nightmare to a far worse place than this. I shall become the Bog Man of Curryaun. It is the Man Flu I have! It is surely the Bog Man Flu!Flashback: The Nuisance Factor
Humans were too hard to approach. They were like monkey trees. Too prickly to hug, let alone climb on. He searched for gods. They were supposed to understand. But they were prone to disease. There was a dead leaf,
rimed with frost, lying on the earth like a diamond brooch. He reached to pick it up. It crumbled coldly between his fingers. It had been stuck to the ground. Like the old trick with a penny glued to the pavement. He walked on, coldness in his chest, disappointed.That winter sickness returned.
He had been calling out for a long time.
Eventually she gave in and fetched the wireless. He listened from deep within his bed to the grudging footsteps labouring up the stairs.” You are such a nuisance! Such a nuisance.” She made room among the books and medicine bottles. The sun shone very brightly outside. It cauterized the wound. It was blue hot, like an acetylene torch across the sky. He wondered if the trees would burst into flame. She does not believe in my sickness. I am in the way. Even up here in bed, out of the way, I am in the way. He did not voice the words. They formed internally, each like a dark crystal laid down to age. The wooden stairs groaned again under his mother’s displeasure. They fell silent. She was gone. Only her reproach remained. He waited. He watched a sharp beam of sunlight inch like a scalpel across the bare boards from the window. It cut into the chair by the bed and rose towards him. Only when it reached the wireless did he stretch out his arm and switch on the programme.
He was ill until the spring. When the snow was all gone and the Maple sap started rising they said he was well. When the summer came he was allowed out into the sunshine again.
Sometimes it was hard to bear, the sweet smoothness of the sunshine. He sat back on the grass and the stream gurgled and splashed among the bulrush stems and flexed its green muscley arms over the reeds. There were four frogs linked together with white string and tied loosely to one of the stems. They had given up trying to escape. They had been there for three days. They sat on the cress beds and waited dully like prisoners in the death cell. He was the slave master now. He wondered if he should kill them or let them go. He listened to the peaceful flow of the water. After a while he dozed off. He awoke to a sharp blow in his side and pain and another blow and more pain. “You disgusting little brat!” He was being kicked and slapped by three big girls in hiking boots. Another boot winded him. He scrambled up. They were too big to fight. He couldn’t even have reached their hair. He spat defiantly over the nearest sweater with all the brown snotgob he could dredge from his sinuses and ran off across the meadow planning revenge.
“Do not bring snakes home again!” He had never seen his father angry like this before. It was a revelation. Was i
t fear? The axe rose and fell three times. The blade sank deep into the turf of the lawn with a chunk chunk chunk. The snake wriggled away in three directions at once like the Holy Trinity disguised as an earth worm. “You could have been bitten! That’s a water moccasin! They are extremely dangerous!” He did not think it was a water moccasin. Did they even have them in Quebec? He didn’t think so. It was just a grass snake with big teeth. It wasn’t even aggressive. It had been easy to catch. He’d stood on it and put his noose around its neck and lifted it up on a stick like a fish on a fishing rod. It had lived in a shoe box. It hadn’t seemed to mind, after objecting a little at the start. It slept most of the time. It didn’t do enough to make an interesting captive. He had even thought of letting it go. That was the Royal prerogative. He’d only brought it home to frighten his sister. Now it was too late. He put the pieces on a shovel and took them to the orchard to bury. He should have known better than to bring it into the house. It belonged in his world, not theirs. His father was a pastor. He did not understand cruelty. “Worms are female and male all at once.
Hermaphrodite is the scientific term.
You can tell that I'm right
By their bath-towels at night:
One says Him and the other says Herm.
Thus though a Worm may seem ugly and shunned
By the Ladies, he don’t seem to mind.
When he’s left on the shelf he makes love to himself.
I might add, though, that most worms are blind.
Worms! Worms! Dying to meet you!
Worms! Worms! Waiting to eat you!
Worms!”
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