Dr David Coddingsteine's Anxiety & Mild Distaste

Fire In The Sky

As the sun sets over Calverley, I head up the road to buy a six-pack of Guinness since I have no other ideas. The pumpkins are rotting on my neighbour's front step and the night will soon be alive with the hollow spectacle of corner store fireworks.

Back at the house, I feed the cats and then set up position in the 'sunroom' to watch the last glorious glow of light die slowly in the west. I watch the horizon turn from orange, to red, to purple, and finally to a deep grey-blue. Why do sunsets move me/us so much? I don't think they are romantic. Not to me anyway. They make me feel like The Universe is telling me a bedtime story, kissing me on the forehead, and then quietly turning out the light. I don't sleep, I just lay there feeling the slowly fading sadness of a necessary separation. “I'll see you tomorrow, sleep tight.”

The guy with the white beard who lives in the bungalow down the hill at the back of our house is building his annual pile of wood and other miscellaneous combustibles. It is already much taller than him, and he just keeps building. That thing's gonna burn up real pretty later tonight.

Now he is walking back to the house. The light is fading fast and I guess that he might be done. Will he have a set time to ignite? Or will he just wait for darkness and a Right kind of feeling?

I picture him sat in his living room, still wearing his padded blue body warmer. Staring at the wall, twitchy, alert, waiting. His wife walks into the room, “now?”

“No. Not yet.”

“When?”

“Soon. Just... not yet.”

“How will you know?”

“I'll know.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“I'm waiting for it to be... Right.”

Meanwhile, I sit here, listening to Counting Crows and quietly anticipating an evening of flames licking at the sky and fools sending up cheap, pathetic rockets and bangers.

And now he's lit the bugger!

And there it goes. Flames, taller than my house. Sparks drift overhead and towards me. I see him, standing in the dark shadows on the edge of firelight. Circling. Watching. Perhaps imagining to govern. The spectacle is enthralling. The energy being released is intoxicating. Creation and destruction. Like a slow motion choice. The consequences. Unstoppable. Raw. Visceral. By some coincidence, another neighbour or kid in the street sets off a pitiful fizz-pop of a banger, perfectly juxtaposed to this flaming, continuing majesty. Like throwing a spear at an atom bomb.

It is 17:46 and the night is already almost perfect.

34.

And then one day you wake up and you're 34 years old, you've had three strokes, it is weeks since you last drank coffee, you sort of have a job as a writer, you have a beard, the house is full of cats, and the smell of the things which come out of cats, it's Autumn and what the trees are doing feels right, post comes through the door and adds things to your 'to-do' list, you don't watch television but not for lack of trying, you feel as if you are accomplishing nothing yet everyone keeps telling you that you need to take it easy, you have a wife whom is either asleep or at work, the cats are hungry, water is important, sleep is occasional and short, the boy dressed as a farmer behind the meat stall at the deli market has a facial piercing, everybody on Facebook is complaining or having children or complaining about their children, and you have no children, the emails are backing up, the washing machine needs emptying, the clocks have changed yet keep tick-tick-ticking, when you get drunk you cry, and when you cry you laugh, everyone is out and you choose to stay in, the lights are off and you make do, you are waiting for nothing yet something is missing, all of your arguments have been made before, you are useless and not improving, survival seems a pitiful excuse for patience, music is too broad a medium to consider, the books remain unread, it's half past two on a Sunday afternoon and you are still wearing your dressing gown.

34. Just 34. You never planned for this and have no idea what to do. You have no desire for making children or raising children or being in the company of children. Your useful years are fading fast. If you don't start to win a few races it's going to be hard to justify all of this feed.

You never planned to be 34.

You never planned to be 24.

You are still in your dressing gown.

The Supply Chain

The brutal honesty of a cat

killing a mouse

 

For food

for play

for a token of love or respect

 

Here I sit

craving distraction

hacking at keys of plastic

made of petrochemicals

from a far off land

 

My comfort and ease

built by the lowest bidder

is fed by the exploitation

of those no less deserving

than me

 

We want bigger televisions

bigger penises

faster internet

more free texts

better celebrities

bigger tits and smaller waists

 

We crave love and adulation

but offer us honest reality and you can fuck off

 

We argue over the right

to murder our burglars

Never considering the homeless

on our own streets

 

We search supermarkets

for the cheapest meat

Never imagining that it was once

as alive as us

 

we flee

the brutal honesty of a cat

killing a mouse

 

Our smiles and fat arses

fed and inflated

engorged with blood

 

My television is big

my internet is fast

my heroes are dead

there is little to be done about my penis

We are all the end of a supply chain

 

and cats don't smile

 

Leaves In The Gutter

Most stories end

without ever being told

 

A scream in a locked room

A shoe left in the woods

A cat run over in the night

and found by a drunk at dawn

 

The murder victims

not young enough

not pretty enough

not white enough

for the papers to try to make you care

 

We are standing on piles of rocks

our eyes closed

screaming our names

like it meant something

 

We want to be heard

have much to say

but no understanding

of how to say it

 

Our thoughts are lazy

our opinions built of fear

Our politics built of debris

in the dark

 

We understand history

as a collection of names

dates

locations

 

Nobody really wants

to go down in history

 

we just want to be heard

to have it noted

that the atoms

the energy

our parents tears and sweat

the desperately long chance

that we might ever exist

were not in vain

Be Nice

Years spent wallowing in my own bullshit

taken to the edge

by my own bullshit

an immunity grows

a distaste settles in

a hypersensitivity

an intolerance

to nonsense

 

Like a war veteran recognising

the brutality of a fisherman

and the misguided idealism

of the peace protester

 

In a society so dedicated to positivism

where gaudy parrots are 'artists'

knowledge and inquiry are suspect

age is a sin

the stench of denial is undeniable (ha!)

 

Where people are so invested

into their own myths and legends

created daily

on the hoof

as emerging crises demand

 

A man sat

quietly saying the truth

out loud

as simply as he can

will be hated

accused of aggression

 

Your inability to ignore

the bullshit

Your inability to breathe

underwater

Your inability to deny

the obvious

will forever require

that they call you mean

grumpy

cynical

aggressive

no fun

 

Learn to be blind

Learn to be deaf

Learn to be stupid

Learn to deny

Learn to breathe underwater

and swallow the bullshit

whole

raw

 

They might love you again

I Am Almost Always Wrong

She is deaf to my words

spoken

written

my meaning

I am mean

 

she does not see the world that I see

I hope she never does

 

I do not see the world that she sees

I bet it is beautiful

 

I am an empty bucket

carried through burning streets

 

An absurdity

a mockery

an insult

a persevering perversity

 

She is deaf to my words

With a little luck

she always will be

The Best Lesson That I Ever Forgot

Sitting on a short wall outside Kirkstall Lane Medical Centre

the rush hour is creeping by

seething

every face depresses me

I know the expression

have worn it many times

the hunger

the race

the hollow futility

 

I miss the first few days after my strokes

I had to give up

I had to let it all go

Stopped caring

the hunger felt foolish

pointless

blind

misguided

 

Now,

I am starting to remember

I don't want to go back

I don't want to forget

how stupid this all is

I ate my humble pie

then

unfortunately

digested

and shat it out

Like a revelation

 

As passing as a temporary blockage

in the blood flow to an important region of the brain

my brain

the old enemy

it used to be mood imbalances

and anxiety attacks

now my vestibular system has walked out

some sort of industrial action due to poor pay and conditions

 

The worst week of my life

taught me one of the most important lessons

I had been paying lip service

all along

but never subscribing to

 

All of our day-to-day hungers

our posturing

Our striving to gain, achieve, elevate, be

 

A race with no possible podium

 

We will all have to face this lesson one day

the day you lose everything

It feels so obvious, simple

stark

 

Now my brain wants me to jump right back on the horse

and beat the shit out of it

 

I can't go back to being as unhappy as I was

 

Standing in line

running on the spot

wanting to be different

and doing everything the same

 

Sitting in traffic

“Don't let that guy pull out

kindness is weakness

never forget this is war

your situation does not define you

like it does all of these other idiots

doing the same pointless things that you do”

 

I watch the world

that I am trying to get healthy enough to rejoin

Like a condemned man watching a hanging

I want to run

but can't

I want to scream

but don't

Real Men Die In The Woods

Where does that path go?

We owe it to ourselves to find out

 

I stagger through shade

sudden sunlight

and more shade

arms to my face

protecting eyes from branches

and ferns

not helping my balance much

 

I find the canal

and humans

humans with their humans

and humans with their dogs

 

I am wrong for this scene

young

alone

staggering awkwardly

no human

no dog

 

I sit on a bench by the canal

the dog walkers pass

I greet them

too loudly

I imagine them memorising my description

for the police

 

Yes, he had a beard

black hoody

light green trousers

black trainers

he kept staring

and he walked like he was about to fall over

no, he wasn't drinking

but he may have been

 

I'm not drinking

I have not been drinking

not for days

I wish that I was

 

Tired of being weird

I clamber up to a path through the woods

above the canal

so clean

so rigid

so man-made

 

I stop at a bench

sit looking down at the canal

from the woods

 

I sing a bit of 'Wichita Lineman'

under my breath

and almost hold it together

a dog rounds the bend

I brush away the tears before the humans see me

They pass

and the sun shines in through the trees

 

With a little whisky and a gun

a man might never have to leave this place

 

I tell myself that this would be a good place

to stop all of the nonsense

 

Every man deserves to die alone

surrounded by beauty

 

If you are going to lose everything

you may as well have everything to lose

 

I struggle to my feet

continue along the path

through the woods

the flying insects watch me

the squirrels don't run

 

Watching my feet

I see a wasp crash into a fallen leaf

then bounce a couple of times

buzz unsteadily back into the undergrowth

 

“Season's nearly over for you, fella”

I laugh

should that be my line or his?

 

Back in the park

the dog walkers stride purposefully

to their cars

as I stumble through the dead leaves

the diseased trees

back to my cave

 

I tell myself

“We should do this every day”

Notes From Ward 21

Sunday 18/09/11

Leeds General Infirmary – Ward 21, Bed 26

11:30

There is a red folder on the wheeled table

this is my story

the nurses, the doctors

they come by

they read it

they add to it

they hit me with hammers

ask me why I'm here

ask me if my bowels have been opened

bend my legs, my arms

smile, tell me it's not too bad

write in the red folder

my story

then they are gone

and I look out of the window.

 

11:42

“Nurse!”

Frightened old men, we

“NURSE!”

The young, patient women

they putter around us

cleaning up vomit

and the rest

“NURSE!”

I used to work in a kennels

there were quiet dogs

there were loud dogs

we walked them

we fed them

we cleaned their mess

and took their bites

today is Sunday

and I am feeling like a quiet dog

 

13:40

The concrete towers

the spires and hospital roofs

caked thick with bird shit

and the city's grime

I sit here with Ken

and the city shows us its bald spot

Ken is choking on his own lungs

my left arm is numb, clumsy

I sit here with Ken

as our bodies succumb to the realities of time and entropy

the city peers in

through our grime caked window

busy, complicated, unaffected

 

14:25

Ken's wife is visiting

asking him questions

telling him stories

Ken doesn't know what day it is

he gurgles out answers

chokes and pukes

and she responds with the same level tone with which she just recounted how cousin Jean really enjoyed her lamb shank last night

I need that steely will

maybe it comes from having babies

I wonder if they have kids

I wonder if Ken remembers

 

16:55

Dozing whilst waiting for my dinner

I listen to them try to put a feeding tube into Ken's stomach

through his nose

he keeps choking and puking

“Nice big swallow for me!”

Ken gasps for breath

“Nice big swallow!”

Ken gets his dinner before me

My evening is about to get a lot worse

 

Wednesday 21/09/11

13:05

“Hey, pal”

“Hey?”

“What's that guy called? That doc I was just talking with?”

“I don't know”, I smile “I've talked to him at least four times and I still don't know his name”

“ I know, they always tell you at the start, but...”

“We could do with a chart on the wall with names and faces. Then, when they ask which doctor talked to you, you could just point at the chart.” 

We get a lot of interested parties on Ward 21

we generally have to guess their rank by how casual their clothes are

or the ratio of information asked to information given 

Our lives tend to consist of extended periods of unnatural stability. When upheaval comes, it is shocking, unsettling (obviously), disorienting. The mind clenches its teeth and holds out for calm. There is a natural tendency to accept, grasp, cling to the next stable reality which we are offered. We can only be happy if given the means and possibility of accurately predicting what may come next.

 

Thursday 22/09/11 13:48

Yesterday they were falling over themselves to get me onto this trial. The paperwork said that there would be no change in my care. Before signing up, I got my asprin with breakfast. It is now an hour after lunch and I have yet to be offered any anti-platelets.

 

Saturday 24/09/11

08:48

Nice

kind

friendly

caring

sociable

pointless

functional

playing the game

not touching the stove

 

08:50

Ken moved out and Steve moved in

Steve was a big drinker

big smoker

that's what they said

I think I drank more than him

but I don't smoke

so we're even

Steve moved out

Last night they brought in John

as I was finishing my walk

He's frightened

confused

alone

in denial?

“what have you given me?!”

The rest of the room is on heavy painkillers

I feel the need to be the welcoming party

My family and friends are coming round later

I don't want anyone to see me here

I wonder what John's friends will be like

 

09:12

Sat here like a bearded ponce

reading Bukowski

Googling “anti platelets” and “ sanatorium”

it's nearly time to shuffle to the shower

 

09:25

John is singing under his breath

sounds like “ We Are the Champions”

Yes we are, John

yes we are

Now: “We Will Rock You”

he couldn't tell the nurses his name

or what year it is

but he can whisper a mean Freddie Mercury

Brian May was (and is) an astrophysicist

no person is as they first appear

 

09:45

If your intention is to write:

you should read

unless you are already very good

N.B. You are not already very good

 

13:28

John is rude and mental (the bad kind)

 

21:37

I am almost completely convinced

John will try to kill Alex in his

sleep tonight

or me

hopefully not me

I'd much prefer to be the hero

of this piece

rather than victim

Sleeping in the same room with a frightened, hostile, cornered animal

a new adrenaline sport

is this what jail is like?

Sleep tight, lads

 

Sunday 25/09/11

 07:47

John made it to the door

then ran out of hand supports

now he's sitting in Ryan's chair

being creepy, next to Ryan

Alex was vomiting when I woke up

I looked over, and John was sat on the side of his own bed

watching

I thought I saw a smile

 

08:38

I have a bookmark

a rooftop scene of Oxford University

lots of points directed straight at the sky

My hospital window shows mostly flat roofs

modern, contemporary

the only points are the churches

why did ancient architects want to point at the sky so much?

“We bring glory to God by making a stick and jabbing Him with it.”

If I had a god, I would build it a bouncy castle

and a giant sponge

so that he/she/it might be able to wash itself

that would be my love

(what about the chimneys and mobile network transmitters?)

 

09:09

Marla

Marla is our fault

our selfish vanity

somebody saw a cat and wanted a 'best of' compilation

Stupid fucks

 

In-breeding took her straight walk

and her good sense

and her ability to breathe inconspicuously

Marla is what happens when you try to capture and control beauty

'the law of unintended consequences'

She is brave

she is beauty

she is bones and fluff

she is our fault

Stupid fucks

Marla, I'm sorry

 

12:45

The nurses are spooning ice cream

into John's face

then he leans and regurgitates on the floor

“You can't do that!”

well he just did

John should be on a psychiatric ward

stroke

or no stroke

he can't function

he looks sad and scared

I wish I could be so honest

 

12:52

My slippers have ears

my slippers have eyes

my books have teeth

our beds have wheels

 

16:15

Barry is loud this afternoon

“Hairbrush! Fuckin' hairbrush!”

pause

“Bastards! FUCKIN' BASTARDS!”

Nurse: “What's going on? What do you want, Barry?”

“Hairbrush!”

pause

“BASTARDS!”

 

Monday 26/09/11

They came in the night

swapped out Ryan for Dominic

said Dominic was 'high risk'

needed the bed

Ryan's supposed to be going home anyway

so they moved him to Ward 90

“Where the fuck is Ward 90?”

Dominic was young too

he couldn't see

I think it must have been a recent thing

stroke?

We all complained

then tried to sleep

I woke to Alex's cries:

“Get the Hell off him!”

Dominic had attacked John

slashed his face

So they swapped Dominic for Mr Mistry

Apparently all you need to do to get a private room is physically assault another patient

John shouldn't even be on this ward

he's been here over two days

but there's no doctors at the weekend

so he just gets the nurses shouting at him

to eat and drink and shit and take his medication

now his face is cut

this is healthcare

I need to go home

I don't want to be a vandalised

bus stop

nobody saw it happen

but everyone sees the glass

as they walk or drive past

on the way to a job they hate

 

10:45

They are trying to fit John with a canula

he's not here

or can't get here from there

they talk slower and repeat

“just relax, just one second”

in my mind, John is me

and I am John, projecting outside of his body

mind, fear

like drugs

finding a way to separate

put things at arms length

or into another bed

is John my Tyler Durden?

or am I his?

I don't like taking music to parties

Music sits in the corner

While I write it love notes

Sometimes we talk

Sometimes we argue

Some days I wish it would just shut up

 

I sit in the corner

Music throws stuff at my head

Sometimes kittens

Sometimes lit cigarettes

Some days I don’t care which

 

When I wake up it’s with me

Music is following me to work

Sometimes it’s fun

Sometimes a distraction

Sometimes I just wish I had a choice

 

On my daily ride at the cliff top

I’m being pushed from behind

Hungers and melodies

Hooks and obsessions

Unsure if I’m even steering

 

Lying awake, my mind has sound

So much I can’t think straight

Peace has no ears

Clarity no evocation

Life will finish on a song