Truths of Old

a window of untold opportunities - Choose your poison. Pick an action. You :

Page 64 - conscientiously burn a cd for your colleague
Page 16 - lasciviously, hedonistically write a journal entry.

You chose to Write. Go to page 88

*****
Masque

I catch myself doing it again.
Walking down the sidewalk by her side listening to her ranting without pause, the tides of anger swelling and ebbing irritably within the windswept sea of her mind I, staring dead ahead at the word before me - burble and grunt in sympathy.

"Yes! Yes...that's it" She flutters in response to my measured interjection.

Hold up. The word chose me dammit. It just leaked out. What did I say again?

Hold up. What were we talking about, anyhow?

if you had a choice between losing your visual world, or losing your audio world : which would you pick? (borrowed from vaya)

How about if we up the ante a little. If you had the same choice... but added losing your wits. Which, then? Sight, sound, or reason?

Sigh. Seeing too many oldies lately methinks.

Funny

Matrix XP

well. I think it's funny, anyhow. There. Meant to do that for the longest time.

Excerpt

Her lips were moving. She was, Maurice realized, making up a story out of it.

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

giggle.
Is anyone else reminded of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH?

Deja vu

Whilst referring a 59 year old woman with vagueness and a 2 day hx of headache to the pretty blonde, we realise that we have Tuesday, March 02 in common (scroll down or search for) when she accepts the patient and laughs about being paranoid after the last person she admitted who collapsed on the ward, and that she'll run this by her reg for immediate CT scan. And it's the same reg on call, and the same admitting team too!

Then, unbidden, she remembers - oh. And it was you who referred, wasn't it?

Click. Yes.

I remember my own guilt at the time. Why hadn't I moved for urgent CT? Maybe if I had, he wouldn't have collapsed in the toilet and died 2 hours later on the ward.

Rational retrospective hindsight revealed this to be false to me. There was no indication for an immediate CT since he appeared stable, and an urgent transfer to a london hospital for coiling would probably have resulted in him dying during the transfer, or on the table. 2 hours is too short a timeframe to organise neurological intervention in the middle of the night.

Looking into her eyes, I couldn't help but see the same sadness and guilt that I had felt then. Magnified a hundred fold.

How much worse it must have been for her. Her patient. Her accepted referral - her responsibility. Her ward. Her (sensible!) decision to save the CT for the morning.

Silent pause.

Me : "It was unfortunate".

She : "Yes, it was".

Unwell

Gra. Arg.

My throat feels like it's being sanded down by a lunatic housewife working on seven-year encrusted saucepans. (ie, mine)
My head is exploding from my oropharynx out. Whimper.

Aspav (soluble aspirin) provided complete and immediate relief.
For all of 15 minutes. Groan.

Moan, groan.
Well, on the bright side, Blogger has unexpectedly regurgitated the entry it ate yesterday when I hit the "post" button. Not tasty enough for you, eh?
Bizarrly, my computer at home couldn't see it. But the hospital computers do...
The truth is out there. Trustno1.
******

He reads. And is moved.
It is masterfully written. The tempo and form; the tone and flavour. Exquisitely crafted.
But there is something more. The human touch. Personal.
A lingering aftertaste.

He smiles to himself.

One of his lifelong ambitions, his obsessive quest in life - has been to endeavour to walk in the light.

Thank you.

Fight or Fright

Doctor, could you come and see this patient in resusc, she's just arrived.

But I'm doing something el... oh all right then. (I'm nice that way, sometimes)

hello there, how are you doing. Oh dear. you don't look very well. Short of breath huh, sudden onset.

patient gasps desperately with resp rate 40 and SaO2 82%. Crackling +++ audible even over the nebs the nurse applied on arrival.

oh. a sickie. Big deal, been there, done that. Probably CCF. look at her swollen calves +++.

A - gasping for breath, speaking clearly
B - SaO2 82% on 15L, Crackles throughout both fields with mild wheeze. RR 40
C - b/p 190/100 HR 80
CXR stat, iv access stat, 40 frusemide.
ABG taken. dum dee dum. twiddle thumbs waiting for ABG. nurse could you get me some diamorph and a bit more 40 mg frusemide please.
patient still sliding slowly. SaO2 80%

PO2 6. (corrected, 5)
SIX.
PCO2 6. (corrected, 6)
SIX!!

quick another 80 mg fruse.
ug. no response.

Oh. f*ck. SaO2 77%. Despite 160 mg frusemide.
CXR florid pulmonary oedema
panic. blase-ness melts away. Sudden premonitions of a cardiorespiratory arrest in resusc. On my shift. With me being the doctor in charge at the moment... groan.
Zip out of resusc to find the resusc nurse - need help right now. Need CPAP and ITU now please. The medical SHO is standing nearby. It's the pretty blonde one... but who gives a s*it - at the moment my patient is sliding, and fast.
I show her the ABG and she mouths a most unladylike expletive, before telling me to do pretty much everything I've just done, as well as suggest GTN infusion. (doh. I hadn't got that far before I zipped out for help...)
anyhow, after a lot of headless chickens running about (GTN? We've run out! in A&E. groan) the ITU reg comes along to see her.

and of course the second he starts talking to her the frusemide kicks in, delayed action 10 min later and her sats come up to 80. 85. 94%

Phew.
Funny how when it happens it so doesn't feel like ER, innit?

Funny also how you spend nights as a med student on call waiting patiently for moments of excitement which never arrive. Yet when you're an on-call doctor you can never get away from it all.

Crossed Swords

He kneels in the clearing with a hand steadying his sword in its scabbard, eyes downcast, lost in quiet contemplation.
The ground all around him : an even, unblemished blanket of pristine-white snow awash in the flood of broad, unbridled daylight.
The air on his face is crisp, and cold.
Silence forms a feathered duvet of absolute stillness, broken only infrequently by the nearly imperceptible thuds of tears of thawing dewdrops falling from the boughs of trees, crying in the dawn.

Awakening the senses.

He knows this place. He has been here before. Or somewhere very like it.
He has chanced upon places that reminded him of here, and turned back from the shades that haunted him. The shades in his mind.

He has vowed never to actively seek this place again, but simply to walk where his feet carried him, cast to the winds.

The irony of chance has led him a dance, back. To this place.
He knows this place.

An enormous clearing in the midst of the forest, sealed from the outside world on all sides by trees. A place that gives solitude to the mind fraught with the chaos of reality and the ugliness of the Everyday.

He has been here, once before.

The chill air settles in a loving embrace over his armour, attracted by its warmth. His armour, weathered steel, the burnish battered and scratched with the passage of time and battle, but whole and intact, integrity maintained. No gleaming, polished plate of a handsomely regal knight, this. No marks, no sigils, no standards of the cavaliar. Undecorated. Plain and dull, but sufficient to stop a blow. Armour.

He kneels with his head cocked slightly to one side, listening to the silent debate playing out within the courtroom of his mind.

Voices. Not mere whispers. The inner voices we all share, that daily seek to remind us who we are.

Neither guiding, nor leading astray - right and wrong, are the consequences of the interpretations and decisions we make, after hearing out our voices. As he is doing now.

There are footprints in the snow. A single pair of footprints, leading away from him towards the far side of the clearing.

Absently, he traces one with his fingertips.

Finally, he rises to his feet with a slight, single nod to himself in silent acquiescence, loosens his sword in his scabbard and begins to walk.
Warily measured steps crunch regularly in the snow.

Eyes alive now, look about you. Look lively. Listen lively. Drink the air.

Do not rush in, where angels fear to tread.
*****
Exotic + 10

This one sparkles. She engages. She parries and ripostes with ease. She spars with him verbally, matching, pacing, countering. Taking the offensive. And he cannot help but to laugh.

And all his previous - half a lifetime's - assumptions prove to be, completely incorrect.
This reminiscent not-quite stranger does not hurt him, in her similarity to the spectre from his Past.

He does not find himself appraising or comparing her with his yardsticks of habit. Nor does he find himself thrown back into his past. As he notices the similarities, he does not feel jars of sadness and reminiscence. Nor does he feel stabs of joy. He simply cannot help but to notice. And occasionally, to wonder at their being, at all. (Unknown, unknown, move swiftly on)

He finds himself wanting to know more about this not-quite stranger - not merely about every similarity to his Past. Not even every degree of concordence to Before.
Nor is he consumed with the need to discover an anti-concordence to his past. To find a way of losing his memories, in difference. (Indifference) To prove the age-old adage: opposites attract. (His past is present in his mind, but it does not sadden him now - learn from the mistakes. Don't just watch and listen. Don't just be the one thinking "Oh. I was thinking that, how strange" - speak occasionally. Take the words from her mind, before she does from mine. Share. Dance.)

He wants to know simply more, about her. To discover every contour of her mind, every curve of her spirit. Every turn of her thoughts. Every taste of her humour. Every nuance of speech. Every touch of her soul.
Every corridor, every closed door.

Not for a particular reason. Not for any specific outcome.
The road ahead is confusing enough.
But simply, just for Now. Because Now is precious.

How long, one wonders, does it take to know all about someone?

He must meet her again.
******

ER

Re-minisce has somehow tricked the ATLS coordinators into passing him, by the skin of his teeth. It wasn't easy, oh no-no. Cleared on the second hurdle. Slow, deep breaths.

So now I'm fully qualified, and equipped to take any trauma call, and lead it - with confidence.

Until all this info in my head leaks away anyhow. Which will be tomorrow.

Pause.

Was that really me who scored 37 / 40 in the MCQ. wow.
******

In other news, beautifully warm and sunshiney today. Winter? What winter!

Speed Read

3 chapters to go. Argh! ATLS... groan. brain in shambles. info overload.

Circle in the Sand

It seems the ATLS course comes complete with free and lavish dinners pegged to the end of the day.
After ten hours of (stimulating! exciting! fascinating!!) lectures, though. I don't have the energy. To socialise over a dinner.

Too tired.
Must. Finish. Last 6 chapters in manual.

3 hours of sleep is a bad thing.

*****
Why couldn't med school have been this well taught? Learning can be fun! Even ten hours of lectures. Amazing.

I should have read the whole damn manual last week. sigh.

*****
He had actually become quite accustomed to the daily flow of thoughts, and little laughs. The reprieve feels... strange.
He wonders quietly at the silence - too much info, perhaps.

*****
The Reaper's Shade

Death has never really held sway over me. It's not that I feel young and immortal, or that I don't feel like I belong in Death's domain. If anything, I often feel old. heh.

I've just never really feared it. One suspects it has to do with, once upon a time, losing oneself.

Were the moment to come, I felt, I would face it down with quiet resignation. But with my head held high. A Graceful death. Even if it was going to be messy. Or painful.

And there have been brushes. To make me realise that somewhere inside me, I really feel this way. Not just brave words.

So why is it, a fortnight ago: waking from my drowsy slumber head fast against a glass panel on the tube train, I felt the cold chill of fear in the pit of my stomach at the sight of a large, unclaimed suitcase on the other side? Fear enough to make me toy with the idea of getting off the train at the next stop.

I didn't, in the end.

*****
Did I mention...

Cannulating and bleeding the young male trauma victim the other day as the nurses applied CPR. Two needles each side, the beginnings of an emergency thoracotomy.
Sustained Pulseless Electrical Activity.

Call it.

Young, twentysomething male. Good looking. Looks a bit like Prince William. Now gradually turning blue about the lips as CPR is stopped. White about the hands. A waxwork effigy.

Wrong. So wrong.

No, I probably didn't. Y chromosome.

*****
Sadness

From the Fire Angel's blog -

She watched him calmly as he pulled out his camera and asked for a last photograph of her. She didn't flinch or grimace as she forced herself to smile at his request.

What he was wearing, what he was carrying, the way he held out his arms and the expression on his face permanently seared themselves into her memory as he asked to hug her one last time, though she would have without him asking.

The intensity of their last embrace left its mark on her soul as she kissed him on his collar as they hugged. She refused to look at his face as they let go, fearing to burst into tears in the hotel lobby.

As she walked back home after she waved goodbye to the bus disappearing into the distance, she received a text message from him one last time, and no longer held (back) the floodgates closed as she trudged uphill, the late morning sun burning a tan into her neck.

She will never see him again.

Paths crossed.
Paths lost.
Waters closing over.
The slightly salty tang of tears.

Is this what happens - when you run out of questions. And answers?

Be well, my friend.
My door is always open to you, as well.

Echoes

Voices from the Aftermath

Voice 1 : Why not?

Voice 2 : What for.

Voice 1 : Maybe you're wrong. Maybe everone else is right.

Voice 2 : Okay. Maybe.

Voice 1 : So ask.

Voice 2 : ...

Voice 1 : Well, what have you got to lose?

Voice 2 : ... yeah. Nothing. Ask.
*****

The Forgotten Words

Voice 1 : So, what have you got to lose?

Voice 2 : Now. I have Now to lose.

Voice 1 : ...

Making scents

This does not make sense.
Does not compute.

You have started the voices arguing...
*****

Fear

The unexpected text message. 4 ? dead. explosion.

Dread words. A sudden rush of recrimination - my God. My thoughtlessly defensive self-fulfilling prophecy come true : Singapore is a target too, you're all probably safer in the UK.

It sinks in further. Oh, my God. Mental images of Apocalypse, now, flood my mind. Cars hurling off a shattered bridge, careening wildly into space. Four dead many injured!
Mad rush to phone home. Why isn't anyone picking up the phone??!

Calm yoursef. You have work to do.
****

During the trauma call - young male - so young. Good looking. Pulseless electrical activity (ie, dead) another mad flurry of motion. Co-ordinated chaos. A, B, C. D. E. 2 needles 2nd intercostal space - nothing. Thoracostomy. Nothing.
Another doctor asks me if I clamped the line while injecting the umpteenth adrenaline blus. Teeth and claws bared, the voices slip out from my head: "Yes, I did. I have done this before you know."

Instant regret.

He probably didn't mean to patronise me. It's too late now. The words cannot be unsaid. And to voice my innermost fears now would do little to repair the damage. My belated apology sounds weak, and lame.

There is power in words.
Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred.
Welcome to the dark side.
*****

Later : sweet bliss. They finally pick up the phone. My family is safe. And it was all an industrial accident. Construction vs gasline. 1 worker dead, 3 injured.

Overwhelming relief, as my residual fears for friends (and strangers) fade away.
Spare a moment of sadness for the unlucky workers.

Back to ordinary life. ATLS. Work. Study.

Temporal Abyss.
aka Time Flies like an Arrow, Fruit Flies like a Banana.

Bugger it.

I'm cutting it close again today.

these emails... never have i taken so long reading, or replying. 45 minutes to craft a reply? Where did all that time go!

Solution #10248

Hmm.

It seems I've finally found the magic answer to that all-time puzzler guaranteed to shorten the male lifespan - Why do you love me?
*****

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile?her look?her way
Of speaking gently,?for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'?
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,?and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,?
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese.
*****

"For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed,"

How true. Flawless skin. Supple limbs. Shapely figures. Exquisite hair.
All fade with the gradual ravages of time and gravity.

"or change for thee,?and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so"

Hmm.
Beautifully crafted. But quite possibly flawed.
Some beauties fade - some endure.
A radiant smile. A twinkle in the eye. An enduring personality. An unweatherable force of will. If these are not lost from within. Then the loss is from without - "or change for thee".

That is love lost. There is nothing beyond that.

Love for love's sake?

Hmm.
Sounds suspiciously like a PAP slogan.
*****

Speaking of which. I couldn't help but notice while I was back not-so-long-ago the constant subliminal onslaught from all sides - Babies.
Babies.

Babies. Babies babies. baby.

Driving in broad daylight, I tuned in to ? Simon Lim talking to a generic twentysomething year old male about his lovelife, or lack thereof. (and nearly crashed the car in frustration...) It went something like this (dredging muddy bed of memory)

SL : Wah. So you're like twenty eight and not married yet!!! (I swear he pronounced all three exclamation marks)

GM (generic male) : Yah lor.

SL : So how do you feel about that?

GM : It's like you go out and everone thinks you're a freak because you're not married yet. It's hard to meet new people, they think you're weird. (huh? so you can only meet new people if you're married eh.)

SL : You must be very lonely

GM : Yah lor. Very lonely. Sigh.

(more drivel. boring. tuned out)

I mean WTF was THAT about?!? He's only twentysomething. In the UK he'd have another forty years shelf-life at least. Geez. He's in the prime of his life!! Or not yet, even!!!

And he's lonely. Because he's an unmarried freak.

Geez Louise. I bet he was a plant, to inspire males across the country to greater heights of libido.
Probaly a toadstool, or a weed. Sad little lamer.

I dunno. Maybe it's because I'm far removed from the system. Or perhaps because I never intended to become, or to marry a baby making machine for the rest of my existence. (Spacefan's conspiracy theorist friend figured that the "drive" to procreate has something to do with needing 8 million people on the continent by year 20XX, to ensure the continued development of our GDP. )

Different strokes, different folks. I'm happy being an unpatriotic, unmarried, late-twentysomething yr old male enjoying my solitude.

Loneliness seems a complete waste of time, energy, and life.

I'd like to make a suggestion to the Powers that Be (if they ever blunder along here) :
try some subtlety. Play Charlene's Never Been to Me incessantly instead. At least it sounds nice.

Avoidance Behaviour

I am currently steadfastedly engaged in ignoring the ATLS manual before me. For a while, anyhow. Das ist nicht richtig. The course starts wednesday. Where's that cold chill of fear creeping down my spine when I need it most?

So I'm feeling quite happy that I've brought some order to my chaotic hard-drive, and managed to tweak my... rather less than legally obtained version of (unspecified title involving beautiful woman, little short men with big feet and big man with a long staff. GET YOUR MINDS OUT OF THE GUTTER OR SO HELP ME...) game into submission. Multiple corrupt downloads pieced together intelligently = 1 working whole, yay me. Holistic Piracy 101.

That and erm metabolising the remnants of last nights experience in substance abuse. And remembering The Butterfly Effect, which was apparently also part of the experience from yesterday. I think.

I won't spoil it (much) for any of you (but don't read on if it offends you), except to say that it raises many questions. (Including how Incompetent Can a Normal Human Male Possibly Be at Changing His Past. Oh wait he had CT evidence of several subdural bleeds so that explains a lot)

Post-screening post-mortem with friend as we walked to Alloro for dinner (beautiful sunset, balmy breeze, yadda yadda) :

She : "But I don't understand why he did that."

He : "Because he loved her."

She : "But love is very much for yourself. It's selfish."

He : pause. "I think it takes a certain kind of person to think that way."

Unspoken words.

Would you choose to erase someone you truly loved from your present, future ... and (yourself from) her past, if it was the only way to keep her safe from harm?

in the words of another :
Have you ever loved someone so much that you let go of him/her for his/her happiness? True love, or something akin to it, is ultimately about self-sacrifice, and not self-fulfillment

*****

And that chance brushing of shoulders at the end. Not quite as implausible as some would think.

Several years Post Holocaust. His classmate organised the whole elective after their grand scheme to trek to South America, get kidnapped, and be rescued by Russel Crowe went tits up. She wasn't in on the Story.

So many different hospitals in a large city. So many places to be at any one time in a large hospital. What chance...

...he runs past her on Day 1 en-route to reception.

Do you believe in destiny?

Or perhaps in extraneous forces, subtly nudging humanity along, like wavelets gently but insistently guiding a leaf towards the shore. Except us leaves have feet.

Hic

Quiet dinner organised by an old friend at Alloro after movie (very upmarket place, heart of London) several hours ago, having a good time. Laughing, reminiscing about JC days, mostly listening to her steady flow of chatter, and smiling quietly to myself as the Italian maître sommelier cosies up to my friend, to pointedly not stare at her rather bounteous (tonight, anyhow) cleavage (I watch him, waiting for it to happen... and he doesn't! Wa. He must like her.) and to tell her about Italy as she flirts unconsciously with him. Warm, and funny. This is comfortable. (And all the sweet Muscato Asti and Birbeck is probably contributing just a leetle. It probably still hasn't worn off yet...)

Flashback. Two years, many strangers making joyous noises. People who detest me in daily life, or quietly tolerate my presence pretending to love me, to be family. Presents, noise, party, noise. Cake, blow out candles, noise. She, the ex, at the centre of it all. Trying to draw me into the middle, Malcolm in the Middle, with her. The heart of attention. The heart of ? hypocrisy. My hypocrisy. I smile "graciously" back at the surrogate "parents" after receiving a particularly gruesome Lanven tie.

The food is gorgeous. Dessert is gorgeous. Mr Sommelier returns frequently to share a glass with us, and bring us ever more exotic sweet wines (somewhere along the way I begin to recoil in alarm. Not because I'm getting pleasantly drunk, pause, I wonder why I'm not, I've had enough to sink a small battleship by now, curse this liver of mine, but heck my friend's stone cold sober too - but then again she's a seasoned veteran... But, hic, to continue that nearly derailed train of thought, because the bill is probably going to put an astronomically vacuous black-hole in my wallet... ) and share his travel experiences with us (he generously includes me, sometimes. This guy is really nice!) as my friend innocently? asks him when he gets off work. When he starts. Which days he has off. What he does on his time off. He answers them all gamely - but doesn't push. Eh? Either he's gay, or he really, really likes her. Or else it's something about professional ettiquette? MM. Food for thought.

Evening ends. The bill a mere 60something quid between us. Mr Sommelier hasn't charged us for any of the wine. All that gorgeously light, deliciously crisp, mildewey sweet ambrosia. Free?!? Oh because it's your birthday, embarrassed look. What about the cake (complete with dimmin lights and train of singing italian waitors - hang head and look for place to bury it, groan, squirm, etcetc -- curse ye, Th!!!) ?? Ergh. No, we cannot accept, and tip him more than the price of the food. It works out to be about right. He protests vehemently as we twist his arm into submission.

She leaves her email as we leave. Smile.

Taxi home.
Head on pillow. Surrender to sleep.
Bzzt. Fade to black.

A good memory, last night. Thank you, Th.

(And WHY DOES MY BIRTHDAY NOT FALL ON THE WEEKEND THIS YEAR. What's the deal. It always has as far as I can remember. mutter. grumble. Unsympathetic celestial forces... working on birthday... inhumane...)
*****

Bzzt. Fade to light.
Eh?!?! It's only 3 hours later! Curses..... Wide Awake.
Wander around net, laugh quietly at Stranger's thoughts for a while, and check email and laugh a little more. Suddenly sleepy, and sated. Words, the final missing element. The last course. Dessert.

Reply? Later. Time to dissolve into gentle alcoholic haze.

Bzzzzzzzzzz.t

What's in a name (2)

A rose by any other name...

... still as sweet? or full of thorns. :)

*****
Open Horizons

watches sadly as her story ends.
be free, stranger.

Sky Line -
Refiner's Fire

Standing stock still in the middle of a heaving London crowd with my eyes flung high, drinking it in. Slight crick in neck, will worry about that later.

It's probably just me, but there's something indescribably beautiful about airplane vapour trails at sunset.

Wait, hear me out before you call for the men in white.

Vividly sharp, hanging motionless this long, bold white streak across the vast expanse of a pastel blue sky in the dying moments of sunfall. Clouds, grey smudges in the background.

I usually have my breath taken away by the red-tinted trails, glowing like fading embers in the fires of red-gold sunsets.

Today's is searing white, with a hint of gold. Blazing painfully across a dull - now grey - canvas for what must be miles. Cleaving boldly and brilliantly through the barrier between men and angels, a swiftly-struck sword-strike burning with magical fire.

I remember to breathe again, and look at the people about me. A sea of faces, gazes downcast hurrying by. Lost in their own little worlds, oblivious to the fading beauty dwarfing them far above. Am I insane, or are they? How can they not stop for this one moment of unsurpassed beauty? How can they waste this richness.

Drink. Taste. Savour.

It's probably just me. They've probably grown up with vapour trails. I didn't. We don't get them back home - not like this anyway. Not across the sky as far as you can see. And they're not flammable. They're short dull cords of plastic that melt with the warmth of the monsoon winds.

I remember the first time I saw a proper vapour trail, in australia. Day-sky. Nothing spectacular, just a white line acros a deep blue background. I wasted seven photographs on it.

Now even I take these for granted. Walking everday under the suspended meshwork of white lines that comprises london's ceiling, I barely see them.

But how can anyone ignore this one, solitary shaft of burning-white cleaving the sky asunder. What must it be like to see the world through their eyes.

For one of the few times, ever - I don't want to know. Empathy be damned.

My neck aches...
*****

Divide by 0 overflow error

I step out of work into...

...sunlight. Warm embracing sunshine.

Eh?

Wha... okay. Who's gone and swapped the flaming country while i was in the A&E. own up!

Love, Actually

Reading another writer responding to my suggestion that he define love, I typically, in my usual disagreeable fashion, feel compelled to disagree. So, Quest : forgive me for recycling your thoughts :

I told you not to define love. But the main reason i told you not to define it, is not so much that it's such a subjective topic, but that it's impossible to capture emotions onto words. If you do.. you'll always be truncating something intangible just to satisfy a human need to define things with these mere letters. Just like we often try to define almost everything else, even people.

Two thousand years of men trying to capture the essence of love in prose and poetry. A billion-million different love-letters explaining the how, and the why. The age-old stumper that Women pose us : Why do you love me?

And we're about to turn tail and run because mere words are not enough? It is entirely possible to capture your emotions, in words. Seize the pictures in your mind. Taste them. Feel them. And then let your heart do the writing. Don't translate them into words - just tell us the pictures. If you lack the words to describe your images, find new words. Or make new words up.

Words describe the intangible. Words reside in the same realm - we cannot touch words with our hands. We feel them. We hear them. We live them.

No. I maintain that it would be pointless for me to attempt to define love for everyone, because love is different for all of us.

Comment. How many of you find that it's easier to fall in love now? Is it because it's really easier to do so, or because you are simply trying harder, or looking harder? Because of the way our lifestyle has changed? Because we are more willing to try harder now that we don't believe in fairy tales? Because we are desperately seeking someone who can really understand us? Are we looking to capture a lost feeling from the past? Is this why we turn to the pen/keyboard? Because we so desparately want to connect to someone?

Not everyone is built like you are. Some of us find it harder to fall in love, the further along we go.

Some of us have never fallen in love.

Personally. Love is just a cacophony of other emotions that makes us feel that special way for someone. It can't be explained, but can be substantiated. Those who have suffered broken hearts before should know what I mean.
It's that euphoric high you get when you see or hear someone. It's that connection. That look in her eyes that says she understands you. It's that feeling of being wanted. It's that feeling when you hold her in your arms. It's that smile that she gives you when she wakes up next to you in the morning.

love is.. love.

Well spoken. That is Your Love.

Not all of us feel the same things you have done. Or hunger for the same highs.

Love - what is?

For all of us - it is far easier to state what love is not.
Love is not : Anger. Frustration. Jealousy. Selfish ambition. Screwing over someone for your own benefit. Hurt. Apathy.

And so on.

This, I maintain, is the only common ground you can, and will find between individuals.

As you have explained your concept of love, allow me to expound on mine.
*****

Personally

(Pause)
(Grunt. Creak)

Sorry. Hinges to Soul are rather rusty. Not used to exposing it to the world like this. I, Exhibitionist.

Pieces of the Puzzle

A. Recognition - Early warning systems.
It starts with recognition. Perhaps a shock, of ~.
Recognition - of what exactly? - is difficult to explain. For me, it has something to do with eyes. Something to do with deja-vu. Perhaps its the way my brain's wired. Falling in love requires a partial epileptic seizure. (Fortunate. A generalised tonic clonic attack heralding the onset of impending true love might prove embarrassing.)

A younger self would have used the term "love at first sight".

This older, more cynical self now wonders if this truly exists. Perhaps there is a shock of immediate (or near immediate) attraction...

1.
As he concentrated on staring vacantly out the car window and mutually (and embarrassedly) avoiding the gaze of the stranger by his side, he heard his mother ask her : So what do you do in school?
He blurts out "air rifle and track and field" before closing his mouth with a snap. Now why on earth did I say that?
Then he realises : two voices in unison had spoken.
He senses, rather than sees out of the corner of his eye, her surprised gaze upon his face.
Some time later that evening, as the adults socialise (as adults do) he finds himself in private company with her. They speak a little, and laugh a little in surprise. They don't know each other. But they do.

2.
His eyes met hers immediately. She was tall, for a girl. And tanned. And had relatively broad shoulders. He didn't really notice her hair, or her face.

Those eyes - they sparkled. They teased, they laughed. They spoke to him, silently. And it felt like he understood; it felt like he knew her already. It felt like he was drowning.

Love = initial... something... ? Instant, or near-instant recognition?

Hardly. In the first anecdote, the protagonist never saw the girl again in his life. The story ends there. To call it love would make a mockery of everything else experienced in this lifetime. Recognition in isolation is insubstantial. A fleeting regret.

Recognition is the first piece of my puzzle. Where everything starts. Or perhaps even before. "That connection, that look in her eyes" - a piece of the whole.

Without recognition, love cannot begin. Not the love that I live for.

"In the minicab, on the way home, Alice falls asleep immediately. I long to pass out as well, but common decency and level headedness stops me. Minicabs can be dangerous places. Looking at her asleep, and vulnerable, I realise that she is special. A unique blend. A vulnerable tough cookie. In short, an extremely human, human being. Her bloke is a lucky guy indeed. "

No envy. No desire. No initial recognition - no point. No start, no end. Or rather, Bad end. heh.
Recognition - Rare.
It's a kind of magic.

B. Perpetuation - Runup to Realisation
Getting to know somebody. Discovering who lies behind the mask. Or, if indeed there is a mask in the first place. Asking, and answering questions. Exploring uncharted waters - and finding common ground. Challenging that "initial recognition" - that initial familiarity - and discovering that it is far more than an artifact, a random error. More than a lie, or a half-truth.
Mmm. Statistically speaking, becoming increasingly unable to disprove the null-hypothesis. And in so doing, Realising.

You know when you know.

And if it all sounds terribly cold and clinical above... it isn't, if you think the way I do. If she does. It involves humour. And laughter. And it feels... comfortable. If she doesn't, it becomes a chore. A good reason not to carry on.

Perpetuation : Very rare. (? medium rare? heh)
Significant.

C. Loss - the final front... fanta... err facet.
In the conventional sense to most people, loss is parting. And regret -- trite, and insufficient to myself. I do (though rarely) feel regret at parting from mere friends. I will not pretend that love for a close friend - even female - is akin to love for a Significant other. See Ladder Theory - the female ladder.

pause. Um. Yes, I am straight I swear.

Loss - personal loss. Perhaps not a tangible loss, but a preparation for loss - the readiness to put someone else's happiness ahead of your own.

To hurt, to make someone else happy.
To be ready. To love someone more than yourself.

And if she needs, or wants it, to let her go at the expense to the foundations to your self, your beliefs. Your dreams, your happiness.

Selfish desires have no role in Loss.

Yet mingled with Loss, an equal serving of Trust. Trust that she will never call upon you to compromise yourself. To never take advantage of your vulnerability.

And perhaps even to honour you with that same trust, and vulnerability in turn.
A mutual gift, bestowed but not demanded.

Beating the cynical veteran of life within down into silence.
Peace.

Enough to give a life for.
Enough to give a lifetime to.

Enough to spend a lifetime, getting to know someone else. The ultimate sacrifice - time. But no sacrifice at all.

Loss - and Trust : vanishingly rare.
To die for. Significant beyond measure.

Worse still, no single facet is love, to me. Like the wholistic human being - the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Love is. Everything. The pieces of the puzzle have to fit. And turn into something more. Something alive. Something... significant.

Love actually, is all around us.

I beg to differ.
Not for me.

Stolen Fire

eh.
She reads my mind, again.

Jaw drop moment. Close jaw, grind teeth, get on with it.

Okay, at the risk of sounding horribly unoriginal, this, I swear is the piece I've been burning to write all day. Honest. Cross my little beady eyes... err heart i mean.
*****

What's in a name?

A name. Granted at birth. A birthright.
But what exactly is it to us? What significance does it hold?
Is it a token of our parents' affections? Or a marker of their hopes and ambitions for us? Their hopes and aspirations - On us. Branded for life.

My name. X******** - a true tongue twister. (She sells sea shells by the sea shore looksh shpectacularly shilly in comparison) Especially in the united kingdom where fate has funnily enough thrown me now for coming up to a decade. Funny, that. The whole extended family on both sides bears trendy christian names, even mum and dad. 'cept me and my bro. Gee thanks, mum and dad.
Funny that, for an english-speaking family. And funny that we're actually baptised as is, in full jawbreaking hanyupinyin. Least I am. My bro's name is intuitively pronounceable, even to the foreign tongue. sigh. thanks, mum and dad. or actually, grandma.

The ex used to believe that our birth-names made us who we are. Hence Beautiful-Sound : so, so in love with singing. She was always singing her parents' praises, oh, so, so grateful to her father whom she was so madly in love with, she carried his picture as a teenaged youth in her wallet to gush over to her friends - isn't he cute? isn't he handsome? (eh. pause. must be a girly thing, move swiftly on)

And what of myself, "Reflect Nobility" (or somesuch)...
She thought I was too noble. (balderdash! bollocks!! and other rude words beginning with the letter "B"! cue sesame street theme)

Well, pah. What then of my silently reclusive sibling, "reflect glory"? Or perhaps his time is yet to come.

I think not. I can't believe that a birthing "gift" to us shapes us inexorably in the days that follow, free willl be damned. That like it or not, destiny steers us to fulfill our name's sakes.

I do not - will not believe in predestiny.

Names are merely something concrete with which to remember our Namers. Whether we resent them or no.

We came of dust. We were born of them. These were the first words they said to us.
(Well, most of us, anyhow. Some unlucky souls are baptised in fire, rather than water.)

- or perhaps, they give other people something concrete to remember us by.

Are "chosen" names any less significant?

We assume monikers online. For many they are exquisite masks of perfection. Names we aspire towards and yearn to be in our dreams, in our virtuality.
(Silversurfer. Beautifulgal. Belgarath)
For still others names become masks of deception. Masks to hide behind. Names of Power behind which their insecurities are concealed. Small man syndromes manifest themselves predictably in toweringly tall names.
Still others craft names that sound pretty, but mean little. (Aesvalone : what's that anyhow? A brand of abalone?)
Some craft names that carry hidden meanings - DrGoat - or not so hidden mesages : re-minisce. Pieces of the puzzle.

(And on IRC, G-------- / D-------. The canine. The faithful friend.)

Then there are the names we choose to wear in daily life.

Christian names, acquired for some in later life rather than at birth. Chosen by themselves.
Confirmation names.
Names, chosen simply because. To be recognised by law.

I chose.
L- The Physician. Someone I already am?
Or someone I can only aspire to strive towards. Big shoes to fill.
I'm not sure why I chose it. But I know it was important, somehow. Shame. Gareth sounds so nice. Or Luca. sigh.

What's in a name?
Which are the names that are more significant to us, in this life.

The names chosen for us at birth, stamped into our souls before the beginnings of our existences. Or at least before the flowering of our sentiences.
Or the name - the mantles that we, mulling over at length, finally decide to wear.

And which are the names more significant, to the people around us - our friends and acquaintences? The Words they see, smell, and feel us by. The shapes they associate with our souls.

Where do the two meet?

It's a tough call, innit.
*****

A rose, by any other name...

Would a stranger's eyes have been any less intriguing because of the name s/he wore?
Shakespeare, a genius or a fool?

Random Muses

There are do-ers, and there are thinkers....

she looks at them both.

"You are the Do-er" she intones strongly, knighting him for life with the conviction of her words.

Turning to Him.

"And You, the Dreamer" she breathes, smiling gently, condemning him to a lifetime of weary lassitude. Or so it feels.

Bugger. And I thought I was the Do-er. harrumph.
*****

Then there are Do-ers, and Watchers.

But even between Watchers, there are those who watch the world around them, and those who constantly watch only themselves.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...
*****

He faces down the shorter, more effervescent boy.
"You, are a nonconformist. But you are predictable in your noncomformism. You are a bohemian."

He turns to the taller and more reserved of the two. "You, too are a nonconformist. But you do not care what people think about you.

You are dangerous."

Oh. Just great. I'm a sociopath. Yay me.
*****

Who is to say that one is better than the other?
Wherefore are we called to so - decisively - judge others? Why do we all have this innate yearning to weigh the measures of other's worths against our own yardsticks.
Only out of wisdom do we learn to hold our judgements in check.

Even if they're dead-on accurate.

Knowledgeably (- or out of ignorance?), I have chosen to tread these paths. That is all I know. And all I need.
*****
Violated

Trawling through my computer, I find pieces that do not belong to me. (It happens when you have a 120 GB hard disk and a computer based largely in the now-ex's house, while you slog hard hundreds of miles away.)

Some I know to be her sister's. Online casinos.
How is it, I wonder, that her computer was sacrosanct, and not for the likes of me; but mine (faster, more powerful, capable of much greater graphic detail) was, apparently fair game? Why was I not consulted? Her screen-name pops up everywhere like a bad taste that will not go away.
Double standards?

Some of the footprints I know to be hers. Evidence of use of the driving games - I - installed for her.

How strangely clear it all is in retrospect.

Their games, driving and betting - insubstantial and unfulfilling to me. Mine (RPG / RTS) too boring and geeky to them.

Different OS.

*****
Warzone

Don't make me go out there. Don't make me go back into the breach. It's madness out there. Pain, anger. Suffering. Fear.

I don't wanna go back to work.

sigh.

Stations of the Cross

Today was spent waiting to not get my haircut, and watching the Passion of the Christ.

Seated in a sea of humanity. And tears. There are oceans of blood and pain on the screen before us.
Dry eyed, I cannot cry with them. This story, I already know. This story, I cry for, inside my heart every Sunday receiving communion.

*****
Do this in remembrance...

I'll admit that I was curious to see just how sensationalistic the Passion would be.
I'd heard the Passion criticised for being too brutal. Too bloody. Anecdotes of people walking sickened out of it. Unable to put up with any more.

What did we say two thousand years ago as we nailed You to Your cross?
Too bloody?

We hunger for blood in the likes of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. We thrill at Lucy Liu's scalp peeling back to reveal her brain beneath. We revel at the fountains of red cleaved from the limbs of generic oriental males.
Why then are we sickened at the sight of flesh torn from His side? Why do we recoil with every lash of the whip? Why do some of us... resent His courage?

Could it be because this story... is true.
Because it reminds us of our weakness.
Because, at some indescribable level it moves an obscure emotion, in even the most righteous of us...

I'd heard this movie criticised for promoting anti-semetism. Watching every moment; waiting for the next dreadful instant; that next collapse to the ground. That next hammer blow - I cannot see it. I see embellishment, yes. Mel Gibson has taken artistic liberties : but only to fill in the gaps. To bridge the divides between they of yesteryear, and we of today.

I watch the hard-eyed Pharisees screaming for blood and hate them.
But I do not hate the compassion in Mother Mary's eyes. Nor the dignity in His. Nor the regret in the unnamed Roman soldier's. Or even the tired bewilderment in Pilate's.

This story does not lay blame on a race. It casts blame on the evil of Man. And evil is not confined to races and colours. It stalks silently, like the Devil did as Jesus staggered on his longest day. Roman. Jew alike. Evil does not discriminate.

This story reproaches those of us who embrace the dark. And gives hope to those of us who welcome the light.

Anti-semetism? Only a bigot would rally that cry.
This picture that so many burn to hate, has seeked only to capture the Story's truth. To transcend the barriers of time language and leap into our minds.

To remind.

*****
Quid est Veritas? What is truth.

This is a story far greater, and far more Significant than any Other.

Do this in memory of me

I look at Today's stories standing proudly on their shelves around me at the grocers. How Posh's word came tumbling down. Hot bods! Sex.

I wonder what would have happened, if Pontius Pilate had had the courage to stand firm against the masses. What then? Would we have redeemed ourselves.
But no. There is no what if - it was prophesized. He knew His cross before He bore it. All things happen for a reason - how difficult it must have been for Him to believe that, then. (Father, why have you forsaken me?)

I ask only this of you

How much Courage it must have taken. How much Grace.
How Significant.

We must not forget.

*****
John, 20

24But Thomas, sometimes called the Twin, one of the Twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 25The other disciples told him, "We saw the Master."
But he said, "Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, put my finger in the nail holes, and stick my hand in his side, I won't believe it."
26Eight days later, his disciples were again in the room. This time Thomas was with them. Jesus came through the locked doors, stood among them, and said, "Peace to you."
27Then he focused his attention on Thomas. "Take your finger and examine my hands. Take your hand and stick it in my side. Don't be unbelieving. Believe."
28Thomas said, "My Master! My God!"

It was his hands.

The Longer Day

Last light at 8pm. Daybreak at 4am.
Outside, two policemen stroll in the sunlight, yellow windbreakers flourescing garishly.

Spring is upon us.

I sit, waiting for my laptop's windows to finish autoupdating, sipping my white cranberry juice, and wonder...

why the heck did I buy this stuff anyhow?
I hate cranberry. That strangely synthetic aftertaste leaves me feeling parched and... poisoned.
Oh yeah. White. Novelty. White cranberry. Maybe it'll taste different.

can anybody spell sucker. :|

*****
Today

Haircut. Situation critical.
Passion of the Christ.
Thames?
ATLS revision.

*****
The Lonely Prince

Bemused. Quite simply, bemused. Dialogue, 100% Chinese (Think China-chinese). Voice acting, 100% British.

Uh... ken. Remind me again why I borrowed this from you.

Although I have to admit, the gameplay is so simple it's rather addictive. And the dialogue is so bad it's kinda funny. (Ho! Grandfather! Alas, my son!)
And those 100% authentic Chinese acoustic effects. Dull bronze Thunks instead of the clarion call of finely honed steel on steel. Poisonous lizardfish! Hee.
Must... hold... out.
Okay. I give up. This one goes on the laptop.

Level 4, Paladin. :D

*****
Shep
aka My Laptop

Mobile Presentation Unit. Also Ennui Eradicator, for the lonely weeks / triplet shifts when I'm on nights and staying in hospital. (ie mindlessly engrossing gamestation)

Next up, initiation into the wonderful world of DVDs. And possibly USB TV-tuners.
Oh, wait. There's TVs in the on call rooms. Scratch that last.

*****
Conscience

It's strange how days-off simply don't bring the same heady high as full-fledged leave. There's always this doubt lurking in the back of my mind. I should be doing something else. Reading my ATLS instead of fooling around with my laptop. Applying for jobs.

Doh. I should be studying for my ATLS now. And filling in my BSS leave application forms.

Sigh.

*****
Echoes

Seven strangers seated at a table, speaking in, and out of turn. He, outside, looking in on them. The Voices sense a moment approaching, and before he can stop them they pounce; they seize the sitcom and slide out. It's something typicaly funny, but snide... he stifles them. Mumblemumblemumble. The speaker, taken aback, grinds to a halt, sparks and steam coarsing from his thoughts, previously in full-swing. "What?"

"Uh... nothing. nevermind".

Pause. Speaker carries on. All clear.

There. Killed. Nobody heard, or at least understood. Safe.

He looks up and meets another stranger's eyes.
Watching. Listening. ? Tasting. Amused.

Deja-vu.

Doh. Not killed then. Stupid voices.
Fly me, to the funny farm...

*****
Reawakenings?

Almost akin to an intricate dance, yet the steps are intuitively familiar. Or perhaps to a duet, except the words have always been there, waiting. Watching. Biding.

Quite irrational.
Quiet. Shh.

Stardust

Early Morning Waking. Was that a sign of clinical depression or anxiety disorder. Hmm. I can't remember any psychiatry anymore...
(hurrah!)
Think in my case it's a sign of soaring air temperatures. Stupid fan heater... climate control my eye.
Sitting here eating my bowl of Safeway "fresh fruit", savouring the odd acid tang (? preservatives?) I read.
(I can do that. I have the Height of Batcherlorhood, a computer appended onto my bed. Oh no, no, wait. That's a shaver. The best a man can get. Okay, I have the runner-up of Batcherlorhood.)
This strange... disquiet, I feel. Unsettled. Something is wrong, and it's not the scribings on the wall (? rock paintings?) Insightful, and aesthetic as always.
Oh,
Can it be that without my Spectacles of Wisdom (+255) I cannot calm the tumultous anxieties that flood into my soul from the still of the night? Perhaps I fear the dark. (gimme a guiness!)
Or perhaps it's something in the air...

What happens when there are no more questions?
Ponder. I suppose that depends if there are no more answers as well.
Who can say where the road goes.

thirtysomething degrees. Better now. :)
Calmer. Back to oblivion.

Falling under

standing dull-eyed and heavy-shod on the deck, lashed by the cold winds of apathy as his words cast themselves one after the other adrift into the insistent seas of fatigue that lap gently about his b(r)ow.

fading. sinking into gentle oblivion. disappearing from memory and existence.

No.
I choose words. For a while at least.

*****
She picks from the ether, sometimes, the ether picks her.
Smells; touches, memories. Thoughts.
So that's how she does it.

familiar.

*****
Saturday: the nightmare telephone call.

Sorry to trouble you, but are you on shift tonight?

(Muzzily.) Yes, I believe I start at eight.

pause. Do you know what time it is now?

It's.... ten thirty.

Oh. Bollocks.

Groan. I, Rumplestiltskin. How on Earth did that happen??!

Fatal exception. Don't leave the alarm clock within arm's reach again.

*****
Sunday.

Running on fumes.

I need a church. But where. Where in this forsaken little hamlet that I... don't know.

Train, London.
Shadows fade in and out of peripheral vision. Kneeling. Thankful, prayer. Sudden jubilant organ cacophony.
Train, Stevenage.

Insomnia (!)
I don't have time for insomnia, dammit! Insomnia is NOT part of the plan!!

The instant after my head hits the pillow, I'm waking up again. Well, that's what it feels like anyway.

Thank God I put the alarm clock on the far side of the room today.
Sum total : three hours somnolence.
Oh well.

*****
Monday. Am I real?
I feel as if, if I wanted to, I could poke a finger through me. Flicker, buzz. Finger in, finger out the other side. Shimmer.

Pictures. Worth a thousand words? Perhaps. But not my words.
I have few photographs; fewer still with people in them. Why would I need a photograph to remind me that I've been there, done that? The memories in my head, the way I picture the memories. Far more precious. More significant. Words paint an extra dimension to the memories. That is why, (to mum, although she'll never read this) I don't take photographs of myself.
Photographs are for when words fail.

That and laziness. And paranoia of geriatric women hotfooting it with my disposable camera?

*****
His words are almost... angry. Tinged with defensiveness?

"What if it's easy for you to fall in love? And please don't try to define love."

"Oh swear not by the inconstant moon..."

Why would I try to define love. Each one of us has our own window on the world.

Each person bears an individual quest in life.

Some seek an ideal companion to measure up to them. To make them proud (of themselves? Or someone else?) Please submit seven copies of CV. Don't apply if under XX cms.

Some seek companionship, a comforting presence by their sides.
Any comforting presence. To dispell the loneliness.

Some seek constancy. My constancy. My little oasis. Mine.

Some seek obedience. Worship. Idolation. Submission.


This writer's quest : Significance.
Not dying surrounded by the wrong people. familiar strangers.
(stolen) : "But you can spend your whole lifetime just learning about one person"

Yes.
Laughing. Living. Dying - with a "strange" Familiar.

Significance.

*****
I will go down with this ship...

Waters, closing overhead. Darkness.
--------
(and don't nobody dare start singing little mermaid)

Rants in Pants

Eyes : heavy. aching in tandem to throb in temples.
Hair : dishevelled. Dry. crunchy, dead hay.
Spirit : ? frustrated. listless. ? disgruntled.

Perhaps it's the chain of nights getting to me. Disrupted sleep cycles.

Or perhaps I've caught PMS off a woman.

pause.

shudder. God forbid.

:)
*****

Listening, two weeks (was it two?) ago to a gentle voice exhort (? cajole) our God, in his gentle American accent to remember Them. We love you God, we hold you on up high. Remember us O' Lord, we love you lord. In your mercy, hold us close, we love you lord......

The words blend into a single, long, monotonous litany of love. We... you. We... you.

? Communion

My head upright. My eyes, furious.

I know it's just me. My bad. I shouldn't be feeling like this now, not here of all places. I turn to my side, and watch my mother drinking it all in. I turn to the other, and an american stranger, hands bent at the elbows, palms upturned, somewhere else faraway in rapturous reverie.

Why do some Christians always feel this burning need to remind their God how good they've been, how much they deserve to be saved?

God doesn't need you to remind Him. He knows. He remembers.
He died on the cross for us all.
And asked only that we remember Him.

Why do we feel compelled, over and over and over again to wheedle, beg, plead him to make this gift to us, when He has already promised. Or don't we believe?

How did we come to turn the table (metaphorically speaking) so completely. God, you are not worthy to so much as to partake of the crumbs under our table, but only say the word and you shall heal us.

Wrong.
My bad. Evil me.
*****

Reading another's words, mind ticking over. Eyes, to brain. Assimilate, masticate, process. Digest, into thought; struggle to understand and empathise. The occasional speed-hump, backtracking and re-reading to glean the meaning of that phrase designed to bridge the gaps between writer, and reader. Final comprehension.

Strange. I've done it so often I take for granted that understanding is an active process involving effort. I've become deaf through habit of the weary creakings of the joints within my brain.

Yet when I read her there seems to be no effort. There are no speed humps. Eyes, to thoughts. A direct window. I can see into her world.

Stranger still, this stranger has somehow burnt through the looking glass; calmly watched her way through the one-way-mirror of the interrogation chamber he's grown accustomed to.

Or did he let her in?

(rushes to check the bolts... Oh. Bugger. lol)
*****

Ranting. Flailing. Falling.
Lying still for a while.

rest.

Do you know
the muffin man

Do you know why men, at least in movies, choke back those fateful words; the three hardest words a guy can ever say to a girl?

'Cos, unlike their real-life contemporaries who are generally lowlife lying wankers, movie-males believe :

that the words are precious.
That they are Significant.
That thoughtless expenditure may result in depleted reserves, and one day the words will dry up and become a handy, utilitarian soundbite.

Back in Real-Time, their Real-Life peers (ie the variety that actually do inhabit this world) glibly caress their women's auditory cortices with their sweet nothings. Skillfully, and erotically massage their egos. Playfully pat them from paw to paw. Until the next mouse wanders by.

*****
True, or false?
Decide below :

Beneath...

He looks his patient squarely in the eye, this manipulative alcoholic hell-bent on wringing a prescription for diazepam out of him. Pain, at first in the "broken wrist" (When did you do it. 6 MONTHS AGO?!?! WHY ARE YOU STILL WEARING THAT SPLINT), then in the knees, then the shoulders, then the wrists. His wry comment that look, I'm not stupid, I've been doing this job for a year now. I've seen people like you before; I know what you want. I'm not going to give it to you.

Wheedle, wheedle, wheedle.
Finally, curiosity erodes through his professionalism (or lack thereof?) and he asks :

Really. Honestly. Do you truly believe that you have a medical emergency as severe as the other people in that waiting room you shared just now.

She does. She honestly does; she starts saying how she is worse off than them. She, this armchair psychiatrist with the blatently normal MSE and the normal thought content trying to wheedle a sedative out of him because she's read psychiatry textbooks (Well, I've taken exams in it, and passed them! And you do not have an altered mental state!!!)

He pauses.

"Unbelievable" he says, "Simply unbelievable".
Stands and walks out the door.

... contempt
*****

Comparing, and contrasting.
Both Him.

One, obtuse, non-specific. Crafted.

The other, bare. Bared. Raw.

Both Him.

Did I change, between then and now? But that last then is so recent.

Or did I just change the way I write?

Was I trying face down my demon(s)? Stripping away the Words of protection. Because the bare-boned, tersely simple, un-crafted version with it's pressure of speech moves him far more, on the re-reading than the artistically flowery, considered creation. It does.

There is power, in Words.
They change the way you see the World.
*****

Sometimes, I miss the days when I thought in black and white. Decisions were obvious. Compassion and self-sacrifice prevailed. True Love endured, through thick, thin, rain, shine and distance. Faith was rewarded. Parents were immortal.
We, were not objects to be questioned, and re-examined, by ourselves.

I still step outside the circle occasionally. When called to consider someone else's path, someone else's life. My cynical little biases and over-skeptical preconceptions? (or, perhaps, my silently accumulated observations?) And, in an age past, I advised, in that capacity. Black and white. Right and wrong. Predictable outcomes. 99% sensitive, 99% specific.

The only circle I can never seem to step out of is my own.

Harmonius Wordsmith

So much to do. Sleep to catch up on. Mindless games to play.
But instead, he has passed the afternoon reading. Compelled to. Drawn in.
Until there is nothing left to read.
Savouring, like a fine vintage, every drop, every thought. Every word.

He can't compare it to being drunk - he's never actually had the pleasure of psychedellic, alcoholic, purple moocow inebriation (though he's attempted desperately a few times to experience it); he's had the transient cerebellar dysfunction, perhaps even a touch of chemotactic zone rebellion. But never the euphoria that so many of his supposed friends enjoy.

(What's !Oom ? A cow falling over backwards!)

I, robot. Hello, Data.
Too dispassionate. Too able to dissociate, and Step Out of this world and Observe, for a while. A gift born of pain. (He dispassionately realises that the author he reads has that same mixed blessing, and curse.)

It's more like... reading a very good book. It IS exactly like reading a very good book. Infinitely more precious to him, than the fleeting stupor of ethanol.
*****

Within the myriad incandescent thoughts - so, so many! (and so many, uncannily, his own) he wades through, a barrage of - brutally intended? - questions assaults her readers. For some unknown reason, he feels inclined to answer.

1) Do you feel you have nothing else to look forward to each day because it's always the same old routine and nothing exciting or 'different' seems to happen to you?

- is routine so bad?
There is peace in routine. There is clarity. There is restfullness.

2) Do you feel that your days are meaningless because there doesn't seem to be a purpose to it all?

- Perceptive. Very perceptive.

- There is a purpose in everything. Do I believe that? Sometimes. Sometimes I have to wonder if perhaps I just want to believe that. And too often, I laugh at the idea entirely. (Cynic - 1, Romantic - 0)
But my days - are not meaningless. Purpose, or no.
Watching a child's face light up last night after giving her a sticker (my thorough physical exam, alas as yet fails to bring the same gratitude) I knew that much. This life I have is precious. And I will use it wisely. God willing.

3) Do you feel that something is missing from your life?

- why do we always blame that elusive something out there, not quite within our sight or grasp as the root of our disgruntled senses of unfulfillment? I've been there myself.
The matrix is in our own heads.
Personally, about the only thing missing from my life right now is lunch.

4) Do you suppose you feel lonely because you are single?

- Does anyone else out there feel relieved that they are single, or is it just me?
No, that's not my Y chromosome talking. Surely many of you have been there, done that. I'm hardly original - the aftermath of a floundering relationship.
Stepping beyond the brink, heady freedom and sheer, unadulterated relief.
Lonely? Sometimes.
Sometimes when I look back to another time when I had a soulmate.
Singlehood?
Smiles.

5) Do you suppose that having a relationship would make the dull ache of this meaningless existence more bearable because you would no longer have to suffer on your own?

Why complicate the already-complicated?

6) Do you suppose that experiencing another person on an intimate level will make up for your disconnection from your own consciousness and self?

The further into it he reads, the more he realises that these questions are not directed at him.
Intimacy is defined on many levels.
Physical intimacy broaches only the surface.
But he suspects, that is not what she meant.
*****

He is puzzled. The writing so sophisticated, the flow of carefully selected words so seamless, the form so carefully and intricately crafted. The melody so richly composed.
Yet rarely, several dissonances. "Have"s, and "had"s in subtle juxtaposition. Present and present perfects - he thinks, since he's never quite understood the rules beyond what jars the senses, and what does not - intertwined.

But that's not what puzzles him.

He is confounded to find that he doesn't really mind. He, the Pedant. The Pragmatist.
Form triumphs over function.
*****

You have achieved what you set out to do. There is a unique rhythm, there are subtle crecendos and decrescendos. Abrupt forttissimos. Plaintive solliloquays.

There is a lyrical quality about it all. There is music in Your words.
And they are breathtakingly beautiful.

But you know this all, already.
You knew it, as you wrote them.
*****

He disagrees though, on just one point.

Perhaps it's just him.

But courage is not his be-all and end-all.
Any good RPG will show you that; perhaps waters are muddier in Multi User Dungeons.
Courage alone creates a Fighter. An individual who will still face insurmountable odds despite the knowledge of inevitable defeat. You saw it in LOTR 3 at the final battle, the massively outnumbered humans valiantly raising their swords; You saw it in The Last Samurai as the grizzled, heavily encumbered swordsmen charged down towards the sleek, immaculately invincible rifle-lines.
That euphoric moment, that beautiful end.

But Grace is far greater. Grace brings with it honour. And courage. Grace prevents the misapplication of courage, the senseless bar-brawl. The misguided duel between close compatriates over a fair maiden. Grace brings the courage to defer, to stand down, at great personal loss.

Grace crafts a Paladin.

But you knew this already, as well.

Soundbite

"I'm still looking out for that soulmate to share the rest of my life"

Eh.
Pause.
... it's share the rest of my life, With.
*****

She said once upon, a lifetime ago that She hurt people. That She was dangerous.

Well, so am I.
So, so very dangerous.

Immovable

Sometimes it feels like I never left.
Mechanically going through the motions. Smile, wave, have a seat, physical exam, decision plan.

I, robot.

But then, there is the First Day. While I'm meccha-doctoring, when one of the nurses ?chats me up a bit. And some of them are a bit more physically affectionate than usual, involving me in their little teasing thingies with the other docs. She comments that I seem much more relaxed than before.

I find myself smiling. I suppose I am. Serious me, dissolving for a moment into silly me.
*****

What's with the five-star dividers anyhow. When did I start doing em. Mebbe i should make them part of my template.
*****

So I'm doing four night shifts over the bank holiday weekend eh. Frowns.
I guess the establishment figures that I'll be happy coming back from holiday so they can screw me over huh, a weeks night shifts before he goes, a week's when he returns. And he won't mind.

But I don't.

Eh?

I really don't. I guess I must have really enjoyed myself this holidays :o
*****

Somewhere in the scattered pieces of the puzzle he chances upon the darker entries.
Ah. That explains much. She has been forged in fire.

No singed soul, this. This is a Phoenix.
*****

The news comes as a shock.
Did you hear about G?
No, how's he doing?

He had angina! While he was on shift. He's in CCU now.

Tightness around his chest. Too close to home. One of Their Own, struck down on homeground.

Oh my God! Is he all right... he's too young. Too damn young.

Too young for angina. He's only 2 years older than me. One of Our Own.

Scary thoughts.
Move swiftly on.

Chapter's End

At last, it is done.
So exhausted. But I had to finish. Compelled to.

The thought of three days working on-site. No ready internet connection. only from work - drove me.

OCD?
perhaps.

Goodbye, World. For now.

Wheel of Time

Looking at rota to check shift. Wow. It's the 8th of Apr already.
Another year gone by. Another birthday approaching. Yay me.

Six years now. Oh, wait. Seven.
*****

He deftly flicks the metal fleck from his patient's eye. "All done, sir" he pipes triumphantly, and with a smooth, practised flourish slides the stilletto thin needle single-handedly into its sheath, a hard, clear plastic...

...finger. Eh? They goggle mutely at the blue lancet protruding from the pulp of his middle finger. A drop of blood crawls down its shaft.

Bugger.

Automatic failsafe system initiating cortical bypass. needlestick injury. Alert, Alert. Need to inform occu health. Oh wait, no. Eye. Cornea. No antigens. Low blood supply. No risk of transmitted infection. Phew.

Oh. Better pull it out now. Patient's starting to look at me funny.
*****
The last thing I saw yesterday, bundled in my full-length overcoat and stepping out the door was a woman with a head injury. Her car fell forty feet off a cliff.
Flailing madly, strapped down. Her face a massive pool of - bright red - blood, save for the glazed whites of her staring eyes. Limbs jerking.
Blood. Trickling onto the floor as the parameds run past. A steady trail of large drops marks the point of her entrance into A&E to her destination in resusc.

I feel a bit faint. This has never happened to me before, either. Blood and me (long as its someone elses) are A-ok.

I run after them into resusc. Hell, everyone runs into resusc.
Two extra parameds stare at me incuriously and ask me my business. Wow. Parameds and security staff. Two for the price of one. I remind them that I'm one of their own, even though I'm in civvies at the moment. They relax and speculate about the mechanism of injury. Know her, gets blackouts. Car went right over the edge. etc.

Monitors announce their awakenings with excited beeps.

Enough. I turn and leave.
*****

Feather Boy

by Nicky Singer.
It wasn't the TV series I wrote about previously.
But it was a beautiful, beautiful story.

Sad, but beautiful. And filled with hope.

Choked up.
Recommended highly by Re-minisce, not-so-great not-quite Author.

Temporal rift

He scrolls down and inadvertently re-reads a snippet. "shake".
Suddenly he's there again. He even remembers the backlighting, and the garden.
Vision fogs a little.

Shit.

Too well preserved.

Distance. You need to. Step back.

Why didn't I write all this down then?
*****

Reading a random muse about younger men and older women, he pauses to speculate.

1) maybe it's true that people born under the same star sign think alike after all. There are naunces of speech, turns of phrase; unexpected applications of humour; even concepts he's grappled with on his own blog(s) which feel strangely reminiscent. This stranger is so, so familiar.
He feels so unoriginal.

Nah. Astrology; load of hogwash.

2) This is something new he's never really stopped to think about. Hmm. Older, vs younger.
Looks at own track record. Lessee. same age. 4 years older. 5 years younger.

Never really saw people as ages; just people. But yeah, going out with a younger woman was rough going. I felt like I'd grown out of her stage of life the almost the second I met her. Mebbe it had something to do with graduating.

The older woman. A remarkable individual. An overwhelming deluge of intense childlike emotions. But there were times when he "stepped out" of it all, and strangely, felt the older of the two. Increasingly towards the end. Responsibility.
Running out of Time. Clock ticking.
Deserves a shot at something Real.
Kids, family. Completeness.

I cannot bear the burden of ruining that for anyone, on my shoulders.

Back, back, double-step and out.

So old.

There's a secret path I follow
To a place no one can find
Where I meet my perfect someone
I've kept hidden in my mind
Where my heart makes my decisions
'Till my dream becomes a vision
And the love I feel
Makes him real someday

Cause I know he's out there somewhere
Just beyond my reach
Though I've never really touched him
Or ever heard him speak
Though we've never been together
We've never been apart
No we've never met
Haven't found him yet
But I know him by heart

Am I living an illusion?
Wanting something I can't see
If I compromise, I'd be living lies
Pretending love's not meant to be
Cause I know my heart's worth saving
And I know that he'll be waiting
So I'll hold on and I'll stay strong 'till then

Cause I know he's out there somewhere
Just beyond my reach
Though I've never really touched him
Or ever heard him speak
Though we've never been together
We've nerver been apart
No we've never met
Haven't found him yet
But I know him by heart

No we've never met
Haven't found him yet
But I know him by heart

No we've never met
Haven't found him yet
But I know him by heart

- Vonda Shepard

*******
Borrowed from another blog, from a lifetime ago.
Why do girls always get all the best songs anyhow?

*******
Too much time. A whole day to kill, before the Night Shift.
Windows 95. What do you want to do, today?

Boxes, and bears.

He wakes in the wee hours of the morning, computer still poised to create anew, a blank slate before him and wonders : why am I doing this?

Perhaps it's so that next time a stranger asks for his story - vanishingly rare now in this increasing age of apathy - he'll be able to dispassionately point them in that direction. He won't have to dredge it all up again in his mind.

He's not quite there, his eyes blank as he writes. Perhaps when he takes the time to re-read it all, sometime, his eyes will fill.

Or perhaps not.

Calm. So calm.

******
God forbid She ever reads it.

******
Listening to sting, yet again, mourning reflectively about... a deck of cards, a man. a life. a cynic. and reading... a truly intimate stranger (how apt) yet again he remembers.

He's walking outside tescos. Somehow their telephone conversation has taken an abrupt turn yet again, unexpectedly. One minute she's ranting passionately about herself, and her achievements, her pride. The next, a simple thoughtless comment later and she's hurt. Cruel. Too cruel. His hatred of egocentricity turns his tongue into a knife.

He's taken aback, but something inside him is burning.
Something inside him hates the way he becomes, with this child. Surely, for someone who should matter this much, he should be protecting. Not scathing.

But it was never like this with Her

The thought rises unbidden.
******

Tentatively (so early on! How could he have been so blind!) he raises the shadow of a question. Do you wonder... what if we don't work out.

Pause.

And then tears. Dammit, I've done it again.

He tries to explain; that what we take for granted today may all be lost tomorrow, that without eternal vigilance something evil will seep in. He knows. He knows.
It's conventional wisdom. It's my conventional wisdom.

Informed paranoia.

She won't hear any of it. Tears, and anger.

He falls silent. For the next two years.

How could I have been so blind?

Incidents, or coincidence?

Somewhere in there, the tsunamis fade into wavelets, and he can breathe easy again. And then he discovers humour.
*****

An old question from an unnamed source asks (sic) why things had to happen a certain way. I suspect, writing from the other side of the gender-fence (although er occasionally i appear to perch tenously on it) that I might have some of the answers.

I've been there. I've lived it.

- Why we don't levy ultimatums and hold our peace :

Some, (but not all) of us believe that change comes from within, and not without. It has to do with a warped sense of ethics. That if things are meant to be, she will change by herself (with a few gentle prods). She will. She will... right? maybe soon.
You see, forcing a change is unethical. It means that you changed her. And if she only changed for you, then she may have lost a piece of her. And that might make her less of the Her you fell for.

- Why we give up, and run into other women's arms

Guess it beats running into lamp-posts. I know why we give up - same as why women give up. Dunno about other women's arms. I suspect women do this too. With great frequency.

- Why do things have to get so rough in life, Is there no other way
Beats the hell outta me.
*****

Reading on, he begins to think he understands the reason for the question.
So... am I a Hard core word pornographer? lol :)
*****

Preparing to write, he pauses.
What is it about bears, anyhow.
*****
People change

Older. check.
Wiser? uh. raincheck.
Heavier accent. check.
Stand straighter. check.
Paunch. Checks. Still nope. Bugger!
Happier. Checks. Check.
Funnier. Pause. Nope.
Better-looking. Pause. Nope. Bugger!
Greying hair. Pause. Nope. yay me!

Oh. And apparently have older eyes. (cough, wheeze. Gets out white cane.)

Waking through the flames

Reading somebody else's blog. She writes, or rather wrote with an intensity that burns me. I have to step back and breathe after a few lines.

I can't read her.

This hasn't happened to me before. I'm too detached for it. And anyhow, who really writes that well?

So, day by day, I'm drawn to nibble on her words, but recoil as the bitelets sear me.
What must it have been like, to live through that?

Oh. But I already know.
I've been on both sides of her story now.
She reminds me of myself. And of someone else. And of Her.

Good wrting does that. It makes readers reflect, and empathise.

I wonder if my words ever have that effect on people.
******

Funny how randomly-triggered memories can reawaken forgotten emotions effortlessly, in a flash, but a cold-blooded reiteration of Before, in stark, severe completeness and chronological order fails to evoke the same response.

I guess it has to do with defence mechanisms, and needing even the smallest amount of time to bring them to bear.

Through rain, and hail

It hailed yesterday. Heavily, for fifteen minutes. And I thought it was coming up on spring.

First day of work, I forgot to bring my stethscope. Portents of Doom?
And yet I got by okay. I stayed up the kiddy end, where stethoscopes are decorative implements and the appropriate tools for diagnosis are paediatric referrals. :D

Yesterday, my consultant drew me aside and asked me to attend the nurse teaching.

It was excellent. If we'd been taught like that in med school I'd have got my honours.

It was also salt in a nearly-healed wound. But I suspect she knew that. Cocaine and chest pain.

I saw a 26 yr old male a few months back who presented with a typical history of chest pain, and barndoor ST elevation inferiorly.
He admitted to cocaine use, but he claimed he hadn't smoked it in a week.

I asked the nurses to standby thrombolysis (earning me dubious stares) because I didn't want a delay if we had to go to that, then tried to contact the medical SHO. I also run him through the checklist of contraindications, and warn him about the risks and potential benefits. I tell him to take his time thinking about it.

Someone else tried to contact the medical SpR. Wires got crossed, I accidentally hung up on the SpR.
When she came back to me on the phone, she was angry.

I apologised and rushed the story by her, 26 yr old, acute chest pain, barndoor MI on ECG.

She cuts me off. So why the hell are you calling me? Why should I review him?

I figure I must be missing something, and her attitude makes me defensive, and I make a huge mistake. I get angry. "Because he's coming to you anyhow"
"Just Thrombolyse him!!"
"Fine!" put down the phone.

Prepare for thrombolysis. The medical SpR said to.

Sister steps in, and rings her back. There's a lot of shouting.

Oh, now apparently she's misheard me. She says I said he was 46 years old.

Yeah right. Some piece of work.

Many phonecalls later, the cardiology specialty hospital says to thrombolyse him. He's had enough time to weigh the risks and benefits I presented to him by now. He's terrified, and refuses.

All the nurses are looking at me funny. This inexperienced SHO who was too gung-ho and would have thrombolysed on his own incomplete authority. (But the Medical SpR told me to...)

The damage is done.

*****
Angio subsequently shows normal coronaries. But his troponin is 17.
Vasospasm.

*****
The deluge of hindsight, the constant reminders that these guys do get accelerated atherosclerosis but beware vasospasm.

I can take that. I knew that already.

It was my fault. I shouldn't have got angry.

But reading the papers back home about the 30 yr old guy who needed the bypass. And reading the literature (and how come nobody remembers that Harefield Hospital wanted to thrombolyse?) : It's not that simple. He might have needed the thrombolysis.

It just wasn't my call to make. Or even the medical SpRs.

I accept that. So, being reminded for the umpteenth time, I'll just grit my teeth. I won't do it again, but you can remind me as often as you want.

And the nurses can think ill of me. That's okay.

At least I got the day off, and had excellent teaching about pneumothorax to boot. More fool them.

The four darkest days

(in no particular order)

******
She, slumped, a defeated mess in his sofa, her body racked by staccatto sobs, her normally impeccable face a mess of tears.
He, seated adjacently on his couch, watching in silence. Slightly shell-shocked by the revelations - although he'd, in his cynicism predicted them a while back; unused to seeing her reality, her (their!) impregnably virtuous mask stripped away. He's played this role a hundred times to a hundred lost souls. He ought to be good at it.
He's even, somewhere in the past counselled the He that's caused her to flee, on a dreary london day to the ? shelter of his apartment.
Watching her, this child-like creature so utterly devastated by Him, he feels a faint flash of anger - did He expect him to choose? Did He not know that he'd choose her ahead of Him? She was his friend, He, an acquaintence.
He feels moved to do something, to say something. He... stands silently and proffers her a tissue.
Her mobile rings and they both glance at it.
He wants to take her by the shoulders and shake her, hard. To ask her to look anew at the reality that's brought her to his place; to lend her some small degree of his cynicism and skepticism to see through the lies. To remark, pointedly, that she's Not Happy.
His code of ethics silences him. It's her life to lead; her choices to make. Her perception of her reality.

She looks back down and answers the 'phone.
He doesn't, somehow think he'll be seeing her again.

******
He cradles her in his arms, seated on his bed as she cries in bewilderment and incomprehension. She's so small and warm, and so, so utterly broken. His fault. I made this! Years of pent up frustration, upset and resignation rise up in an uncontainable eddy of emotion, tinged with much of her filtered-through sadness. They cry together for a while more before she leaves.

He does see her again a few times more. But everything's changed now. They speak as familiar strangers, they avert their eyes and tread carefully. The feeble walls he's built have become insurmountable by their mutual apathy. They're intimate just once - only as strangers can be. Even that is a sad moment for them both.

She asks him just the once if perhaps in the future...? He doesn't want to be the heartless bastard that he feels like, but he doesn't have a choice. He says he doesn't think so.

He knows now what She meant, when She said She could Hurt people.

******
He sits by the window, chin down on his cradled knees staring out aimlessly at the darkness of a night sky reflected off the sea; pools of eternal darkness lying in troubled sleep in their immense bed, turning over incessantly. Listlessly.
Everything, all of tonight a bittersweet memory compared with the knowledge that Tomorrow, he will probably never see Her again. For the rest of his life. Every laugh, every grimace, every glare; the strangely intense sadness in her eyes, the slightly tragic set of Her brow as She turned, her hair fanning out. Everything, only moments ago - tomorrow, only a distant and ever widening memory.

******
He asks one last time for Her to be still so that he can memorise Her face (he means Her eyes, really) one last time.
(He remembers the first time he asked, when they first met, and the silent moments they shared as she arched her brow in unprotesting bemusement.)
She turns in exasperated irritation, with a muffled "whatever" and steps out of his life.

Forever.

******
He deals the cards to find the answer
the secret geometry of chance
the hidden law of a probable outcome
the numbers lead a dance

Boys Toys

I have been blessed with an extremely big joy stick.

heh heh. okay now let's see how many dodgy google references that earns me.
The anticlimactic reality is my brother bought me a joystick while I was back home. After wrestling it out of the box, I'm sitting here perplexed, wondering what to do with it. It's lager than my toaster. The table is visibly sagging under its weight. And why on earth would I want a combination joystick/mouse/gamepad/tvremotecontrol/washingmachine anyhow?

******
0700 : watching a new day dawn over london. There's a certain magic of the moment, a fragile peace and tranquility that, in a few minutes, will be eclipsed by the everyday of big-city life.

I guess I'd better get on with my laundry, and my remaining job app.

Wonder if I can still remember how to be a cas doctor?

******
Host Sara for winner of mydreamd8! say it with me... Sara for winner. Let's organise a mass petition. Her list of revamped movie titles has won my vote, if not my heart.

I've also gotta applaud Janice for waking up to the reality that all is not right in lalaland. That it's not about blogging, but about popularity.

After all, the organise are pitting hugely different individuals aganst each other for the title of best personality, best looks etc.

It's unfortunately, not as easy as duelling : "may the best man win". It's so much simpler than. May the man with the bigger gun, the faster hand or, in the case of Robocop, the more accurate target acquisiting system. Here it's a mess of different personas, from uber sweet to ultrabitch. From sultry seductress to plain jane. Does singtel care? Did they even bother to learn from the wisdom gleaned from flyingchair.net and categorise - funniest blog, prettiest bird, etc?
I reckon the contestants remaining should back out in a show of solidarity and, well, mortification. And let Sara take the crown; she's probably the funniest and smartest of the lot, and hell everyone claims that's why they're supporting the leading blogs anyhow. (Oh, Janice, you're funny and smart, oh, xiaxue, you're funny and smart, oh, sel... etc)

Damn. I really need to get a life. :\

Swords of a soldier

Wondering aloud about some uncanny coincidences to his best friend of all-time (not to be confused with space-time), his best friend simply couldn't see the coincidences or ironies at all.

Some believe in fate and attribute higher meanings to remarkable coincidences.
Some wonder whether parallel lines can truly exist, since proof of their existence is impossible.
Some live easily with coincidences as being freak occurrences.
And then there's my best buddy who simply doesn't see them. :)
Much the way I can't see ghosts I guess. As an NS acquintance once put it, while everyone else was quaking in fear - (you) don't have the third eye!

*****
Sitting on my bed with my duvet drawn around me, I can't help but wonder - was it ever real? Did I really go back? As limbo evaporates into reality, will the memories fade?
Stepping through my door and picking up the acceptance letter into a BSS course - is that really me feeling happy that I'll be attending an ATLS and a BSS course all in two months? Me?

*****
My computer's back from the dead, and the obiang multicoloured neon fan I concealed deep within its chasis is casting an eerie assortment of multicoloured circular disco-lights into the shadows behind it. Very retro.

*****
Watching the vivid hues of the motherland fade away beneath me, I am, for perhaps the first time in my life filled with sadness. Perhaps age does that to a guy, smooths out the ragged rebellious wrinkles. Mellows the bite, soothes the bark. Perhaps its the realisation that parents are no longer immortal. Perhaps its missing a culture that was mine by birthright.

And yet, watching the uniform grey-green expanses of England slide diagonally up my personal windowpane as the plane banked on landing approach, I inadvertently drew in my breath as I realised it's just so damn beautiful.

*****
I know that the spades are the swords of a soldier
I know that the clubs are weapons of war
I know that diamonds mean money for this art
But that’s not the shape of my heart

- Sting