Truths of Old

(Bank Holiday Monday)
It dawned warm, and sunny this morning.

Technically, I was packing my bag and cleaning my flat in preparation for the Long Week of Nights (living on-site in hospital), followed immediately by the Long Week of Holidays, from Hospital to train station without touching home-base.

Naturally, instead, I went out for a walk. Took my handy new Fujifilm FinePix A210 with me. It's bulky and eats batteries with a vengeance, but you gotta love it. (charger and rechargeable batteries optional, note commercially available Ni-MH batteries cannot be recharged by the fujifilm charger)

Go easy on me, I've never done this before. :)

Catholic?

or Anglican? what's in a name?

The Other Big Ben?

Is the little guy St Pancras?

Hurry up, Harry! (Kings Cross Station)


HMS Belfast - I couldn't help myself.. I am male...

Why? (I know - do you?)

What did it look like inside this church, while it still existed?

ten am


(and I can prove it)


Picturesque

The strangest things wind up in the Thames

Not Quite Normandy.

(off screen - his wiry English Terrier friend waiting for this little guy to surface, so that he could wrestle the ball away. heh)

ten forty am

(I can prove it too)

What do the words say, I wonder?


The Houses of Parliament


What is this? The Green Party?

*****
Older



"3 Staples". Biodata - Length : 2.5 cm, each. Owner : Female teenager. Site : Left forearm, subdermal. Incision length : 1 cm. Incision depth : 0.8 cm. Time for extraction : 1 hour.


from : (Not) The Pelican Brief

(to : Revelations (I)
Friday, May 28, 2004)

Things I forgot to mention :

1) ...This. Who'da thunk, eh? A dumpster on the waterways, for all the residents who live off their yachts to, well, dump into.

2) ...that Big Ben is perfectly in sync with my wristwatch, to the second. preen.

3) ...that the three big green tower-thingies immediately adjacent to MI5, with the parallel cranes perched on top o' em aren't after all large office / industrial docks but the up and coming "St George Wharf special collection" of apartments. For very rich people.

oops, this just in. It's MI6 (that's SIX) not MI5 that's sitting pretty on the Thames. Yep, they got it wrong in the movie.
(One digit can make all the difference between one intelligence agency and the next...)

4) ...that there's a ?tapas bar across the road from MI5/6, permanently filled with people so overtly ordinary and civillian, that they can't possibly be anything other than plainclothes Agents. I guess it's much like pubs across the road from hospitals. hic.

5) ...that Vauxhall is the home to The Big Issue HQ. Heck, I hadn't even realised they had a HQ till then. (Imagines all them scruffy blokes with their handsome dogs in one hand and smelly sleeping bags in the other standing stiffly to attention in formation at the crack of dawn, as bugle blows, being inspected by Regimental Sergeant Major)

Hmm.

Okay, a (cough) public admission of one of my... eccentricities. (don't start. glare.)

So re-minisce used to (keyword. put away that tazer. he's safe now) peg some (keyword. some. not all. put away that straightjacket) people by breeds of dog. He couldn't help it.. the mental images just floated unbidden into his head. Criteria unknown. Not simply looks, or personality. Possibly a blend, or maybe indecisive alternating between the two depending on prevailing mood.

Some, for example, might be doberman pinschers.
Others might be Alaskan (Specifically siberian) Hussie... er Huskies.

This one is probably the first one to bring to mind a different kind of creature. :|

Sights - Saturday 29th May

a teeming, boiling mass of tourists elbowing each other despeately in their urgency to crest the the step into...

...Harrods of Knightsbridge, department store and more.
Ground floor. Menswear, and more menswear. A vast hall filled with nothing but chocolate, and yet more chocolate. Coffee, tea and spices. La Perfumery, located rather incongruously by the Food Halls, pungent with the aroma of the open sea - Oysters, anyone? (Strangely, my stomach turns in revulsion. Perhaps old sniffy isn't quite as anaesthetised during summer.)
Take the Egyption Escalator down, beneath the ground to the depths of...

...Lady Diana and Dodi Al Fayed's memorial. Eh. I've never seen this before. Oh. Was it that long ago that I last came here? Here rests the memory of the Princess of Wales, and her man-friend. Tourists stop for a moment to gawp at the oversized photographs, before turning left to...

...what else? Starbucks. We're out of mangoes, so no, you can't have a mango frescato. But. But. Wail. It's only noon. sniff. Fine I'll have a coffee frescato. Mutter. (And you call that an apple turnover?? I call that an apple... bitelet. thingie. I've seen coins larger than that thing. Okay, so they were large, commemorative coins, but that's not the point.

First Floor, Ladies Fashion. Move swiftly on.

Second Floor. Furniture by Ralph Lauren. EH? They do furniture as well? What is the world coming to. Next you'll be telling me that Yamaha makes motorcycles. snort. A Chocolate Bar. Oh, haha, a pune, or a play on words. Hot chocolate, served at a bar. Hot chocolate with vanilla. Hot chocolate with cinnammon. Hot chocolate, with chocolate. White hot chocolate. Decadence redefined. Maybe, may... nah. Gotta watch my cholesterol. heh.

Home furnishing. Garden furnishing - wow. They've got fake grass and green walls in here. Nice. Expensive furnishing, complete with a dinery in the middle of it all, expensive-looking peope eating expensive-looking food under the glare of thirty bulb chandeliers and gold roof hangings. Very OTT. A place to be seen, rather than to eat. Move swiftly on.

Bedroom furnishing. Lighting (and chandeliers of course), Television (wa. those ninety inch televisions are so sharp you could get mortally wounded just watching them) and computing (overpriced. "complete entertainment systems"?? what's this. £3000 quid for a CPU built into your flat screen? Who wants a two inch thick "flat" screen anyhow? Doesn't that defeat the purp... nevermind.

Dum dee dum. CDs, cds, and more CD... hey! A piano section. Eighteen grand for a Yamaha grand. (pun intended) Twenty five for a Petroff. Gee. And they're all baby-grands. I try to imagine who in their right minds would buy a grand-piano in the heart of land-scarce london. It'd take up an entire studio apartment, and we're talking the midget five footers here. Hmm. Answer - rich people.
"Please do not play the Pianos, thank you!" -- uh. One of them is busy playing itself. It makes mistakes occasionally. chuckle. I guess haunting a piano is hard work.

Electronic pianos. Feel free to play these. Hmm. Clavinova. 16 bit polyphony. £1500. I think : Anyone want to contribute to the Buy Re-minisce a Clavinova fund? (Shamelessly stolen from Her, once upon a time) Then I walk over to the next offering. £3000. It's called a C(number) model. No fancy names here. That'd cost extra. £3000. 32 bit polyphony. Wa. Whatever that means. And the top of the range. £6000. 64-bit. Wah.

Trundle along over to the Roland white ditigial baby-grand piano. Love at first sight. I spend a while testing all the surround sound effects (Hall. Cave. Chamber. Room. Valley. Canyon.) much to the annoyance of an aspiring Jazz pianist nearby. So you don't like my first-verse repeats of Fantasie Impromptu huh. I've got my volume turned down to 5. You don't have to crank yours up to +30000. I get the point;
I close my eyes for a moment and imagine playing this techno wonder in the silence of my flat. My neighbours start pounding on the walls, and shortly later, through the letter box someone grates "Hello. Police".

Heh.

Enough of Harrods. Another struggle, this time downstream against the Salmon Run of rabid Shoppers, and I'm back out in the unfresh air of London.

Question - Why "Knightsbridge"? Where is the Knight's Bridge, anyhow?

Trundle. OOoo. The London Oratory (of St Philip Neri). Step...

...into the sombre splendour of the Brompton Oratory

"All That Glisters is Not Gold"
(/ Often have you heard that told. / Many a man his life hath sold / But my outside to behold. / Gilded tombs do worms enfold.)

But here, all that glisters is most assuredly gold, and yet more gold. And the voices of the choir as they sing... flaxen, yet rich. Gilded, dulcet tones of liquid sound.

Well do I remember my years as an Anglican, despising all things extravagent and Over the Top. The truth lies in the simplicity, the significance behind it all. Fool's gold... not for me. Give me the medieval spartanism of St Bartholomew's anyday.
Today, I watch, and wonder. Cavernous, these walls... and yet every hushed whisper reverberates across the room like muted peals of thunder heard through a deaf-man's ears, echoing gently into silence.
Are these distractions - or are they additions?

Question : what does it all mean - these latin inscriptions running the length of the walls? something...habita... something. something.
There are significances here that I would like to understand.

Angellic voices continue to glorify God, effortlessly curling around the hidden intricacies of a long-dead language.

I notice that at the presentation of the gifts, the priest does not face the congregation as per the norm.

Why?

I'm reminded of a friend's comments, once, about the Eastern Orthodox church, and the "roots" of the religion. Perhaps...? Or perhaps not. I can only wonder in silence.

Communion. At this crucial moment, the choir falls into a deathly hush.

"Do this in memory of me."

I remember the days in my run-up to confirmation... the bittersweet moments of being "denied" communion (but I took it as an Anglican!), asking silently instead, hands folded across my breast, for a blessing. I remember the mixed feelings of sadness, and gratitude, mingled with a tiny tinge of resentment. (but... I took this as an Anglican...) Perhaps it was the company I kept then - the thoughtless words emanating from the mindless lips of a certain female, about "real" Catholics. Like a brand name. And how baptism by an archbishop was so much better than baptism by a village priest. The Armani Catholic.

Taking communion today, I still feel sadness, and gratitude - now unfettered by human resentment. And that sadness... is infinitely deeper. So too, the gratitude.

The priest intones - implores, really - "do not consider what we truly deserve, but grant us your forgiveness."

These same words I have heard spoken - in churches such as this, with gold-leaf adorning every wall - and in churches as threadbare and naked as any minimalist's fantasy. In walls of the rich, and poor. These silver-lined pillars - are not a product of the "brand-name", but the location.

Were I to close my eyes and ignore the trappings around me; were the choir's dulcet tones fall to onto mine deaf ears remembering only the silence of yesterday in a smaller church miles away in Essex -- I would recognise these same words, these echoes of the past.

These are the Significances of which I spoke, once.

Older now, I wonder :

Did I ever know the significances, I accused others of being distracted from?

Thousands of Sunday services from my past wash over me. Inspiring words, little jokes about the preacher's life, the preacher's wife... reverential hushes as church members extolled the octaganarian preacher's holy life. Millions of ecstatic "Jesus...!"-s, in song, in word. Tens of thousands of extolments, implorations to God to redeem us, because we remember you, we love you so. Countless implied "Look at us, lord! Look! we can roll over! we can play dead!! Pat us!" sentiments worded as prayers.

Which glass is empty, and which is full?

*****
Adult humour?

Funny, how in one country this is a childrens' storybook, yet in another it's a cult classic for adults.

"There’s hardly a bus in London that doesn’t have the name blazoned along the side..."

(real red london-bus caption : Get them all, before the pictsies do!)

Today, I learnt :

that it takes an hour to walk from St Paul's cathedral to the Houses of Parliament, andantissimo.

that immediately adjacent to Guy's hospital, on one of the corrugated sheet-metal slats boxing in several adapted containers, and presumably a construction site, is a small rectangular hole labelled "PoST BoX -->"

that the bridge beyond the Houses of Parliament is called "Lambeth Bridge", and that there is a large boat garishly labelled in fluorescent pink, garish new-york red-light-district lettering, "Cuthbert Castle". Or something like that.

that slightly beyond this is the National Maritime Organisation, with a huge, bizarre sculture of Albert (who?) standing on the foredeck of a titanic-lookalike ship, and several doors down is the London Fire Brigade HQ.

that the South Bank Thames Path ends abruptly thanks to the MI5 building hogging a large swath of riverbank all to itself. There are apparently more television cameras on that building than there are stars in the night sky. And it is located next to somewhere called "Vauxhall". (where?) Furthermore, if James Bond had really driven his Aston Martin off the top of MI5, he would have wound up a rather messy, smoking heap amidst the numerous greek pillars and fountains in the expansive concrete garden below, strangely missing from my recollection of the movie?

also that the walk from St Paul's to Vauxhall takes approximately two hours. And that ducks don't so much swim down the Thames as get swept down it, bewilderedly flailing ineffectively with their feet as they go.

*****
Echoes

Did you know that Big Ben, in the fle... uh metal, sounds exactly the way you hear it, on BBC radio? Sitting across the Thames watching nothing in particular, and everything in general today my eyes drifted over the masonary that surrounds and adjoins it (Big Ben is actually the name of the bell within the clocktower) and it hit me then (call me slow) that that is where parliament actually takes place. In the Houses of Parliament.

How apt. So grand and imposing; so rich. A relic from the days when leaders governed, instead of merely administrating. Constructed, from the ground up, to be remarkable. Gilt lined minarettes, and a huge gold-leaf clockface. Walls seeped with the memories of powerful Men, and ingrained with the echoes of powerful Words. A reminder to the fading leaders of today (read : Mr Blair) that government is more... than making yourself look good in public.

And then I had to wonder. Raffles... and Farquhar after him. Where did they govern from? Where has our past gone?
Today, the national library, tomorrow the museum. Why are we so eager to terraform our past, and transform it into cold, metal-and-glass visions of the future - are they so repulsive to us?
As I watched the oaken panelled doors of the London Fire Brigade HQ (with intricate metal inlays) automatically, and noiselessly concertina-ing closed today, I thought : these people have it right. They remember. And preserve. And when they need to, they update... while preserving the significances. Or semblances of, at any rate. Reconstruction? There has to be a better way.

Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere" is an interesting read. He doesn't have quite the same insane ease with words as Pratchett, nor should he : his words are like his "Sandman" series. Motions. Actions. Speed.
I admit that part of the fascination for me was the way he turned the Everyday into something fascinating - the Earl's Court : quite literally, an Earl's Court. Perhaps it wouldn't hold so much fascination for me if I wasn't living in London.

I'm left with two questions :

1) how does he keep up with his imagination?

2) what is the man smoking??

Still, if I were to compare the two... I'd choose (at present moment) Pratchett, anyday.

Um and Pratchett over most women too. lol.

*****
Four hours sleep today. I've been drifting through the day today, my thoughts floating like woolly sheep in the sky. Not a good thing when dealing with an ST elevation myocardial infarction.

This day has been... meaningless. A consant sense of irritation at my brain failing to - quite - engage. kick. wake up. waaake uppp.
And the words around me. Empty. Instructions. Questions. Temper, constantly being reigned in, constantly on edge. (WHAT. YOU CAME TO THE A&E FOR A SPRAINED FINGE... WAN... TOS... hyperventilate... okay. Try again. "ah. you might wish to see your GP for this, he's better equipped for the treatment and investigation of minor conditions than we are, this is an emergency services department you see".)
The words uttered all around me today... were not significant. Life... was wasted today.

*****
Walking into resusc to see a "new" patient, there's a momentary shock of recognition as I meet a woman I admitted a few weeks back with a subtle expressive dysphasia. I remember telling the family then that it was probably a stroke, and the prognosis was variable (always paint the most dire picture....) and that strokes can extend, rebleed, repair - or do nothing. (ie... we don't know...) Only time has the answers.

Time, it seems dealt a cruel card. Two months later, I discover that CT showed a mass occupying lesion. Ie a brain tumour.
*****

Teetering on the brink of thrombolysing, I ask the woman, somewhere amidst the barrage of questions I've already fired at her : Does the pain go through to your back? She says "no". So you had some right-central chest pain going into your jaw? We decide to go for it. Retiplase, please.

Later, post-thrombolysis, the medical SHO reproachfully tells me the woman has given a history of central chest pain radiating through to between her shoulderblades. And CXR shows a possibly widened mediastinum. We'll know after the Trans-oesophageal echogram.

My heart skips a beat. Oh, shite. Did I forget to ask... have I sentenced her to death? But no... the cardiac specialist nurse reassures me. You did ask - I was standing next to you.

phew.

TOE is normal.
Dang these patients who change their minds and stories half-way. Don't they know this is life and death - not some kinda game??!

*****
Something inside him is squirming. Going back soon. What are you feeling?

Something. Misapprehension? Anticipation? Foreboding? Excitement? Difficult to pin down. Grr. Vaya, I think you might have been right after all.

Or maybe it's the pilot-worms. Heh.

And something else. The past... has faded. He hasn't immersed himself in the waters of yesterday in - quite a while now. The tide of todays has gently drawn him to face towards tomorrow.

*****
Walking home at 8pm under the intense glare of the not-yet setting sun though, you just have to smile.

And. Now. The waters close over once more. Falling...

"...pressurised-canister wielding leather-clad pyromaniac females. With torture-implement fashion accessories. And probable pointy hats."

Hmm. Reading second hand this subtly-worded example of government propaganda (yet more in the Go Forth and Multiply! series penned by the Powers that Be) I'm prompted to reply in turn. Cough. Originality, zero.

"There are advantages to being matchmade by friends:

CREDIBILITY: You might meet knife-wielding psychos on your own. But you can probably trust that a friend of your friend won't be that scary.

Uh. Add to that pressurised-canister wielding leather-clad females. With torture-implement fashion accessories. And probable pointy hats.
When I'm on a roll, I'm really on a roll. (rolls over and plays dead)

Of course, seeing as how many of my friends are/were engineers... yeah. friends of friends can't possibly be scary. I mean, how scary could the laws of thermodynamics possibly be?

pause.

QUALITY CONTROL: Your friend will probably know what attributes you want in a mate, and try to hook you up with someone who fits the profile.

Another pause.
This Karl Ho guy... he doesn't actually have any friends, does he?
Friends don't matchmake you to people they think you will like. They matchmake you to people they like, only, only they're married with ten children already so this is their chance to live vicariously through you.
Either that or if you've got a predefined "type" of "like", then friends take it as their duty to pull you down a peg or two, tell you you've got your head in the clouds, then introduce you to the polar opposite of what you state as your ideal woman.

See? I know all about friends. glare.

NON-SDU SETTINGS: If a friend is smart, he can organise a group outing and sneak in the introductions without even letting on that a match is being made.

Heh. Hello, this is XYZ, a complete stranger whom you've never met before who happens to be of the opposite sex, she just fell from the clear blue sky today as I was wondering who else to ask to dinner, which is why she's here and fitting so perfectly into our cosy little circle of blokes. yep.

Or : Hello, this is X, this is Y, and this is Z. We don't none of us know each other, but isn't this fun now! Whee!

Burning sulphur? what burning sulphur. all in your imagination.

But there are drawbacks too.

ANTI-CLIMAX: When it's a close friend offering you a stab at happiness, it'll be a more crushing blow when the blind date doesn't work out. This buddy might also be in a bind if only one side shows interest

why? then he's free to sha... oops. Y chromosome. Heeeyy it's alive! Hallelujah!
Cmon, let's get real. This karl ho guy is obviously gay. Males don't really WANT for things to work out. They just want to come quickly. And then leave quickly.
All this touchy feely snuggly all-eternity stuff is for the women. binding? the only type of binding men like is...

gnnh. gnnh. gmf.

SCAPEGOAT: If a successful match falls apart, your first instinct will probably be to blame the cause of it all: your friend. Social circles might just fall apart because of failed matches.

Actually, a common enemy is a pretty good binder. IMO. Maybe that would be a good thing, getting both parties on the same side. Another spark lighting a remade match. And possibly the timely demise of yet another matchmaking kaypoh who can't keep his nose out of other people's business. Score one for the good guys.

As far as I'm concerned, Karl can keep his singleness, desperation and ugliness to hisself. He oughta take a trip over to the UK sometime. All it takes is a night out at a club for something to "happen". (Sometimes even more than once...) If he's into oriental birds, then Thai Square is the place for him. Just hope he uses protection.

And he can take his "matches" and stuff em up where the sun don't shine, too.
Here in the civilised world, we use lighter fluid... heh. heh. heh.

whooof!

I slip the ring back onto the middle finger of my left hand.

Once more into the breach.

Spacefan writes :

Still haven't seen any resus cases, but I'll get my chance soon enough I suppose. A friend attended to a toddler who perished in a road traffic accident, but details are pending and I'm not sure how this event has affected him. Believe it or not, for some reason, I've never witnessed a paediatric death firsthand before, even though I did paeds as an intern ( with a full month in paeds oncology ), and have done quite a number of A&E rotations. Well, it's certainly something I can do without.

*****
He's just leaving as the call comes through. 2.5 year old, cardiac arrest.

Gone, the overcoat, shrugged into a pile at the nurses station. Gone, the sling bag, and the latest squeeze, "Neverwhere" (Neil Gaiman).

Are you staying? One of the other SHOs asks in bemusement. He babbles an answer, but it comes out wrong : I've never seen a paeds resuscitation. It might be good to watch some APLS, learn a bit. And find out if the kid survives. (How cold and heartless that sounded! The other SHO nods... hesitantly. Her eyes betray her doubt. This guy... is nuts...)

What he means is - I must know how the story ends.

There's something cold, and clinical about resuscitations. Adult life support is calm, and professional (In other words, nothing like what you see on ER) and everyone leaves feeling slightly subdued, but slightly exultant even after failed resuscitations, since you feel like you've done everything you possibly could, and somehow, it was taken out of your hands.

The ambulance pulls up. Nothing happens for a while. They're certainly taking their time aren't they, one of the sisters half-jokes.

Then the doors burst open...

...and suddenly the picture changes. Ghostly white arms flop limply off the sides of the trolley, as this pallid doll, arms akimbo is run through the door by the two parameds. He's the colour of death, except for his tiny, cherubic face half-dwarfed by the bag-valve-mask locked in a desperate embrace with it : that (his face) is the colour of his life, running in streaks and pools. Dark red, and sticky. And already starting to crust; making a mask, over the mask that his face will soon become, anyway.

We run through to trauma, where the assembled trauma team stands ready. The anaesthetist begins intubating almost before the trolley comes to a halt. One of the other A&E SHOs is there. She puts two fingers to the child's chest and begins compressions. Faster... faster, I urge her in my head.

I linger in the background. I'm not really here. I'm a fly on the wall, buzz buzz. It's easier to cope somehow, when you stand back and observe. Cold, clinical. Detached.

I glance to my left. Dad has come through with the crew. He doesn't quite seem to get it, he's saying things like oh don't worry about me, I can handle it, I'm not the sort to get unsettled. I pause and think - your child is already dead. But I'm not here. I keep my thoughts to myself, thoughts like - what chance, now?

Because on the screen he's in asystole. Because he's too shut down for access - two paediatricans and our staff grade are trying to cannulate him in three limbs with no success.

There is fear in the air. That's the difference between ALS and ATLS. The smell of fear.

IV cannulation is abandoned in favour of intraosseous access. That's sticking a needle through into the bone of the shin in children, to deliver emergency fluids and raise their blood pressures back to levels that can sustain life. Children have small blood volumes, and what seems a little loss to an adult can be a fatal bleed in a child. The intraosseous needles bend off at crazy angles as the paeds reg struggles to insert them. Bloody cheap NHS equipment, only good for plastic practice dolls.
The 20ml saline boluses just make little subcutaneous pockets in his legs, and some of it actually spurts out through one of the many failed insertion sites. Squirting back out as fast as it goes in, into the paeds reg's face. At another time and place, it would be almost comical, like those fake flowers clowns with painted faces and ridiculous red noses wear on their coat lapels. The reg grimly plugs the hole with his thumb and keeps injecting - not quite life, but maybe, just maybe a chance at it.

The sister in charge starts to become flustered. She's being bombarded from all sides by requests. Blue venflon. Another. Syringe please. Another intraosseous, now. Adrenaline. Atropine.

The fly falls off the wall. I step forward and begin handing out the drugs. It's the least I can do, without getting sucked right in.

It feels like an eternity since we first started. We're still strugging at airway - there is blood coursing up the endotracheal tube. Not red froth - blood. With every squeeze, it vanishes back down into... somewhere. And then floods back up as the bag is released. For the third time now, someone says -in a slightly shaky voice- I can't hear any air entry into the lungs. The anaesthetist says again, it's going somewhere. But where?

He calls for someone to hold the neck while he re-intubates.
An eternity passes, while all around him people bustle studiously on at their little chores, heads down. And suddenly I'm gloved, kneeling down at the head of the trolley and holding his head. The tube comes out, and there's a fountain of blood. Out his nose, out his mouth. And as always, that slight metallic tang to the air; the smell of life, leaking away.

Suddenly, I am afraid. That's how it is when you stop being the fly on the wall and step into the little surreal bubble that surrounds a trauma. From TV camera perspective, to first-person, looking out from the two round holes at the front of your skull.

We plug back up, and the anaesthetist starts bagging again. Did you know that the valves on BVMs aren't quite watertight? I make this realisation as I feel microscopic flecks of blood hitting my face. It's a mercy I'm wearing spectacles.

I step back to revert to being a fly, but the sister, who's taken over from the other SHO is exhausted from the compressions, and so I'm back in again, doing chest compressions.

Somewhere along the way, access is finally established. But every rhythm check (is it just me, or is the paeds reg calling for them more and more frequently? and more urgently?) shows asystole.

And then the final nail in the coffin. Let's reassess... this child has been down for....... I know the drill. We all do. Call it again, Sam.
Gloves are stripped off, almost in disgust. People creak away, shoulders slumped. Backs are turned as the assembled team troops dejectedly out the room.

I watch two nurses clean the blood off this pint-sized waxwork effigy of a child. Dad still stands by, dry-eyed, saying he's all right. He looks slightly dazed.

This is... wrong.

*****
There aren't many nights that I wish I could get drunk. Random fact #12041 about re-minisce. He's never been drunk. Not properly, with the euphoria and stuff. It's a complete waste of money.

But stopping by the corner shop on the way home, he briefly considers buying a large bottle of Absolut, just to give it another shot. (ha, a pune, or play on words)

He doesn't, because he realises that when the words "I need a drink" float into his mind, it's not the drink he craves, but the company that comes with it. I just need to talk.

Funnily enough, nobody in London wants to talk right then.

IRC is a barren, soulless place. That idea goes out the window in a hurry.

And so I write.

Thank You for listening.
(And for wanting to. These were the words that were lost to the cruelty of a moment's drowsiness.)

*****
Does that answer your question, Jen Jen?

Oh, and highway code rule #xxx : don't put your children into motorcycle sidecars. Ever.

*****
It's funny how some stories are experienced in days, savoured page by page, thought by ordered thought, and how others are all over within twenty minutes, and all that remains is a bitter taste in the mouth, the lingering memory of minute, damp wet flecks hitting a face already viciously scrubbed with water, soap and cheap paper towels, and that slightly metallic - almost synthetic! smell of flowing blood.

My turn to build up a sleep debt.

Not enough hours in the day for oneself after a 12 hour shift.
Certainly not enough for oneself, and The Green Mile.
So dark.

******
Sitting down writing up casenotes, I feel someone running her hands through the back of my hair. Eh.

Oh, it's that blond sister again. No biggie, she's just being friendly, I think to myself.

Then she asks a question that is... slightly "off". Rather... lewd. Suggestive?

Mind blank. Dammit, where has my usual ready wit gone. No reply. I mutter something incoherent. Failed, by my quaking wit as the hairs on the back of my neck stand bolt upright in fear and almost pop out in a final act of hari-kiri. The other nurses start laughing about the comment.

ug.

*****
A nurse asks me to see a teenaged girl, for mumblemumblemumble.

huh? I read the cas card. Oh. Something... lost during intercourse. Cough. How delicate.

I look up. oh. She's nervous, blond, 15, and gorgeous. Mum looks upset. duh.

Um, no, I don't want to retrieve it thank you very much, the last time I did a cuscoe's exam, or a vaginal exam was.... a very long time ago. And certainly never to fish out a used contraceptive device. I politely decline and tell sister she might want to try the gynaes instead.
My penance is to talk through the side effects of the morning after pill with her (if only i knew what they were...) and discuss contraception and family planning.... wha? but. but...
(Somewhere along the way, mum, nan, and boyfriend walk in. Gods. Her boyfriend is ugly. And he looks older than me. Pause. No judgement calls.... shut up and do the job.)
Fortunately the gynae SHO shows up in time to stop me further embarrassing myself with my crass ignorance.

Who went and took away my summer dammit??!
The air is cold again.

In other news, I've just acquired a brand-new half-price £60 littman cardioscope.
The two trial-runs of it so far in A&E have been rather unsettling. Suddenly, everybody has a soft systolic murmur. Frown.

Do you know what the worst thing about falling through a seemingly endless void is? (Think Alice, down the rabbit hole)
Pratchett puts it this way : It's not the falling that we're afraid of, but the landing that's the problem.

I dunno. Or perhaps it's that without landmarks, we can't tell how far we've fallen.

In today's news : Public anger as government calls mentally ill "mad".

Laugh. Quite possibly the first time anybody has ever gotten in trouble for calling a pointy digging implement a spade.

Madness - societal label, or true entity?
I don't know.

I know that I've sat across from someone and looked into the cold, hard rationality in his eyes, as his calm voice washed over my stunned consciousness... his quiet, mild little manner as the thunderclap words passed unassumingly by, and pulled myself back from the brink of empathy with a jolt. This... I do not want to understand. Even if it feels... easy. This is ugly.

And then I remember sitting across from a small, emaciated teenaged girl more prone to fits of silence than speech, with her legs drawn up and hugged close to her breast, me in my white coat, she in her pyjamas as all around us the daily sounds of "insane" people going about their lives murmured on. And I understood, and wondered - why is she here? Who had the... madness... to label her deviant? She deserves protection and healing. Not this... casting adrift in a sea of darkness.

And then I remember drifting slowly, and dreamily, ever deeper as the drone of the sit-down ward-round happened somewhere nearby, and glancing at the wall in a desperate bid to stay awake... and the strange pool of hallucinogenic colours that started speckling into existence, and refused to vanish as I pulled myself awake in a hurry. And wondering for an instant - can't they see it too?

Before catching myself, and willing it to pass, before the vague shapes in it began to take form.

I have been here for too long.

Hmm.

Same movie : different opinions.

Spacefan

Infernoxv

Love it, or hate it? heh.

*****
The Age of Mediocrity

I was never a huge classicist. Sure, I read Homer's Iliad, in bits and pieces. I suppose I have the GEP to thank for that. And I remember it in dribs and drabs, like everyone else. Reading the two vastly disparate opinions about Troy, the Movie (ugh. What a name. Like Tron. But Troy. How much more imaginative can you get?) I'm reminded of a pet grouse of my own.

Hollywood doesn't... care anymore. It doesn't give a rat's about storylines, and plots. We're herded into theatres and lulled into mindless submission with sweetmeats, and hunky torsos, and impossible waistlines and juicy curves, and then we're herded back out. Bleat.

We're not supposed to think -- or if we think, we're supposed to think what They want us to. The countless rewritings to better suit a projected audience's demands.

When Hollywood writes a classic today, it doesn't just write a classic. It rewrites it, ostensibly to suit the flavour of the times. Does anyone remember the Gods of greek and roman mythology? We had fun in school fooling around with them. Bacchus. Dionysis. Heracles. Hercules. etc. Apparently they've been censored out of Troy, since we live in a secular age. Heroism has been reinterpreted of course - it only belongs to the leading men, and heroism in this day and age is selfish. Glory and honour belong to individual "leaders of men". Hollywood rewrites.
It's like scraping the caviar off a biscuit and putting peanut butter on top, instead, because the children will prefer peanut butter. Someone else is doing the thinking for us. Someone no better at thinking than the average Joe Bloggs. Except, of course, that Ordinary Joe and Plain Jane aren't quite as motivated by raking in money from the masses.

Why rewrite a "Classic" if you're going to change the plot till it becomes incomprehensible? Why not just write an original story? Use the same shiny bodies and perfect nipples / breasts. Showcase lovingly the same immaculate eyebrows and flawless faces... but back them. With a strong story. Recapture casablanca. Remember Scarlett.

"Original stories" (here I generously include film translations of little-known books) fall prey to the same problems : Taking Lives is about a serial killer who murders and then assumes the identity of his victims ("like a hermit crab"). It casts Angelina Jolie as an intellectual criminal psychologist (oops. Fallen at the first hurdle already. Don't worry, it landed on it's specially augmented soft-bits. no lasting damage done.) and Ethan Hawke as the enigmatic Good Guy caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Within minutes of watching it, I had sussed it out. Ethan Hawke's gonna turn out to be the bad guy after all, right?

And guess what - he did. So many ways they could have worked the plot, to create a Real "twist". Instead, the usual trite and terrible nonsense. And oh yes, of course, Angelina Jolie wins in the end. Yawn.
There's even a special treat for the sheep, with Angelina Jolie leaking out of her little silk dressing gown in all directions, without actually taking it off (all the important bits are exposed,but the limbs remain tastefully covered up.) while she desperately humps Hawke, first... on a dressing table was it? Then in bed.

Oh please. Is that supposed to save this trivial piece of balderdash? THIS is the best hollywood can manage? Who writes this drivel anyway? Teenagers??!

To be fair, once in a very long while something exceptional happens. Star wars, a long long time ago, in a place far, far away was something special. Star Trek followed suit, and did pretty well.
More recently, The Passion startled with it's near-faithful retelling of the story of Jesus Christ. Nevermind that Mel Gibson tweaked a few scenes for dramatic effect (Satan in the Garden of Gethsemane, instead of an angel. The temple crack'd from side to side, instead of a curtain ripping. etc)
We see that the intention is to retell the story. And the significances are captured admirably well. Perhaps too well. Militant Jews are suddenly up in arms, to crucify Mel. (hmm.)

Troy on the other hand isn't interested in significances, or storylines.
Troy is another Matrix - sharp, shiny, and out to empty your pocket. And make you bleat in ecstacy as it does it. A little more sweat and grease here, makeup person, if you may. And let's widen that chink in the armour a bit more, give them something to see, people. Let's blind them with our razzle and dazzle.

I haven't seen Troy yet, but I've got a funny feeling when I do, I'm going to be rather disappointed.

And The Day after Tomorrow? Oh please. No...

Met the ex today at the Barbican for some Final Settlements.
For some reason we always meet at the Barbican, when we do meet.
I wish we didn't. I guess it's my fault for never mentioning it, but that happened to be the last place I ever saw Her.

Today was. Strange. Many strange and tired thoughts. Many, sad. Some tinged with regret - but always that overwhelming sense of relief underlying it all. Perhaps at the end of the day - that says it all.

Wow.

What would you give, to be able to control your dreams?

*****
Sleight of Mind

(Stares at digicam.)
Given to me as a birthday present from an old friend, with the note "so that we(I) might see the world through your eyes."

Number of times used now : 3

There's nothing special about my eye(s), I don't think. I simply don't have the talent people like lucian have, with pictures. I paint with words (and once upon a time, with paint.)

Watching 50 First Dates with Dinner Companion some time back, I wondered aloud why Drew Barrymore, for someone doomed to live the same day over, and over again (RTA leading to complete anterograde amnesia) always built a different waffle-hut in every scene. Dinner Companion paused before rather slowly saying, "I don't think many people would have seen that." (Click, whirr. Gears turning. So he is mad after all...)

But no, everyone would have seen it. It's not the seeing that's different. It's the Watching.

She was creating. How could I not watch? Her hands. Her creation. Not her face.

Four am. He awakens to a murmuring stillness. A... susurration? (new word. The Wee Free Men. Knowledge +1)

There is a hushed sense of expectation from the world as a new dawn begins to creep across the sky. The air is filled with it. He almost expects to look across his bed and see a glimmering moongate materialising there to transport him to a medieval world in need of a champion...

He looks across the bed. Nothing happens. Outside, the sky continues to lighten imperceptibly.

Puzzled : he does not normally awaken from sleep. And yet now he is acutely aware of the silence around him. These are not the cotton eyed lids of the newly awakened.

He turns to the cryptic, first.
And wonders as he reads - as he often wonders - for whom this message is intended? Is he still the watcher, looking in from outside, or is he drawn into the circle. Or is there even a circle? Tales from the crypt. He decides to be self-centred.

Ah. There is a certain... ?fear? there.

Perhaps first sight fails the stranger as well, when it comes to herself. Perhaps the same insecurities generate the same arguments. (time to bang my head on the wall a bit methinks)

Street smart? Or blur like spineless undersea betentacled life.

"They wander around the city as She decides where to eat. Apparently her sense of direction is as arbitrary - and yet accurate - as His."

(from : unnamed source.)

Which counts more? reaching the destination through uncharted waters -- or treading the beaten path.

Spice - variety is. Of life.
Her differences are mundane to her (they don't count lol), she sensationalises the everyday with words. Third sight - watching herself, watch the world watching her.

Reawaken second sight, and then realise this stranger - is no stranger to words. And sometimes the choice of words is what sparkles, yes. What makes a person... the sparkly things he/she does, or the mysterious person within that he/she is when he/she goes to sleep? Which "counts"? Which are disqualified?
Perhaps they all count...

He reads the less cryptic - the open journal. (He always does, in this sequence. Why exactly, he doesn't know. It would make more sense the other way around.)

Ah.
Opposites attract, but similarities... bond?

And again, the tables turn. His turn to ponder the import of uncanny coincidences. Perhaps he is more... attuned... to. Hmm. Deja vu.
He wonders if somehow he is the fraud. Perhaps the words that chose him blundered blindly into the mousetrap of coincidence. Perhaps these words I spice my life with - electronic cumen and nutmeg -- perhaps these mislead her.

I did nothing. I chose nothing. The voices did it. Not I.

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, which one is the real thing, which one the illusion?

Do you ever wonder if the face looking back at you in the mirror is thinking the same thought too?"

"Never stand between two mirrors." (Pratchett, A Hatfull of Sky)

Too many sights.
Of course he does.

*****
Senses

Walking in the park with a friend, they pass a particularly fragrant patch where a random canine has answered the call of nature, and she crinkles her nose in disgust. Can we hurry on... this is why I will never be a country person.

He looks about him in silent... wonder? The trees brilliant shades of green, and cascading flowerfalls of white hanging suspended in mid air on their boughs en-route to their final resting place of the earth beneath three months later. At the hues of yellow, and red, and blue; and the gambolling golden browns of dogs, and their owners, and tops of children's heads...

... as they hurry away from the offending scent.

He points out an airline trail lancing red-gold across the clear dusk sky and she acknowledges it for a split second, before ranting at the noisy hordes around her...

He walks alone to dinner with his extravagent friend, and wonders if perhaps there are more smells in summer... or whether he lives winter with his eyes wide open and his nostrils frozen shut.

Perhaps it is not that we do not sense often enough.
Perhaps we are just unable to separate our senses, to savour one sense without it being overrun by another.
Sight, from smell.
Sight, from sound.
Smell, from sight.

Sense, from sound.

*****
Away, To sleep.

"Does the song of the sea end at the shore or in the hearts of those who listen to it?"

(Stolen from Bets' comment on this blog dated 14 May 2004)

That's a good question.
Terry Pratchett (all bow down before the ma... sorry cough. okay now) asks it occasionally with his postulates about the sound of solitary trees falling down in the middle of forests.

Does anyone hear them fall? No.
But they still groan and cry out as they fall, wooden flesh rending apart.

Does the song of the sea end in the hearts of those who listen to it?

I don't know. I'd prefer to think that it lives on in those hearts, far from the place where it was born.

*****
Sights

Occasionally reading his (new) scary book in the fiery sunlight, on Leicester Square (but largely watching the people) he sees :

1) an oriental girl in a chic white top carefully designed to be as little larger than her bra than possible (to maximally expose her rather attractive cleavage to the world at large) playing touchy feely with her boyfriend, in front of her apparently best (girl)friend. His gaze skims over her - uninteresting, even if rather pretty - till on second pass sometime later, he notices her boyfriend wandering off to the loo... and her snogging the girl. um. oo.

2) pigeons frying comatose on the grass. he remembers the bedraggled pigeon he saw sitting pointedly in the middle of the (huge, ground-level) fountain on Russel square, soaked to its neck in water with its feathers ruffled out, staring belligerently at the humans passing by as if to say : "what?? I'm HOT. Okay?"

3) as he watches, his gaze meets the eyes of another Watcher. Blue, intense. They both linger for the slightest fraction of a second, as each sees in the other's eyes : I wonder what He's thinking? before both break eye contact to scan in opposite, and almost embarrassed, directions.
Returning later, when he's sure the other isn't watcing :
Blond hair, blue eyes, slight goatee. Looks kinda like some elf guy from some movie. Hmm. I know someone who would dig that.

*****
Stranger
it's "worse", btw. Worse things... than. I, pedant. It's my mummy's fault, really.

There's something bugging me as, cruising on autopilot I take the history of her epistaxis (nosebleed).

Then it hits me. Her pupils. Left - 2mm. Right - 4mm.

pause.
(while simultaneously measuring pupil reactivity:)

"Uh, did you hit your head recently?"

"Why yes, as a matter of fact... four days ago."

"Were you knocked out? You've been fine since?"

"No. Yes."

Oh. Relax. Nothing serious then. By this time, mum is intrigued. I point out the pupil size disparity - oh. I'd never noticed that before.

Eh? You daughter grows up with unequal pupils and it takes a complete stranger to point it out?

Bemused.

Pyromania
set me ablaze
give me light
with which to see
through the windows of your eyes

set me alight
burn me with
your warmth that parts
the chill, enveloping mists of reminiscence

set me afire,
spill your colours
across this canvas, inspire
in me these expiring embers
these forgotten echoes
and forsaken dreams
ressurrect these words
that have turned to ash in this mouth

set me ablaze
and give me a light
with which to follow
your trail of charcoal footprints in this night

till I find you
and you find me

and as the embers of our breaking bodies fade
stand close by and perhaps
we will rekindle each other
for all eternity
- Aninnymouse.

AAARrgh!

What is the world coming to when Waitrose no longer sells Waitrose (tm) Chai Tea Latte??!

And a quick websearch reveals that chai latte has gone extinct in the uk, except perhaps at starbucks, which serves chai flavoured water.

Groan. Stupid Brits.

It's been amazingly warm for the last two days. Summer has undeniably arrived when a bloke can fall asleep in a park reading "A Hat full of Sky" and wake up feeling dehydrated... and when milk goes bad in the fridge on it's due date.

It's strange, but I don't think I'll ever get used to the whole concept of seasons, despite having lived here for... what, going on eight years now?

I grew up with the eternal sunshine of a spotless country. (ugh)
Sure, we had "seasons" : early morning - hot, gentle sunshine, humid. midday - hot, blazingly sunny, humit. evening - short shower, humid. hot.
nightfall - humid. slightly chilly. occasional thunderstorm.
repeat ad infinitum.

This whole spring, summer, autumn, winter deal never ceases to amaze me. Every turn of the season leaves my mind wondering, as my body insists notwithstanding on taking it all for granted - was I really there? Was it really freezing last week, and am I really contemplating going outside to fry in the reflected sunshine off the Thames? (Granted, this being the UK, summer will probably last one week, and winter always lasts three fourths of the year)

Someday I hope to die somewhere where the seasons turn... but somewhere warm.

...Creme Brulee (Godiva?) and Jello

(Agh. How did she do it... again? Curse ye, ye hag with yer haggling, mind-reading ways)

Is it a matter of Correctness? Of dotting the 'i's and crossing he 't's?

No.
(Or rather, that is not the crux of the issue, though I'll grant that it does add to this pedant's reading pleasure)

It's a matter of refinement. And subtlety.

It's something along the lines of :

"Always face what you fear. Have just enough money, never too much, and some string. Even if it's not your fault it's your responsibility. Witches deal with things. Never stand between two mirrors. Never cackle. Do what you must do. Never lie, but you don't always have to be honest. Never wish. Especially don't wish upon a star, which is astronomically stupid. Open your eyes, and then open your eyes again."

- Terry Pratchett, A Hat full of Sky.

******
Or perhaps it's just got something to do with dried frog's pills?

"First thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They're rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft."

Stare.

******
Do you know why you are Dangerous?
You are dangerous, because they think you are.
You are dangerous, because you think you are.

We know this.
But Those are not the reasons why, I fear.

******
Note to Self

Reading Pratchett too quickly leads to withdrawal symptoms after running out of new Pratchetts. Quiver. Twitch. Miimbelg bguyu pink elephant! nfnak. purple spider...

******
Speaking of which... it appears that Terry Pratchett toyed with the idea of a website for a while (turtles all the way) which unfortunately still hasn't come into fruition. dribble. drool.

And then in the cold (actually, warm) light of day, the words that were lost in the mists of sleep break the silvery surface of freshly re-awakened sentience :

"Well how about this way. I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out, I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich, I love when you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts, I love that after I've spent the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because its New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible."

- Harry Burns, When Harry met Sally

And the voices spake.
Angry voices.

What?
What are they trying to tell us? Are they saying maybe that it's... rare? That loving someone for who they are, in their entirity - even loving them for their quirks and flaws is nigh-on unachievable? Is it only the mystic stuff of legend and cellulite? Something we can only yearn for and aspire towards, that exists in potentia, yet never really quite materializes in this reality?

Is that supposed to make me (you) feel better?

Or are they trying to say that it's really common, a reflection of real-life? Maybe everybody falls in love like that, only they don't. Tell. Me.

Maybe the lovey doveys around me, maybe they're all the lucky ones who pull it off effortlessly... and maybe I could only pull it out of my magic hat once. Maybe I've run out of bunnies.

Is that supposed to make me feel better?

Voice : Will it ever happen again?

Voice : Why are you being so f-ing self-centred?

Voice : Probably had too much to drink last night.

Voice : Oh.

Voice : Watch, and wait. And learn.

Captain's blog.

Alcohol levels 90%, fatigue levels 99%, hull integrity fading. agh captain we cannae take much more o' this, th' brain, she is about tae blow!

(fizzle.)

Watching the Italian sommelier's gentle attempts to hit on my female dinner companion (for only the umpteenth time now) with bemused amusement (dulled just a little by the copious amounts of Muscato Asti being generously heaped upon us said wine waitor, which as I suspected would mysteriously vanish off our bill by the end of the night) I couldn't help but wonder... what IS it about women... or perople rather, that they simply can't See? That they can't see what's really there in front of them - only what they want to see? Second sight is easy... first sight isn't. Even when sobre. So the night ended with me making the obvious even more obvious, and egging said friend on. After all, this guy is nice, and cute, and funny. And sweet, and Italian for chrissakes.

******
Fifty First Dates

Watching Fifty First Dates, the voices begin to play up.

What could it be like to be her? To wake up every day, and have your world turned inside out by all these memories a stranger - you - has been living, every day, since... today?

(short term memory loss post car crash, memory wipe every 24 hours)

What if it all turned out to be a lie... and you never really loved this guy who's claiming to be your bloke? Or your husband?

What if some days you wake up, and you really don't love him - but you only have his word for it?

And how could you possibly fit it all in... day in, day out. Today -- happened a year ago. Two. Ten. Fifty?!

Then the other voice interjects :

What could it be like to be him?

To have her wake up and see you as a stranger every day... for the rest of your life? To have to learn to fall in love with you every day?
To never be able to share memories with her, to sit down and laugh about yesterday. To share... familiarity.

To always be... the intimate... stranger.

Could anyone really love anybody else that much?

Where is the significance?

Who are you loving her for -- her... or you?

******
When Harry met Sally

I suppose this one's for the stranger's friend SF. -ish. sorta.

I watched the stage adaptation of this movie "classic" today. A passable effort from "Willow", and a sterling performance by Luke Perry.

And it makes you wonder. Can blokes and birds really not be friends, because of the "sex part"?

Perhaps the get-out clause is honesty. Perhaps if a guy admits to a girl that she's probably attractive - just not to him... and she does the same. Perhaps they can be friends then. Friends yes, sex-partners no.

What about Americans? Friends AND sex partners. :| (See : "Friends")

Or perhaps the reality is that there are so many different kindsa guys and girls out there.
Some of them aren't built along those rules?

Or maybe it's all about ladder theory.

Or maybe it's true.

Looks dubiously at Y chromosome. Mmm. Kick. Doesn't seem to be operating properly...

"She knew she wasn't," (selfish) "not in the way people meant. She tried to think of other people. She never took the last slice of bread. This was a different feeling.
She wasn't being brave or noble or kind. She was doing this because it had to be done, because there was no way that she could not do it."

(From : The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett)

*****
Err. I wonder what a male Hag is called. A Hog? Hig? Hack?

Shift off at 2300.

Restart at 0800.

Add 2 hours for travel time.

and 1 hour for waking up, groaning, checking email, cleaning teeth and face.

A&E on 4 hours sleep. Running on empty.

(The missing time in the unwritten equation above is that mysterious hour that always seems to leak out of the continuum of reality when you need it the most.)

*****
Cruel Land

It is a cruel, cruel land that promises the hint of spring, all through summer, and reverts unexpectedly to winter when nobody's looking. 2 weeks of summer-esque weather -- and technically it IS the height of summer now; waking up this morning and staring out the window at the beauty of a dazzling sunrise. Oh, Good. Light jacket on, zoom out the house.
Halfway to the station, it finally sinks into my sleep deprived mind that my fingers are hurting. And surely breath isn't supposed to freeze in front of you during summer.

Mutter. Grumble. Fume.

"Aye, she's got First Sight sure enough," said William's voice behind Tiffany as she stared into the world of the Queen. "She's seein' what's really there..."

- Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men

Coffee - black or white?

Eh.
I'd been meaning to ask that too, for a while. Also the related - Question : Coffee or Tea?

...

"Aye, you're a born hag, right enough," said the kelda, holding her gaze. "Ye've got that little bitty bit inside o' you that holds on, right? The bitty bit that watches the rest o' ye. 'Tis the First Sight and Second Thoughts ye have, and 'tis a wee gift an' a big curse to ye. You see and hear what others canna', the world opens up its secrets to ye, but ye're always like the person at the party with the wee drink in the corner who cannae join in. There's a little bitty bit inside ye that willnae melt and flow."

"She said ye were a strange one, always watchin' and listenin'. She said ye had a heid full o' words that ye ne'er spoke aloud."

"She was thinking: Aaargh! This is not happening to me! can't -- He couldn't-- We wouldn't-- They're not even-- This is ridiculous! Run away!"

(From : The Wee Free Men, Terry Pratchett)

*****
Hmm. Hag.
Heh.

Eyeing the other, warily. And being watched in return. This strange dance we are creating, a dance of words (a dance without steps... what does one call it? A play without words, is after all, a mime) makes precious little sense to me.

We watch and circle - this one is dangerous - and yet my guard is down. And where one would expect to be tense, bunched like a spring, poised to leap - or dodge - instead one feels a quiet calm. This experience... is enjoyable.

Which of us will be the first to break away? Or will we.
And would the silence beyond be as acute as the insistent voices on the edges of consciousness are promising?

And yet it matters not.

Eleven minutes.
Stride. Wider steps.
Fatigue. The body begins a gradual muttering in protest. Not enough sleep, not enough time off my feet. Home at eleven pm, up at six am.

Eight minutes. Faster. Faster.
Argh. A traffic light. Another two minutes gone.

Six minutes, no time to dally. I start to run. Strangely, there is an odd sense of exhilaration as I begin my sprint down the final stretch. There always is, when I run. Something about me seems to enjoy sprinting.

Five.

Four. The extra weight of my bag and overcoat begin to remind me why running in London is such a chore.

One. I dash through the closing train doors and collapse in a heap onto a chair, lungs on fire and heart hammering fit to extrude through my chest. My legs are exploding in pain. Agony.

Um. Was that me saying that I enjoyed sprinting?

hmm. joining the dots.

Anyway, this one's for neil, not that he'll ever discover this site.

Try a lightbulb instead of an onion.
Satisfaction guaranteed.

And Sandman was brilliant.

Every bone, every fiber in my body recoiled as I lifted the strap and slung it on my right shoulder, diagonally across my chest. The offending receptacle came to rest against my left hip.

Wrong. This feels wrong, wrong. After twenty-eight years of slinging bags to sit by my right shoulder/hip, this feels alien and unnatu... hey! there's a pen-pouch on my right shoulder. cool!

*****
All in the Mind

(The mislaid words)

What is it like?

I may have borne silent witness now, many more times than the average layman might have done. But the depth of emotion never lessens. Every individual is unique.

I used to say a silent prayer for the departed; occasionally, when not being rushed off my feet, I still do.

I remember one of the first, well. To be honest, if I pause long enough, I can still remember them all, well.
But one of the first... she was my friend. I'd learnt to love this familiar figure that I saw, day in, and day out. I'd bought her a book on the sly.

When she died, the ugly questions that reared their heads - could we have done something more? could I have done something more? haunted me for a while.

Now, in the retrospective calm and peace of mind afforded by time and wisdom (don't say nuffin!!), the answers are clear. Yes, we could have. But I could not have acted alone - I was too junior in the field.

Standing there, my hands locked, compressing her chest for all I was worth, I felt only despair, then. Why had we chosen to ignore the signs?

And then, stepping out of myself for a moment.

What is it like?

What could it possibly have been like, to have walked the path of that geriatric, messy-haired old goa... knight? Alone, he must have birthed and buried most of that little countryside village he lived in; cared for them from the cradle to the grave. Stood over countless burial plots. And cried each time.

If the career back home was half the honour it is, here in the "developed world" (and even here, it is a fading light) I I'd have known what I wanted to be doing with the rest of my life, in a flash. Now, instead, I find myself choosing the lesser of two evils.

I will never be that dignified ancient knight, that intimate stranger. There is no role for him in Shiny, Sunny, Saccharine Singapore, anymore.

*****
Excuse Me!

I am Not terrified. So there.

Harrumph!

(okay, perhaps slightly ill at ease. Or maybe faintly disquieted... minimally unsettled...)

*****
Click

Neil Gaiman.
Sandman. Oh. Oh... oh.

... intrigued.

...to live. to burn with. to smoulder alongside.

I wanted this. Do not be sorry.

Once upon a time, a child sat before a panel of adults; faced with the question of Why - Why do this. Why be. Why search for. What calls you? He answered, slowly. Ad-libbing with his soul as the words choose themselves, his carefully pre-scripted answer entirely forgotten in the depth of the moment :

I want. To help where I can, to alleviate suffering, perhaps even to heal. To remove pain.

And where I cannot, to be present. To hurt alongside. To understand.

And where I cannot, to be there for those that remain. To offer solace. To touch.

There was a moment of silence. And then four adult heads nodded, just once, in unison. There were no further questions then. The most senior of the adults said, quietly, "we would like you to join us".

Regret. He chose poorly in the end, and opted instead for the cold, professional secularism of a godless university.

I asked for this. This is my cross to bear.

*******
In this death...

One of those who trod the path before me that I respect the most was an old, ailing man, always immaculately dressed with permanently mussed-up hair and smelling faintly of moth balls. I was his fly on the wall, allocated to him by my university. Observer.

In the early days, I liked him, but did not yet respect him. He often gave me charge of his countryside surgery, and sat quietly in the corner. Sometimes he made noises suspiciously like snores. Just resting his eyes.
As he drove us home, his left hand would judder a little. Watching, listening, I couldn't help but realise this small, kindly, stoop-shouldered man had Parkinson's. Old, frail. Tired.

The moment of catharsis came when one of his young patients (with known depression) decided to take a walk in a dark tunnel into the light. Of an oncoming train.

The train driver was badly shaken-up. Apparently the youth had made no attempt to escape. He hadn't even flinched - he'd seemed almost to welcome his instant of oblivion. Apparently he'd stopped taking his antidepressants.

This gentle, tired octeganarian seemed strangely callous about it all. He visited the boy's mother to silently hold her hand as she cried. He spoke gravely to the police coroner. Busy, busy, bees. (or rather, bee and fly.)

And then he did something I've never seen another doctor do.
He went to the funeral. And took his fly on the wall with him - Why, I do not know.

Kneeling with my head bowed during the service, I sneaked a glance to my left, wondering if perhaps the old man had drifted off again. He certainly looked it, head bowed, eyes in shadow, keeping so, so still. And then I noticed the tears falling intermitently out of the shadows of his averted face to the ground. Frail, weak and stoop shouldered, but his white hair blazed in the sudden shaft of light that shone down briefly upon him through the saints in the stained-glass windows above, this aged Knight of humanity.

(I remember the service well, the pall-bearers slow-marching heavy-shouldered down the aisles to the tune of Chariots of Fire, staring grimly at their feet. His girfriend trailing behind, her large eyes glassy and red-rimmed. Long blonde hair, tall, graceful, and utterly beautiful. What could have moved him so, to part from her like this? And the boy himself, so young and fresh-faced, eyes closed in final, peaceful repose. Someone I could have been friends with. Someone my age.)

Love, and courage. Closely intermingled. Dying, over and over again. For someone else.

******
In this life...

To listen. To know a mind, and heart. And yes, perhaps to learn something along the way, lessons in life.

But not merely to listen.
To speak as well. To share.

To ask for nothing in return; giving, for the giving.

Pleasure, in the receiving - optional. But very much present.

Voice : Wait, and watch. The pieces are... poised? And every now and then, one falls.
Think nothing, watch.
Listen. In the interminable silence, for the next click as a pin engages it's chamber. For the next distant plink, as a pebble strikes water after an eternity. Or perhaps an indignant squeak from the March Hare, waiting at the bottom.

heh.

Rest in Peace.

I'm lying in bed at last, reeling slightly as each wave of fatigue swells up and breaks over me.

Difficult to breathe. Everytime I inhale, I smell the dank, moist, sightly nauseating scent of blood.

Blood.

blood.

She - a pleasant old fogey - didn't look unwell when I was called in to see her. She'd dropped her b/p to 80/40 but she was alert and chatty and cracking jokes. And feeling well. Pale, slightly sweaty.

A, B, C, bang in the venflons and the fast fluids while chatting to her and making wisecracks. She laughs with me. Apparently she's collapsed after vomiting up a pint of blood 3 hours ago, just the once.

her b/p responds immediately to the fluids. 130/80 and maintained. not tachy. not pale or sweaty. not in shock.

I write her for 500 mls more over 30 min, then 500 mls over 1 hr and make an immediate medical referral as an upper GI bleeder. I warn the medic that she had been hypotensive but responded well to a fluid challenge.

When I come back several hours later it's to sheer and utter pandemonium. Apparently she's vomited again while waiting to be seen by the medics. about 2 pints this time. b/p is low and not responding as well. and she's clinically shocked now. although still chatty.

the medics have gotten fluids running in both drips. We bang 2 more in, and painfully raise her b/p back towards more physiological levels. anything is better than 60/30

she slides gradually, over the next four hours. we can see it happening before our eyes, even as the medics wage their campaign against the surgeons, and the nonexistent out-of-hours-endoscopists.

nothing is happening. The only reason she's keeping her b/p up is because of the fluid's we're running in. And the occasional bag of blood, as the X matches become available. Her blood has the consistency of coloured water, as she vomits it up, over, and over and over again.

At one point, the team flounders. Her b/p falls again to 60/30, and her GCS falls off. There is a pause, and suddenly I'm stepping forward to fill the gap. 3 bags of gelly, now please. b/p returns to 120/80.
Grimly, we battle on to keep her alive. She's been peri-arrest now for two hours. Her heart rhythm on the monitor changes a few times, but her cardiac output is maintained, thankfully. She was Nice. I knew her. For a while. She will live, dammit!! I press in the bloods manually, far faster than the pressure bags could possibly do. My arms are cramping up. But hell, she's still alive. Barely. Lab Hb returns 3.5... (the normal is >11)

The medics decide she has varices rather than an ulcer, even though she doesn't drink and has no stigmata of chronic liver failure. apparently her bloods suggest it to them. I suggest considering desmopressin if we can't get endoscopy, but the suggestion is swatted aside. We need to scope to make a diagnosis first.
Maybe we should consider a sengstaken tube. (But nobody here has done one. You could perforate the oesophagus!!)

But it might be lifesaving. She is going to die anyway, unless you can get her on the table instead of having to wait for an OGD in the morning. We can't possibly make her bleed faster than she is doing already.

My thoughts are ignored.

I suggest a central line for fluid monitoring. It happens two hours later. I should just have done it myself.

Four hours in, and the surgical reg has finally arrived reluctantly to assess her - by now, intubated and ventilated, and very nearly dead. With a hugely swollen abdomen, lying in a pool of melaena (which started halfway through the fracas).

The decision for theatre is made. And the team disperses.

I head for home at last. 2 hours after my shift ended.

Breathe. Breathe.
It's not blood I'm smelling. It's air. Really.
*****

Regret. I didn't foresee a re-bleed. I assessed her, found her stable and handed her on. The bare minimum. Group and saved, instead of cross-matched. Not enough IV access. No central line. Sure, the medics could have done that themselves, more quickly when she went off. But perhaps I should have done that all in advance, before she went off. Class II, bordering on III haemorrhage when I first saw her...

does pain / sorrow / tears / anger between 2 people make what they have any less worth remembering?

rethinking.

I am no masochist. One of the best years of my life came about largely, I suspect, because I was truly happy.

But the moments of significance included times when I was quite the reverse.

For I too believe in Happiness of the Other, even at the cost of my own. And that at times will make sadness inevitable.

Part of me is at one with the masses brought up on Hollywood nutra-sweet. I too desperately yearn for the eternal sunshine of a spotless mind (note to self, must catch movie, even if it's got Jim Carrey in it).
But an older part of me recognises now that pain, sorrow, tears and sadness are inevitable in this life. They are part of our humanity.

If the tears are inflicted intentionally, they detract from my significance.
Tears - I have received. And given. Base humanity. Black.

If the fears are shared, if they are directed at common goals or targets they add to the significance, for my significance, methinks, lies in sharing and mutuality. Two people in tandem, both prepared to be unhappy to make the other happy - but always with the underlying trust that the giving will be freely done, and never abused or demanded. White.

If the tears are apathetic, just one of those things that happens. Accidental. Painful to one, frustrating to the other, moments to be wallpapered over with consoling never-minds and admissions of miscommunication, and possibly even incompatability : then these are the mundane moments that flood our lives between points of significance.
These add nothing to my significances, nor do they detract. Worth remembering, or not? Grey.

Which would I rather?

I'd rather clear horizons. Balmy offshore winds in my hair. A lifetime of laughter.
I want to be happy. Utopia.

But, older and wiser now, I'll settle for life. Not merely the mundane, but the significant.

A whiter shade of pale.

*****
Parting is...

More on significance. There can be significance in loss.

Every goodbye is important - today is fragile. Tomorrow brings with it all manner of the unknown. An unexpected traincrash, an unpredictable apathy. September 11th.

When you ushered me out of the hall, abruptly that day, as I prepared to make that now-mundane nine-hour trainride - you were curt. Almost angry, as if this Goodbye was inconvenient. Defensive barriers brought to bay. Your heart, before mine.
When you asked me later - what had I expected. Tears??
Is that what I wanted?

I expected anything but apathy. And my sadness wasn't so much in the utter lack of sadness, but in the passage of a shadow across my soul

This one does not understand, or share my significances.
This is not The One.

For this term I bandy around ad nauseum (significance) is something intrinsic that is learnt from within, and cannot be taught from without.

The end of an era foreshadowed.

There is a significance too in reunion. Waiting. Surviving. Joy. Re-creation. But this significance is obvious to most, and bears not reiterating.

*****
The Projectionist's Nightmare

Sometimes, re-reading these words that I have chosen - and that oftimes have chosen me, I have to pause and wonder :

word-projectionist? or word-pornographer.

:|

A lifetime ago last night, I found myself re-exploring some very, very tired questions.

But how will you know, when you know?

As my dinner-companion left to visit the washroom, my eyes, heavy with the unholy combination of work and influenza closed themselves to the world - for an instant - as I gratefully rested my head in hands.

The common point is this : As long as he's happy, I'm happy

So sleepy.
Yes, I suppose that may be enough. Living to make someone else happy. There can be no nobler cause.

Wait. No. What happens when he/she's not happy? Would you still be happy? What if he/she is unhappy? What then?
He remembers the ex, constantly unhappy because she couldn't make him laugh. And he remembers himself feeling unhappy in return. A vicious, and endless cycle. Two snakes devouring each other's tails.
How... trite.

As long as he's happy, I'm happy.

No. No, no. No.
Happiness is trivial. Happiness is merely an added bonus - not an integral requirement. Happiness does not define, or delineate anything. Happiness is transient.

There must be a higher purpose.

How will you know when you know?
How did you know when you fell in love - the first time?
Was there a sudden catharsis - one moment not, and the next moment wholly in love with someone, heart and soul, till death do part? Surely not.
Or did you just... know. Hazy moments from the past of minor, ?suppressed insights gelling inexorable into a larger, more powerful and undeniable Truth - the whole being more than the sum of its individual pieces?
Perhaps falling in love is at best, an Art, and at the worst, an imprecise science.
Approaching the quandry rationally leads only to confusion. And more insoluble puzzles.
And so, in turn - perhaps knowing "The One" is similar to - or possibly an extension of falling in love, although with subtle differences. Knowing. Not that "this is love", but rather - "this is The One".
Watching the pieces fall into place.
Listening for that final "click" as the last pin slides home into it's chamber, and the lock springs apart.

The key, for me - is much, much more than happiness. Anger. Sadness. Comfort. Pain. Laughter. Tears. Warmth. Cold.

Life.
Death.

The key is - Significance.
Rare in its scarcity, priceless in it's rarity. Overwhelming in its discovery - encountered, not sought. Unforgettable in its unmasking.

You know when you Know
******

I wake with a start as she touches me on the shoulder. Time to leave this place behind us.

*****

More than words

Significance : not just a word.
Thoughts, and deeds. Feelings. Moments.

Life is mundane, but scattered sparsely between the multitudes of mind-numbing, easily-forgotten endless subroutines of Everyday are the occasional magic moments we cherish forever.

A step further - sometimes life feels, to me, like a (certain type of) console game. (Hah. yes. call in the mental health team...) Long periods of semi-mindless movements, with a distant aim buried faintly in the back of your mind. Running... always running, to get from point A to point B.

With the occasional save-points in between.

Even further - sometimes it feels like it's amost a script, to me. That it has to be done a certain way. Moments of significance choose you, and not vice versa. Thoughts. Actions. Feelings - not just words - choose you.

You would have changed things for the better.

You, copped out and asked instead "change what?" - refusing to answer the question. The mask raised immediately. *shrug*

I... would not have changed a thing.
Partly because I could not have... even had I possessed the sure knowledge of the bleakness the future would bring.
And partly because changing it would somehow detract from the significance of it all.