Wednesday, 26 July 2017

Have Been Unable To Think Of Anything Witty Or Interesting To Write On Here For Some Time...

...which, of course, is just not good enough.
           With that in mind, in order to satisfy my fan(s), I have decided to post another snippet of the story I am working on right now.

So! Without further ado, behold!
           Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~

Conversations With Him.

Chapter 1.

It started with blood.

I was surprised, I think. In the back of my mind, I had had this notion – that I had tried to force out of my brain before it became a notion – that if or when my brother decided to kill himself, it would involve pills. Drugs. Co-codomol or something like that. Something meant to kill pain; taken in a large enough quantity to kill the pain for good. Or something.

The policeman was kind. 
He found me somewhere to sit – I forget exactly where, or what on – and put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly, sympathetic kind of way. 
I wasn't sure that he was allowed to, actually. I’d an idea in my head that it was frowned upon; this kind of intimate touching. That it might of left him vulnerable to some sort of charge, if I were that sort of person. I mean, I'm not – and I wasn't then, either – but he wasn't to know that, was he? 
Anyway, right of wrong, he did it, and in amongst all the muddle and jumble in my head at the time, I was glad.

He was in the bedroom. That’s where they’d found him. I hadn’t seen him. There was the blood; that was all over the sink and sideboard in the kitchen, and some drops and dribbles on the floor, but that was all. They wouldn’t let me into the bedroom so I could see him.

I was glad about that, too.

*****

Of course, I saw him later on.
When everything was ready.
It was just like you see on the television. A person led into a little room with a big window in it; the view obscured by a dark curtain. The policewoman - it's always a woman for a woman. This method has been tried and tested – asks you if you are ready (“no rush”, she assures you, though). When you say that you are, the curtain is pulled aside and there is your brother, lying in front of you. Or sister. Or aunt, of uncle, or whoever.
But in my case of course, it was my brother. And there he was (or wasn't). Lying there. In front of me. My brother…
While this goes on, of course, the policewoman stands in stoic silence, waiting for your reaction, whatever it is (tissues ready in one hand, the other within leaning distance of a chair).
In my case, the reaction was a swallow, a hoarse croak of a voice that didn't really sound like mine saying “that’s my brother” and a hand, pressed against the glass. 

He looked…how to describe it? Not ‘peaceful’, as is sometimes described. But then again, he didn’t look particularly distressed or tortured either. He looked… Amused.
            Yes, that was it. He was amused. His eyebrows were raised and even with his eyes closed, there was an air of great irony in his expression. Topping it all off; his lips were pursed, with the corner of one side turned up ever so slightly, as though even now, he were suppressing the urge to laugh.
            My brother. Smirking in death.

I’m not certain how long I stood there. Both at the time and when I look back, everything is blurred. One minute I’m stood with my palm flat against the window looking at him; the next, I’m in an interview room answering a few questions.
            “Just routine”, they said.

They asked everything I’d expected them to. When was the last time I saw or heard from him? And how did he seem then? Any sign of his behaviour being different, out of the ordinary?
            And then the big one. The one that I had been dreading…

“And how –” the appropriately respectful and glum faced interviewer paused for a second, thinking how to word it before he asked; “– how was his mental state in general? Did he suffer from any problems?”

I wanted to hit him then.
            Unfair, perhaps, but this story is about truth, and the truth is that at these words, I wanted to hit him, because of course he knew. It was all there on record; all there in the innocuous looking brown file that was laid neatly out on the table opposite me. They all knew. And here this man was, deadpan, asking anyway, because…why? To be cruel? To rub salt into the gaping wound and dig the knife in a little deeper?

The thought of my brother, of the knife; flashes up in my mind before I quickly shoo it away.

The reasonable side of my nature piped up – as it does, annoyingly – to warn me that I was being unnecessarily harsh. That they had to ask; there was a procedure, a process that had to be gone through. It wasn’t this man’s fault. It wasn’t anybody’s.
            I accepted the logic of this, with a mental roll of my eyes.
            It didn’t stop me wanting to slap this man who may or may not have been being snide right across his carefully expressionless face, though.

“My brother has paranoid schizophrenia,” I explained, tightly.

At my words, I felt a slight change in the atmosphere. It was barely perceptible, but there nonetheless. I was used to it, by now. Even in the most professional and unflappable of people, the effect was there and I could feel it; the sense of unease rising. It was like an invisible, inaudible sort of hum.

Leaning forwards slightly, the interviewer licked his lips a little. The tension was making them dry, I guessed. In any case, it gave him a few seconds to think how to phrase the next question.

“His illness,” he said slowly; “did it cause him to suffer from depression?”

“Yes.” My voice was still tight.

The urge to scream was biting at the back of my throat. The urge was there to scream at the man, at the policewoman beside me, at the wall, at the people on the other side of it, probably listening, at everything and everyone.
            But especially him: the one that was not there, who had promised that I would never be sitting here, having this conversation…

“And had he ever tried to hurt himself before?” he pressed.

“Yes.”

It had been pills that time.
            The hospital had been kind. Everybody always was, generally. To me, that is. He was regarded with suspicion, with fear. With contempt, even. But me; hardly ever. It was as though, unable to cope with or understand him, they turned away and focussed all their energy on the other sibling instead. The ‘normal’ one...

I was staring at the table, breathing slowly, fighting back the desperate need to start shouting.
My palms were spread out flat in front of me. I started counting my fingers. 

“Could you –” the interviewer’s voice asked, breaking into my thoughts: “– tell me what it was that he did?”

…Still counting. 1 to 10. Over and over…

“It was an overdose,” the policewoman said hastily, before I could reply. Her hand, which had been laid lightly on my arm since we had sat down, tightened it’s grip in a reassuring manner, as she added firmly: “it’s all on file.”

I saw the look pass between them. Him: an enraged, how-dare-you-challenge-me? glare. Her: a stern, don’t-you-reckon-she’s-suffered-enough-you-unfeeling-shit? stare.
            In the end, the one to back down was him.

“Well, I think that’s enough,” he said coolly. “We’ll leave it there. Thank you for your time, Miss. Fielding.”

The answer to that was a toss up between a nod or another curt “yes”.
            I chose the former.
            Next minute the chairs were pushed back and me and the policewoman were making our way out of the room and back into the lobby.
            There was more room to think out here. More room to breathe.

As she escorted me to the desk and I waited in the queue to sign out, the policewoman talked about what would happen next. There would be a post-mortem examination, of course, as was always the case in circumstances like this. Then, there would be an inquest, if necessary. Then, if all went as expected – with or without the inquest – my brother’s body would be released, along with any personal effects, and I would be able to make the “necessary arrangements”.

“Necessary arrangements”. What a horribly, misleadingly mundane phrase that sounded…

When it was finally our turn at the desk, a few murmured words between policewoman and the sergeant on duty explained why I was there without my needing to say anything and he held out a pen with a smile that was both sympathetic and genuine.
            I recognized it immediately, that smile. It wasn’t the same kind that I would usually get. It was different. That smile wasn’t saying; oh, poor you! How awful and incompressible, at the same time. It was saying; yep! been there, done that. Understand.

My usual response to this unspoken acknowledgement of solidarity would have been to ask what his story was – “Brother. Schizophrenia”, I’d say, then; “you?” – but numb as I was I couldn’t bring myself to. So, I simply smiled back, thankfully. Then I took the pen and hunted for my name on the list, which although I couldn’t remember putting it there logic dictated must have been, because I must surely have signed in when I arrived.
Finding my familiar scribble a few lines from the bottom of the page – logic also dictated that I should’ve started there rather than the other way around, but this time I had refused to listen – I put pen to paper, then as a thought occurred, I stopped, and turned round to ask:

“Can I see the note?” When the policewoman looked confused, I added; “the note. My brother’s note. The one he wrote before he…”

I can’t say it. I mean to, but my voice peters out of its own accord.
            There is a pause.
            I note that the policewoman, for the first time, looks awkward.

“I mean, I know it’s evidence, and everything –” I explained, twisting the pen around in my fingers. “– so I won’t be able to have it, not yet, but I thought I could at least just look at it. Just for a minute. I mean, it’s mine, anyway, isn’t it; he’s written it for me.”

Now the policewoman looked really awkward, and I am confused myself.
            I blinked a little.
            Then:

“Please?” I say.

My voice was pathetic, I knew it was. That was unfair, and I knew that too. It wasn’t her fault. If there were rules, that wasn’t her fault, and it wasn’t fair for me to put pressure on her. But I did it anyway.
I needed to see the note.
His note. My note. Just for a minute. I needed to see it.

“Please,” I say again. “Please.”

The policewoman breathed in, then took my arm and led me across to a seat.
            Sitting me down, she took another breath before she spoke.

“I’m sorry –” she said; “– there’s no easy way to say this. I’m afraid we can’t shoe you the note because there isn’t one.”

It took a moment for those words to sink in, and a moment more to comprehend them.
When both had happened, I blinked again, then shook my head.
No note? What was she talking about?
There had to be a mistake.

“There has to be a mistake –” I said out loud; “– there is a note. There is. There must be.”

The policewoman shook her own head.
            Her hand was still on my arm.
            I shook it off, and stood up.

There had to be a note. Just as with counting my fingers, my brain was repeating this over and over again. Reassuring itself, myself; because there was always a note. You commit suicide; you leave a note. That was what happened. That was how it worked…

“No,” I said. Despite the repetition inside my head, agitation was rising, I could feel it; a sick bile in my throat. “No. No…there’s a mistake. There is a note. He will have written a note. You just haven’t found it. You need to go back and keep looking.”

At this, the policewoman gave me another one of her stoic, reassuring smiles.
            Before, it was comforting.
            At that moment in time, however, it infuriated me.

“I mean it!” I snapped. It came out louder than I’d intended, which caused everybody to look at me, as I continued with; “you need to keep looking. It’s there somewhere. You just need to find it.”

The policewoman kept smiling as she assured me gently that she understood that I was upset – hey, she would be upset too, if our positions were reversed – but that they had carefully and thoroughly taken the place apart, piece by piece. There was no note. They were certain of it.
            She knew that wasn’t fair, she told me. But that was how it was. They couldn’t show me something they didn’t have.

“But it has to be there –” My voice was getting louder. I was ending each sentence with an exclamation mark now; unable or unwilling to accept it. “– it has to! You haven’t looked hard enough! My brother wrote me a note! He did! You need to find it! Hell, you can stay here and I’ll go and find it! Actually, that’s exactly what I’ll do: I’ll go and find it!”

I was pacing. I could feel that I was pacing. Back and forth. Up and down.
At some point, two big, burly policemen had appeared from somewhere and seeing that my agitation was growing out of control, they began walking towards us. The sergeant had also come out from behind his desk and was stood a little way off, ready to act if necessary.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the policewoman move.
She didn’t move much. She just made a small gesture with her hand.
It was a gesture I recognized.

“Please”, the gesture said: “Back Off. I’ve Got This.”

Faced with that, the policemen paused, and so did I. In fact, it stopped me in my tracks.
I had used that gesture myself, so often, to help my brother.
It had proven an invaluable tool helping me to diffuse incidents involving my brother before matters exploded. I had used it so many times that I had actually lost count. And now here was someone else using it to diffuse an incident involving me. An incident of people being unnerved and wary due to me: due to my behaviour. Unbelievable! Hilarious, even!
I found myself biting back another urge; sudden and wholly inappropriate, to laugh, but it passed by very quickly, leaving a sense of hollow melancholy in its place. Either way, the wind had been knocked out of my sails.

“I’m sorry,” I said. My voice was small, sad, as I repeated it: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

The policewoman smiled another smile, and now it was comforting again rather than infuriating. Leading me back to the chair, we sat for a bit, in silence, listening to the sounds going on around us.
            Show over, the lobby returned to normal very quickly. The sergeant returned to his desk immediately. The two burly policemen hung about for a few minutes before leaving, satisfied that all was calm again and they weren’t needed after all.

When I was ready, I stood up and took my place at the back of the queue again, then once it was my turn, I signed the book and the policewoman walked me to the door.

“You’ve got the numbers we gave you, haven’t you?” she asked once we reached it. When I told her I had, she nodded, adding; “the top one is best: I’ve put a ring around it. And we’ll be in touch with your liaison officer anyway – that’s Nina. Her details are on the top sheet – to keep you updated on how things are going, okay?”

“Okay,” I said.

One last smile for me.
I didn’t manage to smile back, but I squeezed the hand she offered to show her my thanks. Then I opened the door, and clutching the wad of papers in my right hand, I set off into the night.

The fact that it was raining was the cherry on the top of the occasion.

Or at least, that’s how it seemed to me at the time.

~~~~~~~~~

B.C.B.F.L.B x

Saturday, 15 July 2017

Spoken Word

As I've mentioned previously, I recently joined a couple of social groups via a website called MeetUp.
            Now, most of them have turned out to be impractical for either financial or transport based reasons (or both), so I've had to leave them to one side (for now).
            There is one more to try thus far. It's an LBGT Group in Bournville, and I'm not sure of the journey. Getting there won't be too much of a problem; it's a train ride with either two or three changes, but I'm not certain about getting back. Anyway, we'll see. I'm not ruling it out, because it's a craft evening (which I'd love) and sounds fun, and I really want to join).

One group that I've joined, however, that is both tried and tested, is Spoken Word & Music @ Ort, organised by members of Birmingham 30's &40's.

Twice, I've been - last night being the second - and I had a ball both times. I read out some poems, which were very well received (and not simply being kind and polite, either. I saw a couple of examples of 'polite' clapping later that reassured me on that score. The difference between that and genuine applause may have been subtle, but it was definitely there alright), and I had a great time watching and listening to the other acts until I was sadly forced to flee at 21:25 in order to catch my bus to get me back to the station in time, leaving the event still going strong (it tends to finish around 23:00, apparently).
            It's just great. Anyone can sign up to perform, and the performance can be anything. As one of the other members, Michael, said on the Spoken Word & Music @ Ort page regarding last night:
"As diverse as ever, where else can you get a song, poem and physic reading all in one evening....and a dog!!"
            And he's right. It's brilliant. And I'm part of it. Yesterday night, leaning back in my seat on the train ride home I was struck by a feeling of being incredibly happy and thrilled. Here I was, part of a group of lovely, friendly people, from many walks of life, who all had one thing in common: The Urge To Creative. And even if I didn't get to join another group as long as I lived - which is very unlikely to actually happen - I was part of this one, and it was a GREAT one.
            Lucky, lucky me...
            =BEAMS=

Anyhoot, for those that are interested, here be pictures!
Enjoy:

1. View to the right of where I was sitting.
(As of yet, nobody has played t'piano in my presence. But the year is young!). 

2. The 'Bar', which is actually a cafe counter with added alcohol.
(The woman stood at the Bar is called Debbie, by the way: she's the event organizer) 

3. Bad picture of Buddha The Dog.
(Damn girl just would NOT stay still, even when enjoying a nice fuss) 

4. The 'Mic'. 
(I've actually stood behind that and performed! In front of a crowd! Twice!) 

5. Percussive backing on request to a nifty Blues Singer avec guitar. 
(As t'singer had already refused to be filmed, I decided against asking to take a picture of her) 

6. Better picture of Buddha The Dog.
(As you can see: she had to be held in place for a few seconds to enable this to happen)  

7. The prettiest fire escape I've ever seen.
(You can see that the picture(s) extends right out across the wall. Beautiful). 

8. Heading home.
(Tired, but happy)

9. And just because: here's an obligatory picture of MY dog.
(He's tired but happy, too).


Peace out for now, folks.

B.C.B.F.L.B x

UPDATE:
            Having read a comment I made on the Spoken Word @ Ort page about struggling to get a picture of Buddha, Debbie kindly uploaded one for me to use here.
            So! Behold:

10. Buddha!
(Ta, Deb)

Sunday, 9 July 2017

Too Depressed To Post.

Normal programming shall be resumed when the fog lifts enough for me to think.

Thank you.

=bows. walks off=

B.C.B.F.L.B x

Saturday, 1 July 2017

My Mother Just Got Back With The Shopping -

- close to tears.

Why?

Because The Brother decided to shout at her for a while in Tesco's carpark.

Why?

Two reasons.

1. Lately, she has been having the teremity to arrive at his flat to take him shopping - that would be her doing him a huge favour, by the way: using her car and her petrol and her time to drive out of her way and PICK HIM UP so that he can be saved a long walk - at 8.30am rather than 7.30am, thus ensuring that the business of shopping takes place at 9am, rather than the 8am that he - who, again, is being done a gigantic FAVOUR - prefers.

2. Mother hax also had the teremity to ask him to spend a whopping FOURTY MINUTES out of his day tomorrow helping her clean the church. Because it is hard for one person to do alone, and she feels it unfair to ask her daughter - even though she would do it willingly - as she cleans for a living full time, as well as attending college, volunteering at the local library...

That is it.
            Those were my Mothers sins.
             Totally deserving of being screamed at by a selfish, overindulged child of a 35-year-old in public for several minutes, right?

...I am so angry right now that I can barely see straight.

And what can I do about it?
            Precisely nothing!
            Because she refuses to stick up for herself as always, and as always has pleaded with me to 'leave it alone' for her sake, because she doesn't want to make a fuss.

GAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

B.C.B.F.L.B x