Mother went and fucken flipped out when she saw that the nails of my left hand, which were neatly clipped and uniform, compared to those of my right, which were gnarly - and beheld a yellowed jaundiced light when they were pointed sunward - did not match up...
My clippers snapped when I done my left hand and I ain't just got round to buying some more. - I simpered. - Well let mummy cut em for you...!!! - She went.
No I say! On guard! - I went in a tone reminiscent of noblemen proposing a duel.
Now...
A Prayer
by
Daniel Pongo
Please God let me die peacefully and not incrementally like the hospital serial dramas and the gov. sponsored health ads would have you believe. Let me not be stricken with a mild/severe stroke initially, to begin with, to end up losing all motor function culminating 6months later with a surgical repository attached to every orifice.
Please God let not pointless human gunge I expel internally collect in my lower recesses to darken my posterior - and all in a futile and disgusting bodily protestation spurred by one's material certitude.
Please God let it be quick in my dreams while I lie prostate and coddled by the stasis of slumber.
Please God don't even let me jerk or spasm. Let my heart just stop and not flutter. Let me not kick out and awaken my partner; and if I sleep alone let not my vessel roll floorward to end up blocking the door.
It is from the Venetian Snares album Doll Doll Doll.
Halfway through – you’ll know where, I had the feeling I’d been momentarily possessed by a djinn. I don’t know why but I thought the spirit of the infamous Arabian demon had entered me. When it was over I let out an almighty sneeze
. Gazoontite! And the feeling I had a djinn in me was no longer there.
Today I went round to my mothers as her brother (my uncle) died today. He was an alcoholic and had a bad end. In the last few days his legs had turned black and last night hairline splits had opened up along his calves and under his knee and the nurses had to bandage him up. The bandages were pretty ineffective and puss from his black legs started to seep through and by all accounts it was a mess. It looked like gangrene had set in. mother said that if he didn’t die soon he’d have to have those legs off. It is a strange thing. My uncle was well off but had humble beginnings. Over the years he lived in many countries before settling in London. There were rumours he’d worked for MI5 in the 80’s. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is the case that some time in the 90’s he started up his own security firm. One of the gigs he got was doing the security for Wimbledon. One time my aunt sent my cousin over to work for him over the summer. One of his assignments was to look after Liz Hurley at some AIDS charity event. A cunt, he told me.
When the money started to roll in he started to hit the sauce big time. He would ring my mother’s at 10/11 in the morning when she was at work and leave slurred rambling messages on her machine. He was drunk morning, noon and night. He told my da once that there was always alcohol in his system and that he was getting worried. He came over one X-mas and he had turned a greenish colour. 6 months later he told everyone he was dying. They told him he needed a new liver and his kidneys had given up the ghost as well. Months he waited for a donor. By the time they got one for him he’d crossed the rubicon and the doctors decided he was too weak for a transplant. And today that was it. He passed on.
I compare him to my other uncle, his brother, who lives here in Belfast. His fortunes are a great deal less auspicious than the one in London. He knocks back the Tesco own brand regularly; 2ltr’s a day for a fortnight sometimes. He is poor and doesn’t eat for days. He has drunken hallucinations, and once attempted to abseil down the side of the highrise where he lives to escape murderous dwarves that had entered his flat though his washing machine. But the fucker has never suffered a flu a cold or even a headache the last 30 years (apart from the obligatory hangover head thump). It’s something. There was the one in London, drinking Hennessey and good wine day in day out and this one over here pouring terrible cheap stuff down his throat and who survives it? Who, even with their luxurious means and good living allows a terrible addiction to take hold and decimate them? The gods favour no one!
It has made me think twice about my own drinking. Its said it runs in families and mine has its fair share of lushes. I do love to drink. But its whether I could live without it is the question. At the minute its one I don’t know the answer to... Here’s a song my uncle liked. I’m going to put it up here for him.
. Gazoontite! And the feeling I had a djinn in me was no longer there.