2007 Semester One Creative Entry Week Eight
PHIL COLLINS “In the air tonight” STORY AND MY OWN RELATED TRUE STORY....
The first may be a story you've already heard but I just found out it's actually an urban legend and has no truth at all!!
I honestly believed it and wrote this whole entry based on it being true… But the all scholarly source “Wikipedia” tells me it is actually an urban myth. BUT let’s pretend for my journal’s sake that this is true about the song:
This song is about a childhood experience of Phil Collins where he watched his brother drown in a lake but was too young and small to save him and his neighbour who stood by and witnessed it and could have helped did NOTHING. The next part of the story goes that for forty years Collins kept quiet about the whole affair. Then, after this long period of reflection, he had joined a band become famous, gone solo and figured out how he would avenge his brother’s drowning through the heartless neighbour. He sends his neighbour a free front row ticket to his solo concert, shines a spotlight on him and sings the song directly to him in front of the massive crowd. The following day the man, wrought with guilt, hangs himself. Here are the lyrics for you to have a read of.
PHIL COLLINS - IN THE AIR TONIGHT
I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
I’ve been waiting for this moment, all my life, oh lord
Can you feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord, oh lord
Well, if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a hand
I’ve seen your face before my friend
But I don’t know if you know who I am
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off the grin, I know where you’ve been
Its all been a pack of lies
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord
I’ve been waiting for this moment for all my life, oh lord
I can feel it in the air tonight, oh lord, oh lord
And I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life, oh lord, oh lord
Well I remember, I remember don’t worry
How could I ever forget, its the first time, the last time we ever met
But I know the reason why you keep your silence up, no you don’t fool me
The hurt doesn’t show; but the pain still grows
Its no stranger to you or me
And I can feel it coming in the air tonight, oh lord...
MY TRUE STORY (this happened three years ago but I never wrote it in a diary so I’m going from memory)
I was getting ready to go to TAFE as at the time I was studying Accounting but as happened quite often, I decided not to attend class that evening and figured going out for a coffee with my girlfriend was a brilliant idea. So I called one of my best friends at the time, told her about my idea and she agreed to accompany me on my truancy. I reached her house and called her mobile so that I wouldn’t have to rudely honk my horn outside her house and disturb her whole household/neighbourhood.
When after a few calls she didn’t answer, I decided to knock on her door. My effervescent mood completely vanished at the sight of her facial expression as the door swung open and she held the phone to her ear. She was on the phone with the hospital and that’s why she hadn’t answered my telephone call, however at this stage I had no idea who was on the other end of the line. As soon as she was me she burst out in tears as if she had been bottling her shock up and the presence of another human being caused her to explode with emotion. I remember not saying a word because I had figured she was on an important phone call but from the perplexed look on my face she immediately answered my question, “It’s my dad” she cried out and she took my hand and rushed me through the hallway of her house. At that moment I remember knowing something terrible had happened and hoping that time would just stop and we would never reach whichever room she was leading me to.
I remember being so scared when realizing that nobody else was home and that whatever was going on with her dad she was handling alone. We didn’t even make it to him before I got an idea of what had happened. She blurted to the telephone. “I don’t know! I don’t know! He’s just lying there on the floor….” This is when I really started to panic. I remember my heart beating really fast and my hands trembling and then she swung open the second door and her father was leaned up against the bathroom wall with only a bath towel covering the bottom half of his big bare body and I saw the embarrassment on her face that I had to see her father in this state. This almost broke my heart. I deliberately paid no attention to her feeling of shame and concentrated my attention on the unconscious man of whom I had only fond memories. He was always a very cheerful warm man and although due to language barriers we never had a very complicated conversation, his smiles, warm looks and simple jokes said so much about who he was. To see him in this helpless state really increased the severity of his condition in my judgment.
The next thing that happened was that my friend threw the phone at me and ran to sit beside her father and hold his hand and began begging him to wake up. I remember feeling a big lump in my throat and holding back tears, trying to be strong for her and reminding myself that she was the victim, not I. The lady from the emergency line told me to check if he was still breathing and told me to put my hand under his nose. This proved to be a much harder task than would seem. I remember not being able to tell because although the breeze on my finger was not constant like a human breathing, it felt as though I could feel some sort of change in the air above the finger I had under his nose. A similar thing happened with the heart when she asked me to check for the beat. I remember placing my hand over his chest and not being able to feel any rhythm at all but seeing the look of combined hope and despair on my friend’s face and not knowing what to say and remembering telling the lady that I wasn’t sure if I had my hand in the right place because I couldn’t feel anything.
Then she asked me to try to move him so that he was lying on the floor. I tried and tried with all my strength to move him but couldn’t. Even with the help of my friend he was too heavy and wouldn’t budge an inch. It felt like such a long time before the ambulance finally arrived and during this time I felt so helpless because we couldn’t perform CPR unless he was lying down, which was physically impossible for us to effectuate. They refer to this state as “dead weight” because apparently the body becomes heavier when it dies.
I won’t go on because this entry is becoming far too long and emotional, but what had happened was that her father had a heart attack when he had come out of the shower and had fallen on the floor and managed to prop himself up on the wall before he died and my friend had heard the thump and came to check on him and when she had opened the door he was actually experiencing the heart attack. She watched him until he was completely still. I came over a short while after. The ambulance arrived and unsuccessfully attempted to revive him with their medical machinery and advised us that they were not confident in his survival but would take him to the hospital anyway. So I drove her to the hospital where we waited anxiously and I offered words of support and optimism. It took her hours to get in contact with the rest of her immediate family and I can imagine how alone and afraid she must have felt, regardless of my presence.
That night must have been the most awful experience for her and I feel so much for her. We remained friends but then drifted apart soon after. I don’t believe she blames me for his death but I think that it is difficult for her to associate with me as she associates me with her father’s death, which is how it relates to the piece of trivia above.
If she ever reads this entry I want her to know that she was one of my best friends and I completely understand why she felt she needed to distance herself from as many reminders as she could, including me. Her father was a kind, warm man and I’m sure his memory lives on in the minds of many others as well as my own.
The reason I decided to share my sad experience is that I believe that you can write best about experiences that you are familiar with and can emotionally relate to. It really did affect me as a person, changed my view of life and was a very valuable experience for me. Also, I don’t believe we should judge the way people act in times of crises (the way Collins did) because that state of shock and fear really can make you do or not do things that are completely out of character. I really, with all my heart, wanted to do more but sometimes it is just not possible and we must accept this fact. Shock and fear really do affect each individual uniquely and fate is not in our control. This is also a reminder to all people aboiut how important it is to be familiar with First Aid.
I hope nobody ever finds themself in a positiion where they would need it but if they do, knowlege od first aid could make a world of difference.