Disaster Diaries: Man, like the gen'rous vine supported lives
esc-x-text-mode, ok, right, now just remember to wrap a the end of
My father just fell. Just walked in from the drive up to Montville, shuck my jeans and fall into my moist warm bed and there's this double whump! in the next room and I poke my head out and he's fallen and, say it with me, can't get up.
He's going "Uh, maybe you can help me up, my damn legs, I just need . . .." and I'm hauling up on his arm and the full weight of him falls against me, first time thats happened and he feels like a living human being should intuitively feel, immovable, stuck to the bathroom tile, heavy as the stuff they use to shield nuclear reactors. And I catch myself and the top of his head in the mirror and in my head its OK I either call the police or I do something useful and I pull him up, five minutes of sisyfusarbeit and I reach out and pull the walker in he's got it, he's mobile and crabs slowly to his bed and rolls heavy as cadmium, heavy as thorium, heavy as if he were made of heavy, not normal water and I turn out the light. I'm shaking like a leaf, I'm finally outside my head and its terrifying, but its OK -- I was beginning to like it in there, better to get out.
Do you know what I said to my therapist today? I said, in the middle of misdirective chitchat (its a BAD THING when Martin Buber comes up in the first ten minutes) I said "I hope he forgets everything, I hope he forgets my name, I hope he forgets Roger's name, his wife's name, everything past nineteen fifty three, I hope EVERYTHING'S GONE BECAUSE HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COPE WITH THE MASS OF FAILURE PULLING HIM DOWN!!!" And I looked away before I could see the shock in his face and I said, psudo-pious little scrap of garbage I am, "It would be a mitzvah".
It's late. I'm going to bed with a book. Time enough to wear the hair shirt tomorrow.
luminous-room:~ $
My father just fell. Just walked in from the drive up to Montville, shuck my jeans and fall into my moist warm bed and there's this double whump! in the next room and I poke my head out and he's fallen and, say it with me, can't get up.
He's going "Uh, maybe you can help me up, my damn legs, I just need . . .." and I'm hauling up on his arm and the full weight of him falls against me, first time thats happened and he feels like a living human being should intuitively feel, immovable, stuck to the bathroom tile, heavy as the stuff they use to shield nuclear reactors. And I catch myself and the top of his head in the mirror and in my head its OK I either call the police or I do something useful and I pull him up, five minutes of sisyfusarbeit and I reach out and pull the walker in he's got it, he's mobile and crabs slowly to his bed and rolls heavy as cadmium, heavy as thorium, heavy as if he were made of heavy, not normal water and I turn out the light. I'm shaking like a leaf, I'm finally outside my head and its terrifying, but its OK -- I was beginning to like it in there, better to get out.
Do you know what I said to my therapist today? I said, in the middle of misdirective chitchat (its a BAD THING when Martin Buber comes up in the first ten minutes) I said "I hope he forgets everything, I hope he forgets my name, I hope he forgets Roger's name, his wife's name, everything past nineteen fifty three, I hope EVERYTHING'S GONE BECAUSE HE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO COPE WITH THE MASS OF FAILURE PULLING HIM DOWN!!!" And I looked away before I could see the shock in his face and I said, psudo-pious little scrap of garbage I am, "It would be a mitzvah".
It's late. I'm going to bed with a book. Time enough to wear the hair shirt tomorrow.
luminous-room:~ $