April 2012
Mark woke with the alarm clock ringing loud and strident, he sat up in bed and turned it off. For a moment or two he had to think what day of the week it was, he was often confused and muddled in his thinking. He told himself that he was fine and that leaving off his medication would not harm him. But he had been advised on the side effects, though smiling wryly to himself he bet that lots of people did not remember what day of the week it was instantly.
He went to the bathroom and shaved and showered, noting the precision with which everything was laid out, he felt safe and secure with routine and repetition. Mark looked in the mirror as he shaved, wondering if coming off his medication would enable him to have a close relationship; he just wanted to love someone and have someone to love him. His previous girlfriends had found his obsessive cleanliness and repetitive routines tiresome and they left him very quickly. But the panic attacks and the apprehension were so upsetting that he would tremble and shake, feel dizzy and have trouble breathing. He told himself life was going to improve; he was older now, not living at home with his nagging and whingeing mother. All of Mark's life he had been controlled by her and giving up the medication was stopping the medicinal control. He wanted to make his life meaningful and have some fulfilment, some purpose – he knew not what. He left the flat at 7.26 precisely and set off for work.
"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain." (1)
He knew not why Eliot's The Waste Land was running around in his head. Mark tried to remember his dreams to establish some sort of connection. He liked to be systematic and ordered in his life, but no matter how hard he thought he could find no links. He took some deep breaths to stem the rising panic, yesterday had been an ordinary if not mundane day as indeed had been the last few weeks. Apart from stopping his meds nothing was different and he continued walking wringing his hands obsessively together; as he strode out over London Bridge, Eliot came back into his head:
"Unreal city,
Under the brown fog of winter days,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought that death had undone so many." (2)
Whilst there was no fog this morning, Easter was approaching, the mist of the early spring morning gave the illusion of fog and he puzzled and mused as his journey followed its normal route. He looked around, watching the commuters overtaking him and passing him going in the other direction. Eliot had certainly been right, so few of these people walked with vim, vigour or enthusiasm. The homeless person was again sitting mumbling by the office steps; he barely got a second glance, although Mark did wrinkle up his nose at the very strong odour emanating from him. He suddenly felt dejected; where had his life been disappearing to; a shiver went down his spine. What had he achieved in this world? What difference had his life made to anybody? He knew no answers to these questions and again Eliot raised what now seemed to be his ugly head and more words came unbidden into his head:
"I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you,
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you
I will show you fear in a handful of dust."(3)
Mark knew that he had been fine when he had left his flat this morning, he re-examined this and felt assured that he had been of even temperament, not happy or sad, he was just ready for another working day. But the thoughts were now running rampant in his mind; he had achieved nothing, and had affected no-one to a greater or even lesser degree. Was this all there was to his life and, what was more terrifying, was this all that there was going to be. He felt cold, clammy and panicky. He would need to put these thoughts on hold as the office doors loomed ahead and, whilst his job was not rocket science, he clearly needed to concentrate. He endeavoured to smile and nod to all and sundry as he passed through security and down the corridors, he opened his office door and sat himself down in front of all the cameras. Once in position John the night shift worker handed responsibility over to him and, saying good night, headed home to his bed. Mark sat there trembling, sweat running down his back as he tried desperately to keep the tensions and anxieties at bay.
Mary Gilbert had been feeling very lethargic and knew that her time was running out, she had been waiting for a kidney transplant for a few years now. As she sat and gazed out the window she could see the sunshine breaking through, dispelling the mist of the early spring morning. Resignation was starting to set in, she had so much more she wanted to accomplish in life. Her children only twelve and six, she had hoped to see them through to adulthood. She knew the strain of the dialysis and the waiting was getting to one and all. The hospital had been very clear, as a young mum she was high priority but in reality she knew that she was waiting for someone to die. What a horrible thought, but how much she wished to live her life to the full. The poetry of Swinburne ran through her mind:
"From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods maybe
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea." (4)
She shrugged her shoulders and struggled up from the table. Whoever donated a kidney to her would rise up again and she would do the best with whatever chance she could be offered. Thank heaven for the care workers, who visited her usually twice a day. She suddenly felt more positive, she would be taken out today to buy the Easter eggs for the girls and birthday presents for both of them. She hated the wheelchair but it was better than staying in, a prisoner of the dialysis machine. Mary liked to be organised, just because she had become ill there was no need for the family's world to go completely to rack and ruin. She had always been even in temperament and since her kidneys had become problematical, she just worked harder at it. Mary told herself that today was going to be a good day.
Mark came out to lunch; the sun was shining and his mood had lifted slightly, he ignored the tramp still sitting there mumbling and again his nose wrinkled as he passed him. Mark went off to sit in the park and eat his sandwiches. The daffodils nodded and blew in the gentle breeze. Maybe he should have studied Wordsworth a little more:
"And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils" (5)
It may well lift his pessimistic mood and certainly leave him more optimistic than Eliot. He headed back to the office and did not notice the itinerant get up and follow behind him; the sudden sharp pain made Mark fall to the ground with a pathetic whimper. The man raised his hand and stabbed him again and again, a final thought passed through Mark's mind, "Too late now to do anything with my life".
The tramp stayed where he was just watching as the life ebbed out of the man. He felt no remorse; life was his for the giving and the taking. He told the police when they arrived:
"I am the resurrection and the Life. I am the Son of Man."
The tramp, whose name was Victor, was sectioned by the police and taken away to the secure unit. He had been robbed and his medication taken from him. His unfortunate relapse followed a very predictable pattern, his thought patterns and speech had become disordered, his grandiose delusions had left him believing he was God. Mark had been identified by him as a sinner sneering at the Son of Man. Blasphemy had to be punished by death and so it was.
Mary jumped as the phone rang; she was tired after the shopping and just wanted to sleep. The hospital advised her that the ambulance was on its way, a donor match had been found for her kidney. A young man aged twenty four had been fatally stabbed. In his possession was an organ donor card. Her husband was notified and her mum would collect the children from school. Mark would now achieve in death what he felt he failed to achieve in life.
"Beneath the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.
This is the way the world ends
not with a bang but a whimper" (6)
T.S. Eliot "The Waste Land" (1,2,3,6) W. Wordsworth "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (5) A.C.Swinburne "The Garden of Proserpine" (4)