by Nick Brooke
[Recently published in the Anthology by the Nenagh Writers Group 'Top of the Pile' (ISBN 9781901370201) www.nenaghwriters.ie]
Lydia pulled on her oversized green woollen jumper and spied the alarm clock by her bed. It may have read seven-fifty on a Saturday morning, but to her it read the beginning of a new day of potential and possibility. Having showered, dressed and done her hair, all that was left now before the day truly began was to clip on her Veterinary Assistant' s badge above her breast and head downstairs to face the world.
There really was no need at all to put the badge on, but so devoted was she to her job that some small part of her hoped that by doing so there might be more of a chance to use it. She was on call today, and though springtime was drawing to an end, there was still a decent chance of a late lamb coming in with the sniffles that would pander to her under-indulged motherly instincts. She would never admit as much though, preferring instead to firmly believe that Mr Right just hadn' t found her yet. One day he would, and the maternal fulfilment that accompanied it would be worth the wait.
She glided down the stairs and noticed the small red light flashing on her answer machine. You have one new message droned an unconvincing American accent.
"Hi Lydia, it's Lizzie here. Just to let you know that I won't be able to make it in whatever happens this morning; Willy promised the kids we'd take them to that new water park in Brighton today and I completely forgot, so..."
Her boss's voice droned on but Lydia had stopped listening. From Lizzie' s perspective it was saying that there wouldn't be a qualified vet available if any emergencies should turn up, but Lydia had heard it as though the torch had been temporarily left in her care, and she was damned if she was going to let it go out. She marched off into the kitchen to make herself a coffee as the voice on the machine carried on regardless, moving from professional to personal.
"...and why did you turn down Mr Collins for a date yesterday? Honestly Lyddie, if I wasn't married myself I'd have jumped at the chance to go out with him! I don't know why you keep turning these offers down..."
Lydia hadn't heard. She' d been playing with her new toy - a magnificent new coffee maker she' d received for her fortieth birthday a few days ago. It had every appendage and accessory you could possibly want from a glorified kettle, and dozens more you couldn't, and to her it had made mornings an even more special time to be awake for. She set about brewing one of the many bizarre concoctions with a weird bastardised Italian name and poured it into a giant mug that was coincidentally a very similar size and shape to a mother's full breast.
The machine had finished chattering away as she walked back through the hallway to the living room and she calmly erased the message without really looking as she passed it. She didn' t even really pay attention as she flicked on the TV to the first channel that came up and sat back happily while some woman a few years older than her was chatting to the host of one of those irreverent daytime talk shows about how she'd given birth at the age of fifty-two. On the show they weren' t quite heralding it as a medical miracle, but you could see the only way they could milk it further would be to have the woman in question produce one of her breasts on air and begin lactating.
Lydia let the information flow into her without paying attention, as she was lost in her thoughts again. The doorbell drew her attention unexpectedly back for another brief foray into the here and now as she tried to work out why it was ringing, and eventually she got up and answered it.
Standing in front of her in what was surely a non-standard uniform was a small woman in her fifties holding a parcel. Lydia had never really given much thought to women working for the postal service, but a little part of her inside jumped for irrelevant glee at the idea of woman' s equality reaching this far. As the post-woman handed her the parcel and a clipboard to sign, Lydia couldn' t help but catch a glancing notice of her wedding ring, or rather the fact that she had one, meaning she had someone.
She signed her name in perfect flowery calligraphic extravagance, and then her attention was drawn to the box in her hands. It was a fairly nondescript shape and weight, as well as in appearance, but that just seemed to add to the allure - it really could have been any one of a million things, and the best part was Lydia couldn't imagine who had sent it. Possibly a belated birthday present from someone? She made a mental note to berate whoever it was who had sent it for being late in the card thanking them.
She closed the front door without looking up and took the box back into the living room. She placed the parcel on the coffee table in front of her and sat back to look at it while drinking her coffee. What could be in this parcel? She sat there motionless apart from the occasional sip of coffee, just staring at the parcel in sheer anticipation, unable to actually open it, while the woman on the TV carried on talking about how relieved she was.
Copyright 2009 @ nick brooke
t the parcel in sheer anticipation, unable to actually open it, while the woman on the TV carried on talking about how relieved she was.
Copyright 2009 @ nick brooke
Never the Same | Present and Presently | In-Patient
Never the Same
by Nick Brooke
When Alice ventured down the hole,
She did forget to take,
Her ipod and her moblie phone,
And earrings oh so fake.
What white rabbit late could be,
If Alice her phone had?
With WAP and mobile internet
Nearby taxis could be grabbed.
And why shed tears about the place,
When size an issue be?
Eat and Drink Me all you like,
When using your hands free.
When offered hazy trips through smoke,
By hookah-hocking bugs,
Remember what they taught in school,
And just say no to drugs.
No March Hare madness would descend
Upon the tea party,
Guest lists, menus, could all be fixed
Had she her Blackberry
And Hatters one and all rejoice!
An ending for your bane;
No need to constantly switch seats,
When at the fast food chain.
And good old lucky Cheshire Cat,
With all his pearly teeth.
With a smile like that you're sure to act,
And be idolised in Heat.
What jury would convict a girl,
So innocent as our Alice?
A pack of cards it all may be,
At least there'll be no malice.
You see today, we do not need,
Such things as evidence,
Or right to face your accuser
If charged with a Terror offence.
And off with her head? Don't be absurd,
We aren't Victorians now.
These days our gaols have Sky TV
Funded by the tax-ed pound.
When woken she'd be so relieved,
To find that all her things,
Had not been pinched by hooded youths,
Or worse such happenings.
And big sister is probably off,
Looking for a lad,
To get her knocked so to have,
A better council pad.
So before you make your next chess move,
Remember this young girl,
Your warren is an escapist's dream,
Compared to the modern world.
Copyright 2009 @ nick brooke
Never the Same | Present and Presently | In-Patient
In-Patient
by Nick Brooke
It was three years almost to the day since Chris had last had an operation. Too long he felt. How the hell was he supposed to take his holiday in St Tropez without sponging off his employers for sick pay? They wouldn't give him the time of day, let alone time off work. No, this op had definitely been much too belated for his tastes. After all, it was nigh on two years ago he'd asked for the damn thing! He coughed rather violently and cursed the cold.
The letter sitting on his desk seemed to radiate a warmth that filled the room. A bed has been provisionally booked for you in Farringdon Ward. Please ensure that you telephone the Admissions Dept on the day of your arrival blah blah blah. He read it several times over just to feel the waves of contentment wash through him. Of course if it hadn't been for that damn bint getting herself knocked down by a fire truck he would have been admitted months ago. Apparently these days they just let anyone in ahead of the queue. Still, now the time was approaching he felt it best not to dwell on such matters. In any case, she was hardly going to take his spot again now she was pushing up daisies somewhere up north.
The date duly arrived and Chris eagerly phoned the Admissions Office to confirm his appointment. Apparently they didn't much like being called up at half five in the morning, nor six, nor seven. When he finally called back after nine, as he had been asked to do several times, they confirmed that his bed was waiting for him, and no, we won't give it away to any Tom, Dick or Harry, Sir.
Having already packed the night before, Chris eagerly put on his hat and coat and marched out of the house and down the road towards the bus stop. He promptly returned five minutes later to lock the front door, and cursed as he saw the bus just leaving the stop as he came back. Having decided that the half-hour wait for the next bus was beyond his tolerance, he dialled a taxi from a nearby phone booth.
"Yeah, sure thing mate. Be there in about fifteen minutes."
Chris hung up the receiver and lit a smoke. Quarter of a bloody hour. The damn taxi rank's only five minutes away.
Still, he wasn't going to let a little wait in the cold annoy him, even if it had given him this damn cough. Soon he'd be off in the sun recovering whilst earning the rather generous company sick pay. He sat down on a nearby bench as he waited, puffing away happily on his Marlboro Light. He wondered how long he could get away with on "recovery time". Apparently doctors advised a month off work for every hour spent under the knife. Well, Chris had a fairly shrewd idea that although this op was only meant to be around an hour long he would be able to blag it for at least three months, maybe even four, depending on which dim-witted pencil-pusher from personnel handled his claim.
He'd have to be tactful though. Telling them that he was simply having a piece of wayward-growing bone removed was out of the question, they'd just laugh at him and tell him to be back after the weekend. No, this needed to be more elaborate. Obviously he couldn't lie outright, that was a risky game to play, especially as he was only on a temporary contract.
He mulled the issue over for a few minutes before deciding that the procedure should simply be referred to as an osteo-cartilage realignment. No, readjustment. Well, he'd have time to decide while he was at the hospital. Maybe the surgeon would call it something a bit spicier. Something in Latin was always a good idea. He was just about to spark up another smoke when a taxi pulled up nearby and honked. Chris was pleasantly surprised that it was early.
After finally finding his way to Farringdon Ward, Chris had had to wait for nearly half an hour for a patient to be discharged. Then he had to wait again for the bed linen to be changed, then once more as the post-op in the next bed along was violently sick over the floor. His temper was dulled only by the fact that the nurse who seemed to be in charge was somewhat of a battleaxe. Normally his rather perverse views on such women would have called upon him to have words, but he was bearing in mind that she would be in charge of him while he was at his most vulnerable after the op. Best not to annoy her, he rather wisely concluded.
After what seemed like an eternity Chris eventually found himself sitting on his bed answering Madam Battleship's questions.
"Full name?"
"Christopher Michael King."
"Date of Birth?"
"Twenty-seventh of the third, sixty-four."
"Sex?"
Chris stared at her blankly, unsure whether it was a joke or if she really was that dumb. Thankfully she moved on to the next question before he could respond, so he put it down to distraction.
"Marital status?"
And so on and so forth. Each question seemed more and more irrelevant than the previous. Quite why they wanted to know his shoe size was beyond him, nor whether he had any fillings.
"The operation's on my shoulder, not my gob."
"It's cos of the anaesthetic, luv. They could fall out and you could swallow them."
Chris was about to point out that he'd had his fillings for over twenty years, and in two decades worth of sleeping every night not once had they fallen out and been swallowed, but he decided against it. He pointed them out to her and she nodded slowly.
Eventually the interrogation drew to a close. Chris assured her that he hadn't eaten anything since last night, as the letter had instructed, and that he hadn't had anything to drink either. It was a lie of course, he was quite simply one of these people who could not lift a finger until he'd had his morning cup of tea. Madam Battleship said that the porters would be around in about two hours to take him to the prep room. Then she finally got him to sign a couple of forms and went about on her not-so-merry way. Chris lay back with a magazine he found lying around by the bed and contented himself with the knowledge that if the country ever went to war, he'd never be drafted so long as there were women like that they could send instead.
Lying in the prep room, with some flimsy paper dress on, Chris felt like he was about to be violated in so many different ways. He already had a needle stuck in his hand. That had bloody well hurt, I hope they have the decency to put whatever else they need in while I'm asleep. Speaking of sleep, Chris was decidedly drowsy. They'd started pumping the anaesthetic in and he was enjoying it immensely. In fact so much that he groaned for the attention of a nearby nurse and asked them to wait before putting the rest in. What he had meant to say went along the lines of "Hey I wonder if you'd be able to leave the rest of the anaesthetic for a few minutes and let me enjoy it for a bit?" What he actually said was more along the lines of "Ay, I...under..." and he was out.
The next couple of days passed quite hazily. Chris was't really capable of complicated thought, but he was capable of wondering why he'd been kept in this weird cubicle for what he was sure was at least two days, when the doctor had originally said he'd probably be out within twenty-four hours. Finally he was visited, though the manner in which the three surgeons entered his room flanked by two nurses all with solemn looks on their faces startled him somewhat. Capable of speaking coherently now, he asked "So, can I go anytime soon? I did want to get to St Tropez by the weekend, sooner I get rid of this damn cold the better."
"I'm sorry, Mr King, but I don't think you'll be going anywhere for a while."
"What? Why not? Did the op go alright? You didn't fuck it up did you?"
"Er, no, Mr King. The operation was a complete success. Unfortunately there is another reason why I believe you shouldn' t go anywhere."
"Well what is it? I've got a lot to do. I've got sick pay to sort out."
"Oh we can take care of that for you. Due to the fact you have aggressive lung cancer I'm sure your employment would be prepared to wait."
Chris was lost for words.
"So, Mr King, how's next week for your first op?"
copyright 2009 @ nick brooke
Never the Same | Present and Presently | In-Patient
For permission to reproduce any of these scribblings please contact nick brooke at contactnickbrooke@gmail.com
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