Results tagged “downers” from Test blog

I walked straight into a plate glass window on Friday.

It wasn't the highlight of my week, but seems fitting a party to the strange syndrome of behaviours offered up to me by my body these four days gone by. Mild disorientation, sensorily unique headaches, neck pain, considerable body heat and a couple of aggressive mood swings in the testosterone-driven raging-silverback-gorilla sort of direction.

Transparent walls aside -- apparently this marriage of biology and silicous oxides runs in the female line of my family -- these are the mild symptoms of mild brain inflammation caused by a vaccine, and the thought that there's two more shots of this intravenous liniment to go isn't the most exciting thing in my Universe.

Still, if the antibodies are already on the go, then tomorrow's shot will either result in few further symptoms, or complete anaphylaxis. While occasional drama spices up the daily run, I hold out for the more probable scenario.

I've decided that things will be back to normal today, though the likelihood of my body agreeing with my stubborn mind makes the temptation of staying in bed, in the buff, all day long, the most attractive recourse possible. Alas, stuff beckons.

Oh, but it was strange.

Out in the sunshine, walking father Thames in the fresh air and awash with summery vibes, there were moments when I wanted to curl up and cry on the pavement for no good reason, punctuated by my own amusement at the fact that this sudden volatility of mind so isn't me.

Then anger and frustration, and wanting to smash my knuckles into the piles of broken rock and glass on the beaches at Battersea to put my mind elsewhere, toward a crimson decoy, something tangible. Preservation algorithms threw slag at the low tide instead, a limitless volume for transiently limitless feeling.

Then on the street, miles down the road, I chanced upon a proverbial angel, and my inconstant choler, as capricious and fickle as she was potent, fled with her burgundy skirts hitched above her ankles in the face of his genial smile and allusive embrace.

Once in a while, friends will pitch up at just the right time and place to crush a demon, unaffected in manner, straightforward and sincere, unaware of how you feel and utterly resplendent for it.

And whether or not you let them know it, they become heroes.

It is a curious mixture of emotions that has been doing the rounds of my head this evening; despite the concerns I've expressed previously, I have again been able, tonight, to sit down to another meal in the company of my dear grandfather, discussing the current state of things, politically minded as he is, as well as, inevitably, how things used to be.

Every time we speak, I think about recording all the things we share -- his memories of the wars and hostile occupation, the quirky stories and simple, inspiring recounts of our family's past, all the things that he enjoys recounting tirelessly, and which don't even begin to bore me -- but I don't; it just doesn't seem appropriate.

Part of me wants to hold on to it all permanently, and part of me just wants to remember, and though for many years my mother and I have both thought about writing some of it down, it's not something we've ever come to do. I don't think we'll get the chance; he'll be returning to Pakistan shortly, and will soon be too frail to travel. I'll be saying goodbye to him tomorrow, and I've been told it may well be the last time I ever see him, though I know well enough to keep my faith in the present.

Tonight he gave me a catalogue, dated 1935, of the teak and mahogany furniture produced by the family woodmill in Rangoon during the decades that preceded the invasion of Burma. Though bound in leather and of doubtless quality for its day, its neglected pages are yellowed and moth eaten, crumbling in places, the binding failing. And on the back page are three dignified silver prints; my grandfather, Ahmed, as he was in his teenage years, his older brother, Yacob, and in the centre, looking every inch the grand patriarch, my great grandfather, Binyamin. I'm not sure what it was that I felt, but when I came up here to my room, the only thing I wanted to do was lie down, bury my face in my pillow, and cry.

Times change; people die; memories fade; all we are left with is history.