Author: jim clayton

champion

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’m running late. Jess is opening a charity gig, onstage six thirty. It’ll take forty five minutes to make it there this time of day. I’d been doing so well, too. This decision, that treatment, this referral, that email, this cup of coffee…. frenetically pitchforking my way through the day’s workload like a demented farmer at harvest time. And I thought it was all behind me, and I was good to go. Except the lead nurse caught me and said the district nurses had missed a visit and could I go with David as back-up, because it was in a hostel and that was the policy.
‘It’s just round the corner. Then you can go home from there. You’ll be fine.’
I grabbed my bag and left, calling David on the phone as I went. We agreed to meet outside the hostel. A quick visit. Pretty much a drive-by. I should be out of there in ten.

There is a guy in a dark blue tracksuit and trainers sitting on the steps of the hostel, sipping from a can of lager, watching the cars as they pass along the main drag.
‘Alright?’
‘Champion,’ he says, raising the can. He has buzz-cut hair that highlights the riot of nicks and bumps that cover his scalp. When he smiles, his teeth are gappy and black.
‘I’m waiting for the other nurse’ I tell him, looking up and down the street. ‘He should be here any minute.’
‘Got ya.’
I lean against the railings and try to look relaxed, even though I’m so hyper I wouldn’t be surprised to see the entire building immediately light up behind me and start to tremble.
‘So how are you?’ I ask the guy.
‘S’all good, mate. All good. I’m moving in to a proper place next week.’
‘Great.’
‘Yeah. I was six months sleeping down on the front in a tent.’
‘That’s tough.’
‘I dunno. Some things were. But then y’know what? I’d step out first thing in the morning and there was the sea and the sun, right there, like, and I’d think – shit, man – you’d pay a million quid for a view like this.’
‘Did you ever get any hassle?’
‘Nah. Not much. There were a few of us down there and we looked out for each other. It weren’t too bad.’
‘That’s good then. Still – great to get a place of your own. Especially with winter coming on.’
‘Yep.’
‘I’m in a bit of a rush tonight.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘My youngest daughter’s playing a gig tonight. It’s like this battle of the bands thing, and she’s opening. Doing a couple of numbers on her loop pedal. And I absolutely can’t miss it.’
‘Well it’s your daughter, man. You can’t miss a thing like that.’
‘I don’t want to’
‘No way.’
‘No.’
‘I’m a musician too, y’know?’
‘What d’you play?’
‘Guitar. And I sing, too. Write me own stuff. We’re organising a gig down on the front in a few months. There’s a guy I know might do us a deal.’
‘That’s great. I’ll look out for it.’
‘Please do.’
He takes another swig from the can and studies me with an appraising, sideways squint.
‘Don’t take this the wrong way, fella, but – y’know what? – if it weren’t for the uniform – you look rough enough to fit right in here.’
‘Thanks!’
David comes striding round the corner.
‘Sorry I’m late’ he says. ‘Let’s do this.’
The guy on the steps stands up and to the side.
‘Tell your daughter good luck from me,’ he says, offering me his hand after wiping it twice on his tracksuit top.
‘Thanks. I will.’
And we hurry inside.

star trick

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

they tumble out of the ship
kirk does a forward roll
comes to a cat-like crouch
set phasers to defrost, he quips
scans the perimeter for ice trolls
spock recalibrates his pouch

kirk waves for a red shirt
to check out that cave
the red shirt isn’t happy
they never get badly hurt
he mutters, rolled into an early grave
this zero-interest contract’s pretty crappy

still, an order’s an order
he tiptoes forward warily
an ice troll leaps out
sinks its teeth into his shoulder
both flailing and hollering scarily
until kirk phases them out

he’s dead Jim, growls mccoy
prodding the smoking red shirt with his scanner
didn’t stand a chance
kirk looks annoyed
I don’t like this planet
tell the others to advance

shame. I kinda liked that trevor
he almost earned a regular spot
spock interjects: I believe the human was called dave
kirk sneers: lance, burt, linus, whatever
the point is, spock, he’s dead and we’re not
now – d’you suppose it’s safe to go in the cave?

the birdbath

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘Funny – you being called Jim. My mother christened me Stanley but everyone calls me Jim, too. I don’t know why. I must look more like a Jim than a Stanley.’
‘Well I was christened James’, I tell him. ‘But no-one ever calls me that. Unless I’m in trouble.’
‘Two Jims!’ says Jim. ‘That should make it easier.’
‘Oh God!’ says Erica. ‘One’s enough!’
The phone rings, and Erica hurries into the hall to answer it.
‘One of her girlfriends, I ‘spect,’ says Jim with a sniff. ‘There’s half a dozen of ‘em at least. Or there was…’ he says, drifting off slightly and scratching his head.
Erica’s delighted laugh trills through from the hallway. I get the impression she laughs easily and often. She’d laughed when she opened the door to me, when I introduced myself and said what I’d come to do – even when I’d slipped my shoes off.
‘A housetrained man!’ she’d trilled. ‘Well I never!’
They’re both in their nineties. Of the two, Jim is fairing the worst. He’s frail and stooped, tentatively feeling his way from sideboard to sofa like a ghost unexpectedly granted one last corporeal turn about the place. Erica, on the other hand, seems to be intensifying with age, her girlish spirit ringing through the dusty air.
‘Hark at that!’ says Jim, collapsing back into his armchair. ‘She’ll be on the phone for hours now.’
But he closes his eyes as if it’s the sweetest sound imaginable.
Whilst Erica is occupied on the phone I run through the examination and take some blood. By the time she hops back into the room I’m pretty much done, just asking some questions about eating and drinking, how he’s managing with personal care and so on.
‘Are you able to use the shower?’ I ask him.
‘The shower?’ says Erica, leaning over the chair and combing his thinning grey hair with her fingers. ‘Goodness, no! He has a birdbath.’
‘A birdbath?’
‘Yes! You know! He grips the sink with his claws, flaps his wings, and splashes his face with water!’

normal on critical

~ jim clayton ~ 4 Comments

The house has no number, just a name in big white letters above the electric gates that’s either a composite of the people who live there or a tribute to a Klingon commander. I want to ask Ella where it comes from, but she’s so stressed there’s no opportunity. She’s waiting for me outside, still in her slippers, arms folded, glancing up and down the street whilst I lock up the car.
‘Hi Ella. I’m Jim, from the hospital,’ I say walking over.
‘I gathered that.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘No. Not really. Mum’s going downhill and no-one seems to care. Not the doctor, the hospital, no-one. She came to stay with us a couple of weeks ago for respite, and ever since then she’s been wasting away. She’s not eating, she’s not drinking. Crying out with pain all hours of the day and night. Honestly, Jim, I’m at the end of my tether. I just don’t know what to do anymore. I just can’t cope.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘She had an appointment at the Elderly Patient Clinic tomorrow but she’s just too unwell. I mean – how was I supposed to get her there?’
‘Well – there’s patient transport. They have a tail-lift on the back of the vehicle. They can take her in a wheelchair.’
‘Can they? No-one told me that. I’d better go and see if they’ll reinstate the appointment…’
She turns and hurries inside, and I follow.
‘Mum’s through there,’ she says. ‘Go and introduce yourself whilst I call the hospital.’

It’s a large, comfortable family house, racks of shoes in the hallway, richly patterned rugs on the floor. Ella’s mum Deidre has her own room, off to the left at the end of the hall. She’s lying in an electric bed with the back raised, propped up on half a dozen pillows and cushions, a warm zebra-striped fleece thrown over the rumpled sheets. When I shake her hand she squeezes it warmly and then resumes her original position, something like wistful forbearance, staring out of the french windows into the garden.
I start by explaining who I am, what my job is and why I’ve been asked to come. She nods, and twiddles her fingers, as if yes, this was exactly as she’d been expecting. I work through my usual questions to see how she is, and to clarify the problem; she answers as if there’s nothing the matter at all, or at least, nothing beyond what you’d expect of a woman of her age. She’s even a little bewildered to hear that people are worried about her.
I check her observations. Everything’s normal, unremarkable. I ask her about her eating and drinking, her bowel habits and so on. Again, she seems fine. She looks fine, too, a healthy colour to her cheeks, decent weight and so on. It’s difficult to see the dangerously ill patient that Ella described, even allowing for the possibility that Deidre is confused about everything. And she certainly doesn’t seem confused.
Ella comes back into the room.
‘They never answer the phone,’ she says. ‘So I left a few messages.’
‘A few?’
‘I kept thinking of other things I wanted to say. How is she?’
‘Well – she seems fine, actually. Sorry to talk about you like this, Deidre.’
‘That’s okay,’ she says, staring out of the window.
‘I’m not surprised,’ says Ella. ‘No-one can ever find anything wrong. They always say the same thing. They always say she’s fitter than they are. But they don’t have to live with her. Sorry mum, but it’s true. They don’t see you when you’re crying out in the middle of the night. The doctor’s bloody useless, excuse my French. The last time he saw her – which is a joke for a start, because he may as well have stood outside with a megaphone – the last time, he just upped her citalopram. But it’s not working and we can’t go on like this.’
‘You said Deidre wasn’t eating or drinking.’
‘Hardly anything. She just picks at her food. And I make all her favourites. I have to nag and nag to get her to eat.’
‘What about drinking? Because that’s more important.’
‘Again, nag, nag, nag. And I hate to do it, because she’s my mum, and I don’t want to go on at her like that. But someone’s got to. The carers don’t.’
‘She has carers?’
‘Three times a day. And all they do is put things in front of her, and clear them away again. That’s no good, is it?’
‘So how much would you say she is managing to drink?’
‘Cups of tea, beakers of juice, fortifying drinks. Everything with a straw, though.’
‘So that sounds – quite good, then.’
‘It may sound good to you but it’s not enough, is it? I mean – look at her…’
And I do, and from her throne of pillows and cushions, she looks comfortably back at me, too.

Deidre hasn’t had any bloods for the past two weeks so I run a set, just to be sure. I put them in as urgent. They come back normal. I ring Ella to let her know, and she tells me that – miracle of miracles – the Elderly Patient clinic has managed to reinstate the appointment.
‘Maybe they’ll find something wrong,’ she says. ‘I mean – something has to happen. Otherwise she’ll die and it’ll be too late.’

mid-life croesus

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

stop right there / yeah? / do like the Floyd said and breathe, breathe in the air / see what I mean? / so spreadsheet sexy it’s obscene / laundro-money clean / it’s the beast, man / the best / the cool, straight A for Asset test / the sweet smell of success / it’s a mai tai in the mile high / the aroma of the arrivée / the uber privé / it’s offshore olfactory / super satisfactory / it’s the rich & beautiful top note / of krugerrands in bank vaults / the squeak of monetary purity that speaks to me / in perpetuity / the floral aura of celebrity endorsement / michelin stars & law enforcement / the nourishing glow of not what but who you know / so c’mon, man / loosen up / you gotta grab ‘em hard and goose’em up / let me tell ya about the space a platinum card’ll get ya / a field of poppies in the Wonderful Wizard of Ours / hours & hours of golden showers / in penthouse glasshouses / top of Qatari towers / the chiming of a titanium Tag / backseat of a luxury cab / gliding across the city like an angel from above / in diamond-pinned collar and cuff / God – I love the smell of testosterone in the morning / over the bridge at dawn / to spawn / in this vast and glittering Temple of Stuff / where enough is not even close to enough / but the perpetual augmentation / and noble curation / of a great family dynasty / feeding the roots endlessly / relentlessly tending the assets / while you leaf through Tatler & Debretts / worrying about all the shit you haven’t got yet /

so anyway / tell me the truth / how d’you get up on the garden roof? /

Oh, really? / well I’m sorry, sir / usual rules apply / you got no wings, you ‘ain’t gonna fly

alice in the underworld

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Despite having to work in an office that looks suspiciously like a converted cupboard, Alice, the warden is remarkably upbeat.
‘Have you come to see Terry?’ she says, squeezing past a heap of junk out into the hostel landing. ‘Shall I show you the way? It’s a bit of a warren…’
Even though I have been before, I know how confusing the layout is, so I say ‘That’d be great, thanks.’
‘Poor old Terry,’ she says, locking the cupboard/office door behind her then marching off up a set of stairs so narrowly twisting and creaking it’s like being processed the wrong way through the guts of a dilapidated monster. ‘He’s had such a time of it. We’re a bit worried about him, to be honest. He’s wasting away. I mean – he barely eats a thing, and he’s not going out like he used to. Mind you…’ she says, pushing through a fire door and then on through a series of branching corridors, ‘…at least he’s not seeing Keith.’ She turns and frowns at me, as if to say You know – KEITH, then carries on down the corridor. I feel like I’m in one of those nightmares where the way gets smaller and smaller and you end up on your knees tapping with one finger on a door the size of your hand. But suddenly Alice stops, turns on the spot, raps smartly on the door to her left, and goes in.

She’s right about Terry wasting away. What makes his condition worse, somehow, is the contrast between his emaciated body and the dark luxuriance of his beard and hair, curling upwards and outwards with such vigour you’d think they were wigs, stuck on a cadaver for the contrast. Terry’s still in his green hospital pyjamas, an ID band around his wrist. It says in the notes he self-discharged, against advice. Quite how he made it home I’ve no idea, although maybe Keith helped.

The room is a mess. Someone has had a rudimentary go at clearing some space at least, the piles of trash and bags and boxes and clothes pushed to one side of the room, occupying every spare foot of the galley kitchen surfaces and sink, giving the bedsit a lopsided feel. A light breeze plays in from the sea just a fag-flick away through the window, dispelling to some extent the heavy atmosphere in the room.
‘Sorry it’s in such a two-and-eight,’ says Terry, struggling to sit up on the edge of his soiled bed and then picking at his nails. ‘I haven’t had a chance to tidy up.’
‘We’ll get it sorted, Terry,’ says Alice. ‘Anyway. Listen. There’s a support worker guy coming later with some supplies. So that’s good.’ She pauses a moment, raising her eyebrows and smiling, to let the good news percolate through, I suppose. Terry waves his hand; she nods emphatically again. ‘’Okay! I’ll leave you to it, then,’ she whispers, and quietly closes the door behind her.
‘Damond girl, Alice’ says Terry. ‘They all are.’
‘I like their office.’
‘It’s a cupboard.’
‘I thought so.’
‘They ‘ain’t got no money for nuthin’.’
‘No. I guess not.’
‘They do their best though.’

I’m halfway through the exam when there’s another knock on the door and Jack, the support worker steps inside. Jack’s enormous, a bear in a parka, check shirt and caterpillar boots, holding a carrier bag of shopping in either paw. He’s wearing a face mask, and looks startled to see me there without one.
‘Oh!’ says Jack. ‘We were told we had to wear them. You know – ‘cos of the – thing.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell him. ‘As far as I can tell. Terry’s being treated so it’s not classed as active.’
‘Oh!’ says Jack again. I expect him to take the mask off, but he stands there a moment undecided. Eventually he carries on, ignoring the fact he’s wearing it, so Terry and I ignore it, too.
‘I bought you a selection of things,’ he says. ‘Honey nut cornflakes, bread, milk, biscuits, tea. Y’know. The basics. Alice gave me a list.’
‘That’s kind of you, mate. Thanks,’ says Terry. ‘I need fattening up.’
Jack looks at him, then at me, then at Terry again, then carries on unpacking. Although it’s hardly unpacking – more like stacking – in the one clear corner of the kitchen he can find. He hesitates before opening the fridge to put the milk and butter away, and I expect he’s glad he didn’t take the mask off.
‘There!’ he says, closing the fridge again. ‘All done! We’ll be back this afternoon to talk about some other stuff, but I’ll let you crack on for now.’
‘Okay mate. Thanks again,’ says Terry. Jack clumps out and shuts the door.
‘I can’t complain,’ says Terry, crooking one leg over the other and crossing his arms. ‘I ‘ain’t got no reason not to get better.’

He starts telling me about his recent past. How he fell in with some big time gangster who let him stay in the cottage in his grounds rent free for a little delivery work.
‘Man – you shoulda seen that place!’ says Terry. ‘The house was like a castle. Actually I think it was a castle. He had this pond in the middle of the lawn, and it was filled with these enormous fish, all flood-lit, swimming about like bastards. Each one of ‘em worth a monkey. And the cars he had. From little fancy Italian sports jobbies to big fuck-off landrovers, all of ‘em in temperature controlled stables.’
‘Didn’t have any horses then?’
‘Horses? Nah! He didn’t like horses. ‘Cept down the track. Anyway, one night I was in the cottage, minding my own, having a little puff, when there was all these flashing lights outside, and I know it sounds stupid but at first I thought some’ink had gone wrong with the fish pond. But then it was all like Police! Open up! And I’m like How do I know you’re the old bill? Anyone can shout anything. So they smashes the door down and they drag me outside. They were after my mate, ‘course. Same old story. They was always trying it on. But they didn’t have nothing. He was a lot of things, but he wasn’t careless.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘It all went a bit Pete, I didn’t have no scratch, so I split.’
He shrugs, then leans forwards on his folded arms to inspect his leg as it kicks up and down.
‘Funny how it goes, innit?’

junkenstein’s lament

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I built a creature out of scraps / inner tubes, kitchen taps / a bucket for a head / (I mean, sure – I had a corpse I could have used instead / with slick black hair & moustache / but I thought it’d make it way too flash / so fuck it / I went with the bucket) / for the brain I scavenged some window cleaner’s spongies / hemispherically linked by courier bungees / marinated overnight / by the light / of a box set of Walking Dead / (I wore headphones and read instead) / it didn’t really need a heart / I mean, for a start / there wasn’t any blood as such / just a weeny sump / in his trunks / that didn’t need pumping all that much / so to enliven / the mediastinum / and give some zhuzh to the void inside him / I hung my dad’s old pocket watch / a watch he never used that much / but kept it hidden away because / he thought it was worth much more than it was / but I think even he would agree / it twirled and chimed in the cavity / beautifully

at last it was time for the creature’s innervation / the moment of truth for my monstrous creation / so chuckling in a manner I thought befitting / for the cliche horror I was committing / I snapped two crocodile clips on his bolts / and shot him through with a thousand volts / he juddered, he woke / he opened his eyes and spoke / what the fuck, he said / smacking his bucket head / with a terrible clanging / my sponge is banging / what the fuck did I DO last night? / and then flexing his grabbers left and right / he swung his plunger feet off the trolley / and came to a sitting position slowly / and suddenly saw me standing there / in my goggles and gauntlets and frazzled hair / jesus christ he said you’re worse than me / any chance of a cuppa tea? /

we were together two years / before the cracks appeared / I suppose I was introverted, happiest in the laboratory / he was extroverted, sexually exploratory / polyamory / HE suggested / even though I protested / I didn’t think I could share / he didn’t care / slicking back his wire brush hair / welding spats on his suckers / striding out for a sordid tryst with his truckers / I have to admit, I fell to pieces / while he indulged his sexual caprices / he lost the watch in a casino / as far as we know / my dad’s half-hunter / gracing the waistcoat of some sleazeball punter / I mean – is that what my Dad deserved? / the treasure he’d so lovingly preserved? / and in the end it was the watch that did for us / calling time on the hurt and mistrust / and after a lot of hard words and crashing about / he finally moved out / a single, oily rag / trailing from his overnight bag / a slam of the door, a fling of a wrench / and me, sobbing on the laboratory bench

five years later /

I’ve built myself a different kind of appliance / we sit on the sofa in comfortable silence / plug in hand in regulatory compliance / it’s a cosy little domestic scene / and I’m happier now than I’ve ever been / and the creature? / he’s a star presenter / on a reality show about mad inventors / the contestants get a box of junk / and have to make a sexy lunk / while the creature hams it up and leers / fondling all the cogs and gears / (and y’know? I’d be the first to admit / he was always good at that flirty shit) / and I’ll sometimes binge-watch back to back / and wonder how we drifted off track / how he lost his heart / and mine was diminished / and our love affair was fatally finished / despite all the levers and lightning shocks / the plutonium grains in a lead-lined box / the scribbled plans, the body maps / the rapturous rise, the thunderous collapse / and for WHAT? / some bucket-headed creature, lumbering home at dawn / monstrously drunk on the castle lawn?

I mean – fuck that

teeny, tiny sharks

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘We’re going to convert the laundry room into a downstairs bedroom for him. There’s a small bathroom next door, so that’s good. And I think it’s nice with the sun coming in like that, don’t you, Stelios? Plus he’ll be in the action – you know? The comings and goings.’
Elena is bright and charming and matter of fact about the whole situation, the matriarchal engine of love behind the family. Her husband Stelios is lying on a riser-recliner, his left hand draped over the side of his head in an attitude of great forbearance, his right reaching forward, as the nurse and I irrigate the fist-sized cavity in his side.
‘How is it looking?’ says Elena, leaning over. ‘Infection still?’
‘I think it’s improving,’ says Gill. ‘Look – see there…and there? A little sloughy, but not too bad. We’ll pack it out again and see you again tomorrow.’
Gill has a fantastically reassuring manner, easy as a mechanic up to her elbows in the bonnet, as happy to chat about where she went on her holidays this year as the way a post-operative wound should progress.
‘Here,’ she says, sitting back on her heels and smiling broadly at me. ‘You can do the next bit.’

The living room is a family shrine. Large, blurry portraits of babies and children, couples being married, couples on holiday, in boats, shops, university gowns, every portrait mounted in swirly, gold-leaf frames With all the ornate furniture, the marble tops and carriage clocks and yellow and green porcelain pot stands, and with the broad bands of sunshine leaning in through the patio windows, the effect is quite overwhelming, like trying to dress a wound in the Cave of Wonders.

‘That was the first place I ever went abroad, Greece,’ I say, gently probing the deeper recesses of the wound.
‘Oh lovely! Where did you go?’ says Elena.
‘Serifos. A beautiful little island. Nice ferry ride out. I couldn’t get over how clear the water was. I think it was the first time I ever swam in a sea where you could actually see fish.’
Stelios groans a little.
‘Is that okay?’ I say.
He waves his free hand.
‘Is good,’ he says. ‘Please – go on.’
‘Anyway – I remember when we got there, I pretty much ran into the sea and swam out as far as I could, and it was all wonderful. But then I stopped, because I thought oh my god, what about sharks.’
‘Sharks!’ laughs Elena. ‘Little tiny teeny ones, maybe.’
‘I had no idea. So I ended up swimming back really slowly, trying not to make a splash.’
‘That’s funny,’ she says. ‘Jellyfish, maybe. Sharks? No. The worst could happen maybe you get tickled by squid.’
‘Or hit by motorboat,’ says Stelios, groaning some more.
‘Your name’ says Elena. ‘Is Jim, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can’t think what this is in Greek, you know?’
She speaks quickly and emphatically to Stelios, who lifts his hands when and how he can as part of the argument, and it goes on like this for a minute or two, whilst I continue to pack the wound. Eventually, Elena turns to me again and says: ‘Okay. Okay. Is Dimitris for Jim, but Iakovos for James, and anyway some of this depends on what your grandfather was called. It’s complicated. Names can be complicated.’
‘I’ll settle for Dimitris, then. And maybe Iakovos when I’m in trouble.’
‘Are you in trouble a lot?’
‘Don’t get me started,’ says Gill. ‘All done, are we?’

full catastrophe writing

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

okay /

so here I am, taking the dog out / wandering along, wondering what the hell to write about /

maybe I could vent / about the rise of the establishment / how it’s always the workers who end up getting canned / when there’s a market crash and fall in demand / and meanwhile the bosses / that engineered the catastrophic losses / get endless juicy bonuses / and other contractual phonus balonuses / january thru’ december / one long golden shower for the private members /

hmm…so I could write about that /

or maybe disasters of an environmental nature / focusing on some poor unfortunate creature / floating by the camera / with its head wedged in a bottle / or a porpoise, throttled / by a discarded net / or a million tonnes of plastic crap / from avocado cartons to bubble wrap / spreading round the world in a mantle of waste / until we’re forced to evacuate headlong into space / planet to planet, ad nauseam / the continuing adventures of homopollutiens / until a higher being unexpectedly descends / in a whirl of stars, saying fuck it / cleans us all up with a cosmic mop & bucket

so I could write about that /

or Brexit Britannia, up on a plinth / of takeaway cartons and 5% mince / in her left hand, a trident of tourist tack / in her right a riot shield union jack / and curled at her feet a monstrous dog / the head of Boris Johnson, the arse of Jacob Rees-Mogg

but I don’t know

maybe I’ll just settle for the usual guff / about the end of time and all that stuff / sinkholes, tsunamis, day after tomorrow shit / the sun disappearing, and me along with it / sucker-punched to eternity / (which of course passes instantly / because if I’m dead how on earth could I tell ya’ / if I’ve been dead five minutes or five millennia?) / anyway / fast forward to judgement day / the celestial finger beckoning / for the dead to come forward for the final reckoning / the graves of the world gaping wide / slowly revealing what’s buried inside / iphones numberless lighting up as one / catching up on updates a’trillion / and god stamps, and swears, and tugs his beard / and shouts Goddammit! this is so fucking weird / you know – I thought it’d be more spiritual than this / not just phone zombies taking the piss / so he slams the lid shut on the apocalypse / and settles back down to watch kitten clips /

or something

the end of the line

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Eamon is too tall for the recliner, his pale legs extending beyond the foot rest, so that his slippered feet hang in mid-air.
‘We need to get you some support there, Eamon. It’s putting pressure on the backs of your legs.’
Eamon turns his face to me, the waxy skin taught across his cheekbones. And whether it’s the cancer, the opiate medication, the distress of his decline, or a combination of all of these things, but he smiles in an off-centred way, like someone trying to make sense of a dream.
‘I’ve always been tall,’ he says.
I improvise an extra footrest from a packing crate and cushion, then finish the rest of the assessment, writing a long list of all the people I need to ring. I’m frustrated that Eamon was discharged without everything in place, but the wards are impossibly stretched, I don’t know all the facts, and anyway, I haven’t got time to worry about things I have no control over.
‘Can I get you anything?’
‘A cup of milk,’ he says, and looks down at a little porcelain cup on the cantilever table by the chair. I take the cup into the kitchen, rinse it out, then open the little fridge under the counter. There’s a huge, six pint carton of full fat milk in the door, a couple of microwave meals, a punnet of strawberries, and not much else. I pour him some milk, take it through and carefully hand it to him.
‘Ahh!’ he says, holding the cup with both hands. ‘Yes!’
Eamon’s chair faces a sash window that overlooks the backyard. In the yard is a clothes line with two white pillowcases gently stirring in the breeze. The sun is directly overhead now, and it blazes down on the linen, giving it a transcendent, brilliant quality.
‘I worked on the ferry,’ he says, staring at the washing line. ‘Then I left to nurse my parents. And here I am.’
‘I’ve always liked ferries,’ I tell him. ‘You really feel like you’re going somewhere. I remember we took the ferry back from France once and it was great. We had a cabin, and I was so exhausted from the long drive I just lay on the bunk and stared out at the sea…’
I almost say that it felt like dying and going to heaven, but I stop myself in time.
He nods, as if he knew that, then shakily swigs down the last of the milk and hands me back the cup.
It’s a small backyard with a limited space at the top between the buildings. The sun has moved only a fraction, but it’s enough to alter the angle of light so the line is now in shadow.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ I ask him.
‘No,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’ Then gently resting his hands back on the arms of his chair, he directs his attention to the window again, the washing on the line, and everything beyond.