It’s October & darkness abounds far too many hours of the day and I don’t flipping like it one little bit, it’s  pitch black when I wake up in the morning and by the time my internal clock seems to think it’s barely afternoon then sod me if it’s not dark again. 

The brief hours between are usually grey or wet or a combination of the two. On the rare occasions when sunshine miraculously appears it is little more than a tease, a weak reminder of what summer was. Oh that summer, how I miss it.

I seem to find metaphors in places that they probably aren’t, but is nature reminding me of decay and that I’m heading into my autumn years? 

It feels like I don’t need to look far for signs of bleak wintery oblivion. 

Every once in a while people I know keep dropping dead, well that’s to say different people, (not the same people reanimating and then dying all over again). Anyway this is a bit un-nerving to say the least as it heralds the creeping inevitability that one day, sooner or later it will be me. This is one of the few guarantees life seems to offer.

In the meantime I continue to enjoy less than perfect health it has to be said, but I am moving – just slower and making more noise in the process. La Gazella, the beautiful one, who can bound across cities and trails for hours, a perpetual motion machine in human form on a pair of very  beautiful legs, oh anyway, back to the point: In the summer La Gazella whilst we were holidaying on the continent remarks about the noises I make just getting out of a chair, or walking, it scares people she tells me earnestly. 

Climbing stairs – you make so much noise it scares people she exclaims. Now I know I’m a noisy bloke, but I hadn’t realised it was disturbing the general population at large. Helpfully she expands, I worry something awful has happened to you she tells me. Those noises she says, they  frighten me.

Despite my efforts to curtail the volume I emit whilst carrying out everyday tasks  I struggle.

Quite possibly this is just a thing with blokes and aging, and mine is definitely aggravated by arthritis which adds a bunch of pain & creates additional volume. But it’s a downhill journey. The only blessing from my aging infirmities is I reckon that people don’t really understand that its f’ing painful with this arthritis, if people did understand then I’d probably get sympathy. And that would be no good at all, i’d probably just milk it. So I attempt to endure stoically and make lots of noise in the process.

Age has also made a hypochondriac of me. Take recent events: I was getting over a chest infection, (they’ve been doing the rounds in these parts), well, I’m in the shower, and then I begin to cough, there’s an unpleasant chunk of catarrh in my throat, I spit it out into the shower. Disgusting I know but it will flush down the plug hole & nobody need know. But when I look down I see that its crimson, it looks like blood. 

Oh fuck. I cough and hoik up more phlegm – there it is again. Blood. 

Oh my God, thats it I’m dying, it’sTB or something terminal, my lungs are shot, I’m finished. There follows a five minute barrage of gobbing in the shower, hoping against hope that the next spittle will be clear and colourless, but every one is rose pink & red. All the while i’m considering my demise, what do I do? I’m supposed to go away for a few days, should I cancel my trip? And I’ve got dirty laundry, I cant leave that around, I will have to do a wash, I can’t go and die and leave dirty laundry in the laundry basket. Odd that isn’t it, what priorities one chooses when contemplating ultimate oblivion.

I clean the shower, dress & continue to contemplate my imminent demise. I decide to stop smoking, admittedly this is a clear case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, but there you go. A will, I haven’t written a will, but then maybe there’s not much need, there ain’t a lot to be concerned about, anything I have my son gets – but he won’t really want or need too much of it, but the books, the books I’ve stuck away in storage, oh how I hope he keeps them, to sit in his library, in that grand study he will have at some time far from here, when he pulls down a volume from the shelf and wanders through the pages of a Barry Cunliffe tome on the Celts of the eastern seaboard in the Bronze Age, or archeological digs in the 1920’s in Ur & Mesopotamia, and then for a moment how he fondly remembers his old Papa. Ah a man can but dream.

A friend  told me recently about having drawn up her will, and though sensible as this may have been the whole idea filled me with revulsion. 

I also learnt of late that an acquaintance of a similar age  had made up a playlist for her funeral – she did it years ago, despite being in perfectly good health, I thought it ridiculous, but maybe I need a playlist? And the funeral, should I be planning a funeral? 

I head out into the garden, take in a lungful of fresh air, then ponder once more my imminent demise.  I contemplate going straight to hospital, to ER, then try to think of other explanations, maybe its a dental infection, bloody gums ? Nope, it’s not that. Then EUREKA! I took those ampules this morning, the ones for chest and colds, they are coloured, hang on, the liquid inside is RED. Ive had it before and it discolours your spittle and stuff. That’s it, I’m not going to croak, not yet. I celebrate with a cigarette. 

Back at the Health Club I have a swim like most days. This swim is a paltry affair, a couple of dozen lengths up and down, then steam. I tend to keep my own counsel at the Club, do my thing and get in and out. But, every once in a while craving a little human interaction I will say something to somebody. Big mistake.

A couple of weeks back I’m sitting in the steam room, just me. The door opens and in walks a pot bellied short bloke with a bald head. 

I say walks in, limps in would be more accurate. He moans with each step.

I could have kept stumm, but no, I recognise that he is a hip replacement waiting to happen, I know what that feels like and therefore feel entitled to engage him in conversation.

Dodgy Hip I ask?

He replies but I don’t understand a word he’s saying – such a strong accent, its East-European, or Slavic maybe. I have to ask him to repeat. From several sentences I get four words: Doctor, Terrible, NHS and with the aid of an upheld hand the number five.

I deduce that his treatment has not been the best.

I should have just stopped at that point, but I have a bit of a thing about accents and couldn’t resist asking where he’s from. I get the word Bulgaria and from then on though I know he thinks he’s speaking English I cant understand a bloody word.

Since then my new friend engages me in conversation on a regular basis whenever he sees me. I can only nod, or make noises at the appropriate points in his talking where he appears to be looking for a response. 

Yesterday he caught me again in the steam-room. Bulgaria, says he $1.40 now $20. It transpires he’s bemoaning the rise in the cost of fish back home, interesting though this may be to some I make my excuses as quickly as possible and slink back to the shower & the changing room ruing the day I spoke to the Bulgar who now is my closest friend in the whole world.

Back in the changing rooms sitting on a bench getting dressed I’m joined in the space by a fellow gym member, he only has one leg. I’ve seen him at the club many times before, but not spoken to him. Anyway there I am sitting down, putting moisturiser on myself, heaving up my underwear and making a meal of the process of getting dressed, in a noisy kind of way. 

Meanwhile the one legged fellow is putting on his leg with the speed and agility of a gymnast. Multi-tasking he’s also having a conversation on his mobile and eaves-dropping he’s talking about his morning exercise. Well the personal trainer has me doing fifty lengths in the pool first then going back to the gym for my workout session with him I’ve got to rush…….

The words cut me to the quick. The one legged man is swimming twice as far as me & then going to do a full gym workout. And what am I ? A waste of space thats what.

Dejectedly I cycle home, in the rain. I think about the one legged man, and feel inadequate all over again. Then I remember three years back, my daily walk ‘round the local park near where I was living at the time. I’d had a hip-replacement and was trying to recuperate. I’d walk a few circuits of the park every day. on a regular basis I would be over-taken on my laps by a one legged geezer on crutches who would whizz past me like Usain Bolt. This isn’t coincidence, It’s a sign. 

The universe is sending me one legged men to remind me that people have bigger issues than I and they manage, or even thrive, I should get on with it & stop whining, if only to myself, out loud.