NEEDLING

A Re-birth! That’s a bit melodramatic. Not sure if that’s not exaggerating things just a tad bit. Everything in motion, everything moving in and out of brain death, doesn’t spell out a new birth, and definitely not a re-birth... how ridiculous is that? Haven’t been able to breath all week. Allergies. I have not gone to see a doctor to confirm this self imposed hypothesis on my current health. I don’t feel sick, it’s just I can’t breath. I blow my nose and thin see-through mucus comes out. To no avail, since I still can’t breath. Great for wine tasting... Yeah! I’ve done a few recently. The blockage happens mostly in the morning upon waking up, it seems to clear up as the day takes its course, so it’s not so bad. This morning around 5h30, I walked outside and sneezed for about fifteen minutes. That seemed to only steer things up in there. Now, just about one hour later – what have I accomplished during this hour? Not much. I’ve managed to make some tea, to slip into a pair of dirty blue jeans, and put on a shirt I found in the creases of my couch – Just about one hour later, as I was saying, I’m at my desk sipping some Yorkshire tea and trying real hard to forget all about my nose, my inability to smell anything properly, and all that slime I’m having nightmares about: Where does it all come from? Is it my brain I’m blowing out through my nostrils, and if it is, shouldn’t it have a little more color to it? Somewhere, I’ve either heard or read that what you see in your blow rag, if it’s clear and you can see through it, then you’re experiencing allergic reactions to... not sure what to... Mold? Pollen? Whatever’s floating unseen through the air we breath... But when and if it starts turning white, creamy, and eventually greenish, then that’s when you should worry, and start drawing out your last will and testament.

This woman came into the store the other day. She had tubes coming out of her nose, linking her face to a hand-bag she carried about her shoulder from which emanated little beeps and burps. She was a tiny woman, barely five feet and a couple of inches tall. I was at the register cashing in a sale from this other woman who comes in every other day to buy a fifth of overpriced rum in a plastic container. Every other day she stands in front of the rum section and has to make a decision: Clear or Gold? And sure enough, it’s always one or the other. Anyway, I was giving her her change back when the other woman was walking into the store. The one who’d just bought the rum walked out, she’s a very tall and very skinny woman around forty something, and just as she’s stepping outside, the two women recognized each other.

“Bernadette!” screams the very tall very skinny woman, “How are you? I barely recognized you! it’s so Good to see you! Wow, we were all sooo worried... how are you?”
“I’m doing wonderful! It’s so good to see you too.”
“What happened?”
“Ohhh, wow, you know... it... I got real sick, and... I was in the hospital... you see, both my lungs collapsed. First the left one went, then the other one just afterwards...”
“Oh my gosh, are you all right now?”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine. I don’t move as fast as the rest of you, but I’m doing great now. It’s amazing, you know, it started out as a cold. Just a stupid little cold, you know, sniffling and stuff, then it moved down to my throat and it started getting real bad, a strip throat and all... and before you know it, my lungs collapsed.”
“Oh wow, I’m soooo sorry, but it’s sooo good to see you again.”
“It’s good to be back.”
“All right, well... you take care.”
“You too.”

(The conversation lasted a bit longer than that. I don’t mean to make it sound trite. They talked about seeing each other again, absolutely needing to go out and do some catching up, see some other people in common, have a couple of drinks, and a lot more of how good it was to see each other again.)

The tiny woman bought a cold bottle of inexpensive chardonnay, paid, left, and that was that.

***

Re-birth! Ah! Re-birth, my ass... I’m starting to sound like a born-again bible-thumper, talking about being born again, about seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, coming out from the depth of SIN... buddy, oh boy! Birthing myself through a long never-ending air-conditioning ventilation system made up of organic material all slushy and flesh like, crawling in there head first, being thrusted out by unknown unseen and probably misunderstood forces of nature, pulling myself out or trying, clinging on to anything... nothing I grab onto stays in my grasp, like trying to climb a mountain made up of green gobs of slime... except I’m not climbing, I’m neither going up or down, I have lost all sense of gravity, I am not doing anything intentionally, I am being evacuated, pushed out, shoved away from wherever I was before... covered in slime and gooey stuff... I have lost control... re-birth... My Ass! More like an execration! Moving then not moving, thrusted forward then sucked back in, thrusted forward, then sucked back into the darkness, seeing the dot of light getting bigger and then small again, but every time it gets bigger, it’s just a little bigger than it was the last thrust, and every time it gets small again, it’s just a little less small than it was the time before... an unimaginable spot of brilliance amongst all this darkness and fish entrails never quite in the same spot, moving about – THRUSH – another blow from the depths thrusting me a good ten yards forward sliding right through the sludge of water and blood, this needing to get this ordeal over with, this needing a breath of fresh air – here I go again, whining about breathing... breathing, that’s the central theme of this post: Looking for a breath of Fresh Air! THRUSH... and off I go whooshing about like a turtle caught in a mudslide... the spot of light getting larger, itself breathing as if alive, not just an exit, but an orifice, a large cave opening alive and breathing... just one more little push and... and... AND THEN!!!

PLOUF! FLUSH...

(Born again, my ass. Re-birth, my ass. I’m merely trying not to go brain dead just yet.)