why bother?

And it was one of those days where everything was a little unreal a little detached and he felt almost invisible and picking up an American design magazine in a doctors waiting room he leafed through and marvelled that some people created these ornate designs and others paid for them and all involved were happy people people just the opposite of him even though he knew they probably weren’t and that the pretty girl with the flowery tattoo on her left shoulder and the piercing through her top lip would have her own problems and perhaps felt some of the same feelings but all he saw was her picture and her Brooklyn apartment and her success and he thought about her friends and her family and how much sex she had and how many partners she met and gave herself to with abandon after a wild night of dancing and flirting in some hip bar and he of course hadn’t had sex in half a year  and had always had problems having sex and sexual fantasies and he had a childhood he couldn’t remember and wondered if he saw some horrible monstrous thing or been abused and this had fucked him for life or if he was just neurotic and unsuited for living in a world where to be weak and unsuited was failure and all this time in the waiting room there was an older lady with her daughter and baby grandson and the older lady was stick thin and looked and sounded like white trash with cheap trashy track pants and top and long string grey hair and a voice that had been roughened by a million ciggies and sure enough when he caught a look at her face it was weathered and worn by life lines everywhere deeply etched like theyd been carved with a chisel it was a face that almost didn’t look human and this intensified his feelings of unreality the daughter was not much better mum she said when she came out he said I have crabs/cramps said it was normal after an operation mumblemumble scar tissue and grandma said ok better safe than sorry as they walked away he laughed without mirth at the human filth talking about crabs in a mongoloid voice in full view and hearing of him as though this was normal but maybe she said cramps who knows and the thing was even though he near wanted to scream with rage at the old lady’s coarse singing to the baby while they waited she loved that baby and that baby looked happier than anyone he could remember and that love meant more than anything else didn’t it and maybe he was being too bitter and cynical a symptom of the sickness perhaps or just his own bad thoughts maybe inspired by a devil he’d been preached to about recently and maybe he was angering and disappointing god thinking these things so making his sickness worse and how much pain he had to bear and how indescribably horrible not to be able to share it with a single soul in any way which would bring relief instead of more shame and guilt and anger at his isolation all he had were the books and music and films but they couldn’t talk back and fuckit she was trash and maybe he and his family were too but oh no he wasn’t he was too smart and good looking to be trash he had a destiny that involved great things even though he was at the doctor because he wanted to die he wanted a blood test or a brain scan to give him hope of a life threatening illness and he knew how sad that was but he didn’t care (he knew he might if it was true and he was facing death)  he couldn’t meet the babies eyes because the baby seemed to challenge him to say look ive got this life shit pretty well sorted I run around laugh eat shit cry piss sleep and everyone looks after me yeah I want to say we’ll see about that give it a few years boy you might end up more like me than you think but still that innocence in his face especially his eyes and his lips his wonder at the most mundane objects like a magazine rack was something to behold and he wondered again where he had gone wrong and he told himself again he had failed he was a fuckup and where was god anyway the baby had started to run away from grandma and past him in his chair slumped over eyes on the carpet whenever she brought him back he wouldn’t meet the womans eyes because he knew she would smile at him with that smile of awww im (not really) sorry but aren’t they so adorable and he didn’t think they were all that adorable at all at the moment he just wanted everyone and everything to go away and leave him and his warped mind collapsing and whirling like a deranged and malevolent roller-coaster with thoughts of self-hatred and rage and melancholy  and detachment from this world. Wait now the doctor was free she called his name he went in sat down she was pretty and had an accent that was hard to place but seemed faintly Scottish on a better day he would ask her where she was from but that wasnt today she sat down asked him what can I do for you today and he hated that he didn’t know her except that she was busy and already late and had her takeaway latte and croissant on the desk and she wanted him out to eat it im sure he hated that he had 15 minutes to ask her to help him not want to be dead but she couldn’t save him he knew she was quite pretty though with long legs spread wide as she sat on her chair facing him ive been feeling really sick and exhausted my sleep is interrupted my eyes are twitchy my body is tired I train as a teacher and have been teaching at a school for three weeks and I suffer from Depression (the sickness, the death of life and of joy and of hope and of pleasure and sex and friends and family, the death of beauty and love) and I take 375mg efexor and 1000mg epilim and I’m in a pretty bad patch very low (and I want to die I want you to examine me and tell me I need blood tests and a brain scan ASAP and I want you to ring reception and say cancel my remaining appointments and get Doctor X on the phone we have a critical situation and then im rushed to hospital for blood tests and an MRI which will show I have massive tumour which needs to be operated on but we’re sorry sir it doesn’t look good and I will say don’t worry fellers you do your best ((because I want sympathy from friends and family for this affliction which I never get from the sickness when I curl my self up into a ball and lay in bed and nobody knows or cares about me theyre all out leading their undamaged happy lives))and then I say my farewells to friends and family many of whom ive barely seen in the last 10 years and then I have the operation and it doesn’t remove the tumour and I die soon after and its not suicide and hopefully there will be infinite beauty and love in the next place or at least the absence of pain) but she just shines lights in my eyes and takes my blood pressure (normal) and says we’ll do blood tests you just make sure you drink plenty of water at least 2 litres a day and there is no point continuing this discussion she is rising out of her chair but I do say please can I just have something to sleep and she says yes straight away she mustn’t have checked the records which tell of substantial alcohol and prescription drug abuse and she gives me 6 of my favourites and 2 repeats and she says something I don’t catch and I leave, get my meds pay my bill and leave the building into the overwhelming brightness of the spring day and I walk to the car with no healing or help derived from my medical visit except these little blue pills and I wonder what to do now should I go for a walk round the lake and be constructive or should I take a couple of these pills and experience the only peace I usually am able to find in this existence which forbids any more than a glimpse of happiness and instead loads me with the sickness and laughs to see me try to live with it so anyway I choose to