This is the conversation that changed my life.
They thought I was asleep.
“But what IS he, Jo? What could he BE?”
“He is OUR SON. Our perfectly normal HUMAN son. You were there when he was born, You’ve been with him ever since. You’ve washed every nappy, made and fed him every bottle. rocked him to sleep. washed every inch of him hundreds of times and seen that every scrap of human is normal and human and male. Forget what those fools in the village think. Half of them still angels bring babies, Tagra. Our boy is a perfectly normal natural little boy just like all other others in this villain, and that’s final!”
“But he can’t be, Jo. He just can’t. You’ve seen how he looks at people,. Eyes a million years old. And like he already knows everything about them. And they shine so bright, Jo. So bright it frightens me, Jo. Bright like a star and twice as cold, those eyes. And so hungry to know things it’s like they could eat you, swallow you up like a trout with a worm, and not even slow down. ”
“Don’t talk such nonsense, woman. Boy can’t help how his eyes are, can he? Launny the Leadsmith has an eye red as blood, and nobody thinks he’s… unnatural.
“Don’t they though? And you know there’s a lot more to it than the eyes. Like how he knows things. Things a boy his age has no way of learning and no business knowing. Did you know that Tina from down the shops was over here yesterday barkin’ at me because our boy Rob told her Tina and Roger that everyone dies eventually and that their parents will die before they do?”
“He said what? Hahaha!”
“Stop laughing, it’s not funny, Jo. Those kids were up all night crying!”
“All right, all right, my dear Tagatha. You’ve made your point. He’s an odd one, our boy. He’s spooky, and knowing, and his eyes could make a saint nervous. But no matter how weirdling strange he is, he’s still out son, Tag, He’s still the boy who sat in my lap and looked up at the stars and asked all those questions. He’s still my best little helper who knows more about running my shop at 5 than old Titch knows at 50 and he was worked for me all my life. And he is still the little boy who won’t go into the Old Barn by himself because he thinks the rats there will eat him.
He’s just a little boy, Tag, no matter how unusual he might be. And there is no way I am going to let the ignorance and cowardice of others come between me and my son. “
“And neither am I. Thanks, Jo. You always make things make sense again. ”
And I always will, my dearest Tag. ”
I didn’t understand a lot of what they said that night.
But I knew two things now :
There was something deeply wrong with me.
And it makes my parents sad.
More after the break.
A life of adventure
One good thing about being as sick as I am is that it sure makes life exciting.
Why, even the most mundane of tasks becomes a booby-trapped maze full of dangers and hazards that would give Lara Croft a run for her money.
For example, just to retrieve the Dinner of Random Whatever I See First, I had to cross the Bedroom of Pulsating Vertigo, span the Living Room of Light and Sound, navigate the Kitchen of Leg Torture, then barely make it back to Home Base at this here computer before falling to the floor, dinner going everywhere, from the pain.
Then I am back here in my (soon to be replaced!) computer chair and ready to blog and eat for the second time today.
Woops! Psych! I got the left hand/left left numbness again, which makes it harder to both type and eat!
Like I said, my life is one big adventure.
Well I have at least finally taken some positive action : I made an appointment to see my GP Doctor Chao at 9:30 am on Friday.
Well I hope he’s ready for a workout, because I have a lot of stuff to dump on him. My pattern of slow deterioration has continued apace, letting problems sneak up on me, and so I have accumulated quite the backlog.
It doesn’t help at all that I keep going to the ER when I think I should only to be told nothing is wrong with me.
Hence my treating part of my hand and part of my face going numb as a total meh.
I know it will pass quickly. Of course, one of these times it might not, and honestly these incidents are probably a terrible warning sign of something or others, but they keep checking me for signs of stroke, heart attack, and so on, and not finding anything, so I guess that means it’s my problem and my problem alone.
“Sir, we have to ask you to leave. The doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with you and it’s making them sad. We’re beginning to think you’re doing it on purpose. ”
Not that I’m bitter. I’m beyond that.
By this point, I’m downright acrid.
I am one hell of a satirist, though.
So whatever, I guess. I will see Doctor Chao and see if I can pull of a miracle and actually get the medical establishment to pay attention to me long enough to fix me.
Remember, I had to badger them for a year to just get them to schedule my heart procedure, and then wait another six months for them to actually do it.
And that had all kinds of very clear medical imaging to establish the absolute necessity of the procedure. Still I had to keep phoning them in order for them to continue to remember that I exist.
I hope it doesn’t come to that this time.
But if it does, I am ready to fight.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.