The “Mad” Woman by The Drifter

(All images by The Drifter)

“So you may say, / Greek flower; Greek ecstasy / reclaims forever /

one who died / following intricate song’s / lost measure.” – H.D.

Today’s discussion of medical issues is from a layman’s point of view since I am a Doctor of Philosophy and not a medical doctor. But the medical facts have been garnered and gathered from folks who are medical doctors – in person, not just through reading. So this column offers the best of both worlds: the medical facts filtered through a philosophical perspective, with a touch of Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka, except that THIS IS REALITY.

…

The “Mad” Woman

You walk back into your tiny apartment after another trip around the block. The second you enter your one main room, you realize that something is amiss. Someone has been in here again during your 30-minute absence. Not only have they been in here again, they have rearranged some of your items. The difference in placement is very subtle. A hair brush you thought had been over here is now over there. Your coffee cup has been moved three inches away from the place you left it. And the television remote control device is now sitting on the opposite end of the end table from the one you left it upon when you left your apartment thirty minutes ago. Because the people, or beings, who enter your apartment and rearrange your stuff when you are gone are very subtle, very secretive, and very sly. You do not know why they are targeting you and rearranging your stuff; but “they” have been doing this for years. You slowly move around the apartment putting everything back in its right place. Then you notice that the dart board on your wall has also been rearranged. It has been moved exactly three inches to the left. You suddenly realize that the dart board is not a dart board: it is an eye. It is a GIGANTIC EYE through which THEY are watching you. THEY also follow you around on the streets sometimes. You have been incarcerated more than once for accosting these spies on the street. You approach them unannounced and unawares, demanding to know why they are following you, whose orders they are following, and why they don’t feel guilty about being spies. The authorities sometimes show up when you take these interrogation tactics too far. Sometimes that’s when the straight jackets come out and the incarceration thing happens again. You are aware that all of this seems “crazy” to them. But you are being followed, tracked, and surveilled within your apartment. Not just the dartboard but also the bathroom mirror is an EYE watching you. Watching you and reporting your activities to THEM. That’s why sometimes you don’t move for hours. You just sit there alone in your chair in your apartment utterly unmoving, not even daring to get up and go to the bathroom. Some day you will figure out who is doing all of this, why they are doing it, and what the universal ramifications are. You’re pretty sure that most of the spies are human. Others are definitely demons who look like humans. A few are humans you’ve been long familiar with, like your sneaky and wily landlord. That landlord of yours who always acts so friendly on the surface then turns around when you’re not looking and reports all of your activities to the authorities. The ultimate authorities are not human. They are not God, either. Rather they are some kind of currently unknown (to humans) creatures who live on a Planet called the North Star that is not in our galaxy and not even in our universe. One day you will know the reason for all of this, and it will elevate you. In the meantime, you can’t get a job because your life is constantly taken up with dealing with them, fleeing from them, thinking about them, analyzing them, dreaming about them, hiding under the covers from them in the tiny bedroom. (Under the covers is the only place they can’t see you, although they can still sometimes say things to you, like, “You stupid fucking bitch” over and over again.) Maybe some of them are friendly though (you are hoping this is true). Maybe everyone and everything in the world is not your enemy. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe! If you weren’t on medication, things would really start to get bad. You remember that you haven’t taken your medication in a few days, not since the last time you saw your therapist. You go to the medicine cabinet. To retrieve your medication. It should come as no surprise that your medication has disappeared because THEY have stolen it. Later you will locate the medication bottles in a different area of your apartment and realize that the jerks who are following you around and messing with you have moved your medication again. You dump all the many multicolored pills all over the floor and slowly and methodically begin to count them again, over and over and over again…counting the pills in this way also keeps the voices in your head quiet as night comes on, at least for the most part…

…

Welcome to the wonderful world of full-blown schizophrenia. The low moods and crazy highs of bipolar disorder look like a cake walk compared to this. Bipolar disorder is an episodic disorder where the patient is rarely, if ever, psychotic, i.e. totally out of touch with reality. There are a few medications that work really well in helping to control the occasional, extreme moods of bipolar disorder along with all of its daily intensities, mini-nervous-breakdowns, hilariously dangerous outbreaks, and sometimes-constant hyper-irritability. There are no medications that are great, or even very, very good, at controlling schizophrenia, although some med’s can help control the delusions and hallucinations a little. There is not much chance that any of this will change, at least not in the next couple of centuries…

…

The Native Americans, like the ancient Greeks, believed that “crazy” people were in touch with the gods in a special way that made them special people. They weren’t just sad, pointless cases with no reason, no goals, no ambitions, no purpose. Instead, their unusual condition was seen as a thing that was bringing messages to the rest of us. Not clear messages, ambiguous messages. But messages nevertheless. In the modern, secular, capitalistic, warlike, atheistic (or fundamentalist religionist), consumerist, commercialized, monetized, advertised, atomized, and alienated world, your value is the price tag on your head. Special people are not special, they are worthless, pointless junk to be discarded if possible. The medical professionals who do more than anyone else to try and help these people also often do more than anyone else to stigmatize, traumatize, and stereotype these people. There are literally millions of severely mentally ill people in the USA alone, and that doesn’t count the rest of the world. It’s a known fact that schizophrenics in the USA and UK, for instance, usually hear voices that are harshly criticizing them; while schizophrenics in places like Africa or India usually report (instead) hearing the voice of God.

These people really are messengers. It’s us who are not listening.

The next time you see someone standing on the street corner yelling at and kicking a telephone pole as if it were alive, or staring into the sky with a terrified look on their face as if an angry Martian were gazing down at them and scolding them, see if you can get inside their head before you pass on.

The Drifter

A Double-Special by our Editors: The Long Black Veil: or, The Hereafter in the Now by Dale Williams Barrigar and To Be To Not to Be by Leila Allison

The Long Black Veil; or, The Hereafter in the Now By Dale Williams Barrigar

(images by Dale, the header is a poster in Leila’s office)

Every single word of this little monologue with a huge topic, a topic as big as it could possibly be, far, far bigger than anything current science or technology (AI included) can come up with, is deliberately chosen, and purposely placed exactly in the exact right place (whether awkward or not) where it magically happens to go (showing the unity of all things). When I say bigger than anything, AI included, I mean it:

I would rather rest in air (be cremated and flung to the winds over waters) but if I had to rest in earth I could do it here, as long as it’s like a Nathaniel Hawthorne story with all his beautiful women become one favored woman in the end, the platonic ideal of the human in snatches; or the song “Long Black Veil,” penned by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin, as sung by Lefty Frizzell, in Nashville, in 1959.

Dale Williams Barrigar

And for a look at a similar idea…

To Be To Not to Be by Leila Allison

To Be or Not to Be is the most famous literary line in the English language. A six word statement; thirteen letters; four words (two repeats); three of the words contain two letters, one has three.

A lot can be accomplished by expressing the same thought in slightly different ways. I recall a country song from decades back that asked (I paraphrase): Should I kill myself or go bowling? That is the same question, but it contains an added touch of absurdity, which, I think, might have made the Bard smile.

The evil act called War can be viewed as a variation of the question. If you are the Leader of a nation who has declared war, you have made that choice for many people, friends and enemies. (That part doesn’t matter: the voices of the dead all scream the same.) It used to be that Leaders had the decency to “stand the hazard of the die” like Richard III, but you do not see a lot of that anymore. Anyway, in the end, War is simply organized murder and lacks much in the way of irony.

When Shakespeare wrote Hamlet there was something between 500 to 600 million people in the world. The population is close to nine billion today. And let’s not forget the 25 to 30 billion whose lives began, lived and ended since 1600. That’s a lot of To Be or Not to Be. Nature, as in the provider of our lives and maximum lifespans, of course, looks at it as To Be to Not to Be. Still thirteen letters, same word sizes, but the change of one letter that reduces the separate word count to three has much meaning, yet removes any question and, like War, it lacks much in irony. And in the case of one William Shakespeare, Nature’s version reads 23.04.64 to 23.04.16. (Even though it has a touch of symmetry, here, minus the centuries, we see where the simplicity of numbers fails to completely convey the depth of Will’s “Ago.”)

In the 335 words following the opening quotation, little, if any, irony, has been added to the concept. But today I think I’d like to thank the Ghost of William Shakespeare for giving me a lot to consider.

Leila

Martin Luther and Lenny Bruce by Dale Williams Barrigar

The Colonel

Martin Luther was a man who had one of his most profound religious revelations of his entire life while in the middle of a painful bowel movement. And he found this fact, in retrospect, to be so extraordinary, and so hilarious, that he never hesitated to tell this little tale to almost anyone who would listen when the mood struck him; and he especially enjoyed telling the tale in mixed company. He especially told the tale after putting a bunch of ale into himself. He was a man who enjoyed copious quantities of beer like most in his day. His sense of humor was so ribald, wild and infectious that he sometimes kept the folks around him in stitches for an entire evening. Then again, back then there was no television. And yet, we can still see that Martin Luther’s powers of humor were extraordinary and subversive. Just like Lenny Bruce.

Back then, messing around with THE LAW, which meant the Catholic Church, was not just something that could get you excommunicated, or even just exiled from the community. Dante, when he was banished from his hometown, was told: if we ever see your face around here again, mister, we will jump you and burn you alive publicly at the stake. It was a good enough reason for Dante to never see Florence, which he deeply loved, again. Back then, messing around with the law, i.e. The Church, meant that you might have your arms and legs cut off while you still lived. Then for good measure they would take your intestines out of your body and show them to you in case you were wondering what they looked like. And only then would they chop your head off and place it on a pike so they could put it on the corner to warn other ne’er-do-wells such as yourself. Martin Luther faced down the Catholic Church and condemned them in fiery and public terms for being a corrupt institution that cared nothing for anything at all except money, money, money. The way to win your eternal forgiveness back then was to make a little donation to the Catholic Church, who would then contact God on your behalf and make sure you were okay now with The Big Guy. They had forgotten what their great hero, Jesus, said about a rich man, heaven, a camel, and the eye of a needle. Luther spent an awful lot of time in hiding, and he escaped torture and execution because his wily nature and the truth of his position won out in the end.

In 2018 or ’19, Elina, Mary Ellen, and I saw Bob Dylan live on the campus of the University of Illinois Chicago at the small stadium there which was right across from the building where I had my office at the school for fifteen years. We were in the third row and the only thing we ever actually saw of Dylan himself was his wild and messy hair bobbing around above his electric piano, because of where we were in the crowd, because of how his piano was set up to block him, and because he hid behind his instrument the entire time with his head mostly bent down low and never once directly addressed the crowd, at all, except in song.

When he began to sing his song “Lenny Bruce,” from his 1981 Christian album Shot of Love, a sudden hush went over the entire audience, and it was obvious that more than just me in the crowd knew that this was a special and unusual moment. “Lenny Bruce” is one of Dylan’s least-known, truly great songs. The surprise performance he gave of it that night was almost heavenly, or at least as heavenly as it gets on this side of the Great Divide. Anyone who thinks Bob Dylan can’t sing was not there that evening, or is mentally sleeping.

“They said that he was sick / ’cause he didn’t play by the rules / He just showed the wise men of his day / to be nothing more than fools / They stamped him, and they labeled him / like they do with pants and shirts / He fought a war on a battlefield / where every victory hurts / Lenny Bruce was bad / He was the brother you never had.”

Dale Williams Barrigar (All images by DWB)

The Dark Lady Revisited by Dale Williams Barrigar

(Images by DWB)

If forced or requested to select my favorite character in all of Shakespeare other than wild and wily Shakespeare himself, it would probably have to be the Dark Lady (or at least today it would definitely be the Dark Lady).

She is Good Will’s Mary Magdalene.

Anyone who’s ever loved a brilliant, promiscuous, raven-haired Spanish woman with darkly olive-colored skin and a shady reputation (to say the very least) will understand the attraction.

Her musical and poetic and intellectual abilities, her independent spirit and the fact that she inspired all this (all these deathless sonnets by the Western world’s greatest writer other than those who wrote the Bible) are her greatest calling cards.

“I do believe her, though I know she lies,” is one of my all-time favorite lines of poetry.

There have been myriads of scattered interpretations about the shades of meaning contained in this line.

And I know just what it means.

It’s about, among other things, Shakespeare’s voyeuristic obsessions and jealousies; and mine.

Dale Barrigar Williams

Continue reading →

Cat Woman by Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by DWB)

Loving lady at the end

of the block, you were once an

urban cougar with a single silky black

feline.

But time passed, as it must.

It is a lot of them that haunt you now, I see.

The lizard-eyed landlord tried

to evict you many times.

Then they came, and did evict

you eventually, for this.

The cats were scattered, or rounded up

and taken away, somewhere, some when.

Shakespearian Cat Woman you fought them,

and tried to escape them,

you died for them, you plied them with

fine liquor, wine, and gold eye shadow, and you

heavily sighed.

But when they took the cats away,

did you know,

did you know then that this

was only the ethereal end

of one more love?

And do you now, do you ever remember

me, at all?

And how?

Dale Williams Barrigar

REPOSE AND SILENCE: A DIRGE FROM THE EARTH By Dale Williams Barrigar

THERE WHERE WINGS ARE FOLDED

THE SILENT SOUND OF THE SUN’S CENTER

IS SEEN,

IS SEEN,

GOING, GLEAMING.

…

STREET WALKERS WALKING THE STREETS

HOLY HANDS OF THE MINSTRELS

IN THEIR OWN PRIVATE INFERNOES

124,000 STRONG

WHO SING

THEIR OWN SONGS.

…

LITERATE SOCIETY IS

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

TALENTED MONKEYS RUNNING THE CIRCUS NOW

ALL MY DAUGHTERS AND SONS.

…

WHEN FICTIONS LIKE THESE

BEGIN TO OPERATE AS REALITIES

WITH HUMBLE HUNGRY HIGHWAYMEN

GOING THEIR WAYS, ECSTATIC MEDIEVAL FEMALE

SAINTS REJOICING IN PAIN, IT IS TIME NOW

TO BATHE IN MY SEAS OF THEIR MYSTIC RESIGNATION.

GOOD FRIDAY IS COMING TODAY.

…

BUT CAN YOU FEEL THE INVISIBLE RING

AROUND THE PEBBLE

IN THE PALM

OF MY HAND.

…

AND

YOUR TREMBLING EARS

AND PURIFIED EYES

SO YOU SHALL

WALK FORTH

STRUT FORTH

AND STRIVE INTO THE SILENCE OF

IT:

THE FURTHER BEYOND.

Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by Dale Williams Barrigar)

The Sung Coyote by Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by Dale Williams Barrigar)

I see her in the symphony rain

with her gown falling off

her shoulders

and the rain

in her eyes that is

her and her tears

in the blue rain.

…

And I saw the Sun Coyote

I called her the Sun Coyote

because she was in the yellow sun

licking her healing wound

in a green field

near creek-side sedge.

And I knew she was OK.

And I sang

quietly inside.

Dale Williams Barrigar and Boo

Doing It Anyway by the Drifter

(All Images by The Drifter)

“It is difficult / to get the news from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.”

– William Carlos Williams

“Look at / what passes for the new. / You will not find it there but in /

despised poems.” – William Carlos Williams

The above lines appear so simple that any literate child could have written them in her or his off moments.

At the same time, it took me twenty years of periodically re-reading and returning to these lines before I was able to understand them in their deeper levels, or in what Ralph Ellison called “the higher frequencies.”

I always knew there was something there, but just what it was always seemed to elude me.

It was this mystery, this enigma, this most simple yet deepest of riddles, which kept me returning to these lines, as with so many other great lines of poetry.

When you know what it is but also know you don’t really know what it is (and Socrates said the most important thing to know is what you don’t know), the mind-heart-body-spirit must engage with the work in a way that is beyond mere mental exercise, but also is mental exercise of the highest kind.

By the word “high,” I mean that it makes you feel high.

The word “kind” in another guise is another thing poetry is, even when it’s savagely satirical.

The honest and plain truth is that poetry says what nothing else can say, whether that something else be politics, science, philosophy, or even religion, which is why poetry is a religion to many.

It is a religion to an uncountable, indefinable, and scattered multitude, now and always.

It is what made us human (“in the beginning was the Word”) and it will be the last thing to go when and if we ever become no longer human.

There is nothing to believe; but somehow poetry makes you believe it anyway.

Key Notation: A novel like MOBY DICK or JANE EYRE or a Nathaniel Hawthorne or Carson McCullers short story are also, very much so, “poetry.” Wallace Stevens said that we should go around collecting poetry from the epiphanic moments in our lives and put those moments into words only afterwards; and so on one level, there is no greater argument for the holiness of poetry in and of itself than this.

The Drifter

Saragun Verse: Every Line Sells a Hoary Glory

i

Money shoots up veins and noses

And from bar brawls to city jails

It catches Tigers by the Jim Crow-zus

Don’t go out unless you bring nuff bail

ii

Money dropped on spats and bolos

Adult diapers and bikini waxes

It buys hits on mafio-so-sos

Sooner or later we’re all game for whack-zus

iii

Money is what bellows louder

Than the crow of the power cock

Grind dem bones into fine powder

Then sneak it from hull to dock

iv

Money drives Rats in the river

Who swim faster than the fed

They earn evil gold that quivers

The green orafices of the dead

v

Money is what we are after

It’s a lie to counterfeit

We are invested by the master

As its old age benefit

vi

And yet money can play the hero

When at last the check has cleared

All them crooked numbers and zeroes

Following a faith backed sum so dear

vii

Two for one indulgence funnery

Glitter wacko-jacko clerics devour

Best to get thine child to a nunnery

Ere the Vicar’s bitcoin is empowered

Flying Socks by Paul Kimm

The flight back home left mid-morning from the major city airport they always chose, in order for it to be direct, as Paul preferred to not have any changes, but because of recent political sanctions from many countries, and the need to avoid flying over a large amount of land mass, the flight time had increased from the normal eleven hours, to a total of fourteen, and so, whilst it was still direct, neither of them relished that much time in the air, Paul because of his fear of flying, and his wife because of that too, knowing that every bump, any minor shake, dip, or little wobble, would have him clenching his wrists, gripping the armrests and unable to speak or open his eyes for at least fifteen minutes after even the gentlest of turbulence had passed.

For her part, Zoe loved flying, the opportunity to sit in a comfy enough chair for a period of time, no guilt to feel about not being more active, no gym to go to, no yoga classes on board obviously, and so relaxing in front of a screen packed with dozens of movies, TV series, a few daft on-board games, and the delivery of three meals, and the free-flow wine to the seat was a perfect way to spend fourteen hours, as long as her husband managed to contain his nerves, these nerves impervious to the number of times he’d flown before, or the statistical knowledge he had about flight safety, the multitude of empirical data, all meaning nothing as soon as the first bit of mild mid-air shaking came.

The flight was at 9am and because of the time difference with the UK would arrive in London at 5pm at Heathrow, which was 11pm in the time zone they were in, so they would be able to get to the hotel and sleep off the flight as soon as they got there, ready to move on to their friends the next day, who they hadn’t seen since their previous diplomatic posting on the other side of the world, where they’d worked together for five years, and loved it, until almost two years ago when they came to the posting they were in now in a much colder part of the world, and so meeting up with Sandy and Malcolm would be a great reminder of life in warmer climes, and they knew they’d have a wonderful, albeit different from how it used to be, first weekend back home, catching up with their old pals.

As usual check in and security was efficient and within half an hour of arriving at the airport they were through and at the departure gate areas with their carry-on bags in tow and closer to three hours than two remaining before take-off, so they decided to find a place for breakfast, and if time after to browse the shops and perhaps get an additional gift for Sandy and Mal, some single malt for him, perhaps a Japanese brand, that obviously couldn’t be opened that weekend, and a fancy style accessory for Sandy, ideally something purple, this being her favourite colour, but first a bite to eat, and then a quick walkaround the airport retail offerings.

They went to the usual place they ate, the breakfast options being the best, much as the lunch and dinner options were when they took flights at other times of day, and after a couple of minutes looking through the menu Zoe ordered avocado toast, making sure there was no butter and that they removed the poached egg, and Paul, allowing the airport meal to be a treat before the long flight, broke their recently agreed commitment to veganism and ordered an omelette, asking for them to just keep the vegetables in, not include the listed cheese, as some form of concession to their plant-based eating resolution, allowing one ingredient to break the rule rather than two, mumbling something about a couple of eggs not really being a health issue anyway, and murmuring the words ‘free range’.

As they waited for their staple freshly squeezed orange juices to arrive, they didn’t speak, but looked out into the airport, watching people walk towards their gates, some rushing, overtaking other passengers, with their wheeled small cases whizzing behind them, whilst others, also clearly with ample time, meandered around, stopped to look at the same menu where Paul and Zoe were dining, but made faces about the prices, and moved on, perhaps in search of an over-priced, but still much cheaper fast food alternative elsewhere in the airport, which made Paul smirk slightly when these never really potential customers scurried off.

‘Come on, Paul. It is expensive here to be fair.’

‘Not for us it’s not.’

‘That’s a little mean though. When we first met the best we could have done is share a box of fries from one of those places, and then get on our budget airline. And, we’re not quite as well off nowadays anyway.’

‘I know, I know. Sorry, you’re right, of course. The good old days when we’d have some fries and a beer to share.’

‘Yes, I suppose so, or perhaps it was the bad old days! I think we agree a fresh juice is preferable.’

‘Of course. Anyway, did you pack my flying socks?’

‘No, you know where you keep them. Are they in your carry-on or check-in bags?’

‘Wait, I thought you mentioned you packed them.’

‘I didn’t mention them once. I packed my stuff, then we did the usual run through what we might have forgotten. You didn’t mention your flying socks once. I assumed you’d packed them.’

‘No, I didn’t! Good grief, this is nightmare. You know I can’t fly without them.’

‘Paul, check your carry-on then. For crying out loud, it’s a bloody pair of old socks.’

Despite the thirty years of regular flying, the hundreds of flights he’d taken, Paul had never got used to it, never managed to allow all the knowledge he had accumulated about flight safety enter his mind enough to calm his nerves, and even meeting pilots, and other aviation experts, who’d emphatically promoted the extreme unlikelihood of serious accidents, the data such as a aircraft using 85% of its mechanisms on take-off, no extra ones during cruising, and 15% on landing, meaning any technical issues would likely occur in the first ten minutes of flight, just meant nothing to Paul, as did the reams of statistics ensuring the absence of crashes, and the fact that they chose the most reputable airlines with the highest safety records, often at extra cost, all meant nothing as soon as there was a the merest of mid-air movement during a flight.

Instead Paul, ironically, given his diplomatic role was in the science field, though not as senior as it had been in previous postings, had turned to superstition to assuage his nerves, his flying socks, which he’d owned for close to two decades, being the necessary accoutrement for all his flights, those pair of socks, navy blue, with a white airplane motif repeated all over them, long since riddled with holes, making them unwearable, continued to be a travel essential for him, no longer putting them on due to their age and disrepair, but rolled into a tight ball they’d been in, unused on his feet, not requiring a wash for over twelve years, but a vital, needed, indispensable item of packed luggage, as somehow their presence on all his flights, in Paul’s psyche, protected him from any actual danger.

Their breakfasts arrived, but rather than tuck into his omelette he told Zoe to eat her toast, whilst he rifled through the contents of his carry-on, fully opened out on the banquette seating, removing each item, his spare underwear, laptop, removed from its slipcase, the couple of books he took on board, always unlikely to read due his need to close his eyes during any inclement weather, a couple of t-shirts, spare trousers, one smart pair of shoes, and a few small toiletry items, and two pairs of fresh socks, new, hole-less, clean, and not with planes on them, and therefore not his flying socks.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

‘Paul, I get it, but you know the socks don’t make a difference, don’t you?’

‘Yes, of course I know that, but you also know how I am. I don’t know what do.’

‘Look, eat your breakfast first, before it goes completely cold, and perhaps we can look around the shops. Who knows? Maybe somewhere sells socks with planes on. Would a new pair do the trick?’

‘There’s no harm in looking I suppose. I don’t know for sure they’re not in my check-in luggage anyway, but I’d feel much better knowing there were at least some socks with planes on in our bags for sure, if possible.’

‘Okay, eat your omelette and let’s go and see what we can find.’

Ordinarily Paul was the first to finish eating any meals they had, Zoe being a much more delicate eater, carefully slicing her food, enjoying each morsel, whilst Paul wolfed his food, generally using his fork to break up his meals, only using a knife when the fork couldn’t manage it, and each subsequent bite entering his mouth whilst his previous bite was yet unswallowed, meaning he consumed most meals in a third of the time Zoe did, but this morning he barely touched his omelette, his worry overtaking his appetite Zoe could tell, even though he attempted to brush off his unwillingness to finish it as some nonsense about feeling bad he wasn’t sticking to their new dietary regime, turning her usual mild disgust at his eating to restrained impatience at his mendacity and reluctance to eat.

‘Are you going to finish your omelette?’

‘No, you’re right. I shouldn’t really be eating eggs.’

‘It’s an airport treat, right? Are you not hungry?’

‘You know, look, I’m just, well it’s my nerves to be honest. I feel a little sick.’

‘Okay, let’s go and browse the shops to try and find you some replacement socks?’

They went through a few of the stores, the first three, with their small selection of socks, selling, at best, some diamond patterned, striped, or dotted socks, but nothing with any kind of images on, and certainly not approaching anything related to flying whatsoever, but then they came across a new shop, selling only socks, a purely sock shop, with shelves, and revolving stands full of themed socks, which they decided to divide between them, being sure there must be something that would appease Paul’s fear, and could be taken on board with him.

Each rack and shelf was themed for the most part, from selected animals, foods, Paul being unamused when Zoe asked if he wanted the pair with fried eggs on, her hope at humour calming him wasted, then through to musical instruments ranging from guitars, to drums, to what looked like saxophones, then types of weather, an assortment of random household items including television socks, dartboard socks, and even coffee maker socks, which brought them to the section on transportation themed socks, which as they looked through the different shaped and coloured car;, yellow Volkswagen beetles, red Ferraris, green Minis, and also motorbikes, bicycles, ships, even helicopters, but seemingly none with planes, at which point Zoe went to ask at the counter.

‘Excuse me, do you have any socks with planes on?’

‘Ah, no, we’ve none left, I think. We do usually have a couple of designs, but out of stock at the moment. Sorry. We do have the ones with helicopters on.’

‘Paul, they’re out of stock, but there are the helicopter ones.’

‘Sorry, no. It has to be planes.’

‘Yes, sorry about that, he has a, well, he likes to have what he calls ‘flying socks’ with him on his flights.’

‘Zoe, there’s no need to bloody explain!’

‘We do have lots with different types of birds on if that helps, sir.’

‘No, socks with fucking birds on won’t fucking help!’

‘Paul!’

Paul stormed out of the shop, Zoe following him after apologising to the shop assistant, but he left at a pace she couldn’t match, and couldn’t see him, deciding perhaps he’d gone to other shops, searching for more possible sock replacements, thinking she could try to persuade him a t-shirt, a tie, any item with a plane embellished on it would do, even a small plane model, ubiquitous in airport shops, would be suitable enough, and so she trawled from one shop to the next, yet Paul wasn’t in any of them, and their time for boarding was approaching, he was nowhere in sight, so in the last shop she looked in she purchased the smallest sized toy plane they had, a small keyring with a biplane flown by a vintage aviator styled dog, and a chocolate bar with a Boeing jumbo jet emblazoned on its wrapper, then left, to head to the gate, hoping to see him there at least.

As she bolted towards their gate she glanced in each shop, café, and restaurant, quickly sweeping her eyes through the customers to see if Paul was amongst them, but no sign of him until she glanced into the airport’s only pub, an Irish bar named Mulligans they’d never stepped foot into, and saw his back, sitting at a bar, something he hadn’t done for over two years, and as she reached him putting her hand on his left shoulder, the barman placed a large whiskey in front of Paul, next to an already empty glass with barely melted ice inside it, and Paul beeped his card on the contactless pad without even acknowledging his wife’s presence, and before Zoe could speak, he’d taken his first sip, of his second drink, and let out an overly loud, satisfying gasp.

‘Paul!’

‘What? Exactly what?’

‘You can’t be serious. What are you doing?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing, Zoe? I’m having a fucking drink.’

‘Paul, please, the flight will be okay, please put the drink down. Come on.’

‘The flight. I’m not getting on the flight without my socks. You go. I’m fine.’

‘I’ve got some possible alternatives, please have a look.’

‘There are no alternatives! I don’t want to see any fucking alternatives. This drink is the alternative, alright?’

‘Paul, honestly, you can’t do this, you know you can’t. You’ve been doing so well. Please.’

Paul put down his drink, turned on his stool to look directly into Zoe’s eyes, and that fierceness she’d seen in his eyes many times before, but not in the last couple of dormant years, made her want to step back, but he took her hand that wasn’t holding the plastic bag, and gripped her wrist, not speaking, not blinking, his face showing he was preparing what to say, but she knew whatever he said would be definitive, unnegotiable, inflexible, he would be staying in the bar, not flying, and rather than waiting to hear one of his old diatribes, his rambling tirades, the kind of nonsense speeches that ultimately got them where they were now. Instead, she directed her thoughts to being on the plane, the comfort of the premium economy seat, the choice of wines she might have herself, the selection of films she might get though, what the booked vegan meals might be like, how his absence and the empty seat next to her would be an additional luxury, and when his mumbling had finished, and he released her, she said goodbye, and went to the gate, smiling at the memory from a few hours ago of popping a pair of old socks, with planes on them, in the bin.

Paul Kimm

(Image is of Mr. Kimm)