doctor benway makes work for idle hands

"It was just that I felt out of step with prevailing weather patterns." - ib

I resolved to divest myself of corpse hair from head to toe. To more accurately calibrate the distance between bruise and wall, the Velcro bracelet of eczema and smooth plaster.
     I did not make the first phase of it, the shaving of the skull.
     I did not make it.
     There was no ritual cleansing of the body. There was no rolling away the stone.
     I stepped out the bath without treading water. I could not bare to hear the sudden rush of it.
     The razor lay where I placed it next to the soap, a pubic curl embedded in the amber translucent heart of it like a fossil or a negligent surgeon's stitch.
     Something happens between January and April. Resolutions wither on the vine, just as yellowed fats asphyxiate the vein, the artery, dislodged like the best of intentions.
     My quit date came and went. The cigarette glued to my lip, the ceramic perimeter of a inexpertly mended ashtray.
     How do you like my emotion tree ? she asked.
     It looks like it needs a Valium, doll.
     I never learned to keep my mouth shut. Even as I forgot to breathe.
     Through the narrowest of tunnels.
     I listened to the radio. The channel murmuring thick invective as I slumbered on the sofa in a rudely sewn together pile. Too sick in my bones to move beyond a twitch.
     A young woman in India had been doused in acid. A suicide bomber in burning dungarees had just detonated his vest in a children's playground in Pakistan.
     I chewed on curdled sours. Spat them back out like Robert Mugabe breaking bread with indigenous insurgent admirers. I fled to the window and watched two dogs squaring up to fight.
     A bitch in a Pomeranian furred parka. A witless terrier.
     The needle grazed fifty while my eyes were resting. My pelvis fell like it was floored.
     My mind had scrambled back in the trunk years earlier but it had a habit of sneaking out to write once in a while when no one was looking.

     There were twelve cunts gathered round the table.
     I pulled up a chair and made it a baker's dozen.
     No-one was going to invite us any time soon to sit down as a jury. You could tell from the errant tufts of hair, the furtive glances, the chewed on hangnails, that we were likely more accustomed to being molested in the dock.
     One of us sported an alarming contusion where practicing Sannyasi daub paint upon their brow.
     He was frigid and unflinching under polite interrogation. He gave no indication as to whether he was tripping out his socks or simply mad.
     He rolled the pen across the table when prompted a little too fast.
     He failed to pass his disability assessment.
     A voice rolled upright and wrestled for clarity.
     Sanders savages Clinton in Washington. Milwaukee pokes its tongue into the corner of green sedimentary blown glass. Garry Shandling dies. There is no encore, no part two.
     The surgeon knits one, purls one just like granny. The barber calmly snips.
     The fat man upstairs is depressed but has been prescribed no pills to alleviate his condition. They throw him out of hospital after just a fortnight.
     Those two weeks are nothing short of a holiday for all concerned.
     The fat man relishes the free dinners served at regular intervals. And, because the ward is all but unoccupied, he enjoys a monopoly on the flat screen television.
      How do I know this ? The fat man tells me so.
      I take in a young Jack Russell to see how far I would get walking the dog. I listen to Emerson, Lake & Palmer just to punish myself and find myself implausibly wanting more. The puppy pisses on my carpet. I do not warm to the neighbourly practice of wrestling its turds into plastic bags to dispose of them discreetly. It escapes and I labour after it in the dark, attempting to lure it away from the genitals of other dogs with rawhide chews purchased from the crappy lime lit corner shop.
     Stop me if you've fucking heard this one before.
     The circus tent is straining under all that political correctness. The global village has been commandeered by terrorists, geriatrics in a national lottery to sock the patsy in the jaw. The barbershops are overrun by skinheads. Merle Haggard is back in the saloon.
     Don't stop me now. I'm having such a good time, I'm having a ball.

president gas

"The point is, you can never be too greedy." - Donald John Trump

The needle grazed fifty while my eyes were resting. My pelvis felt like it was shattered.

     My mind had scrambled back in the trunk years earlier but it had a habit of sneaking out to write once in a while when no one was looking.
      It was not that I felt old. Or more beleaguered than the next inebriated wretch.
      It was just that I felt out of step with prevailing weather patterns.
      The world was fucked. The fat man padding restlessly back and forth upstairs until my brain felt like it might erupt out my nose in a Pharaoh's sneeze.
      America seemed hell bent on electing an imbecile to office, and while I never once fancied to venture far from my island home - to holiday in extremis - the mosques were piling up in rows while the beach huts winced and paddled out into the sea. Just to escape the crowds.
      The niqab had all but eclipsed the ubiquitous little black dress in all the smartest periodicals.
      Going postal was the fashion.
      Strapping on the explosives vest. Posing for Instagram with the pin between thumb and forefinger. YouTube.
      In our schools, the lockers bristled not with sticks of incense but clips and magazines.
      The ones getting stoned had been accused of adultery.
      The KKK shared column inches with the PKK. The ballots were not rigged, they were governed by market stalls peddling trumpery. Tiny hands fluttered like blades at work on a rabbit. Palming coins, shuffling cups.
      I took in a young Jack Russell to see how far I would get walking the dog. I listened to Emerson, Lake & Palmer just to punish myself and found myself implausibly wanting more. The puppy pissed on my carpet. I did not warm to the neighbourly practice of wrestling its turds into plastic bags to dispose of them discreetly. It escaped and I laboured after it in the dark, attempting to lure it away from the genitals of other dogs with rawhide chews purchased from the corner shop.
      It is not that the Donald is some kind of magician.
      The sleight of hand is pure deception.
      The circus tent is straining under all that political correctness. The global village has been commandeered by suicide bombers, geriatrics in a national lottery to sock the patsy in the jaw. The barbershops are overrun by skinheads. Merle Haggard is back in the saloon.
      They might as well share a joint and fuck each other in the ass on stage like people used to do back when Cassius Clay welched on Uncle Sam.
      Obama. Merkel.
      The baby boomers are having none of it.
      They are too close to retirement to countenance their Miami burning down like Aleppo. Beirut. Old Baghdad.
       The Jack Russell packed her bags after just three nights.
       Millie. She was a sweet little thing. Like Michael Jackson's pet rat.
       A week after she had gone I could not get the smell of shit out from under my nails. My balls. It followed me around like a migrant in cheap cologne.

nurse with wound

"Selfishness is the unwillingness to give up your soul for the rehabilitation of your future." - Michael Bassey Johnson

There were twelve cunts gathered round the table.
     I pulled up a chair and made it a baker's dozen.
     No-one was going to invite us any time soon to sit down as a jury. You could tell from the errant tufts of hair, the furtive glances, the chewed on hangnails, that we were likely more accustomed to being molested in the dock.
     One of us sported an alarming contusion where practicing Sannyasi daub paint upon their brow.
     He was frigid and unflinching under polite interrogation. He gave no indication as to whether he was tripping out his socks or simply mad.
     He rolled the pen across the table when prompted a little too fast.
     There was a hint of agitation in his delivery. A touch of the disorderly.
     A pregnant woman in her forties did her best to pacify us with lure of charitable inclusion while fellating a Subway sandwich.
     "I'm Mabel," she said. Pausing to let this new enormity percolate on down. "Have any of you's done unpaid work before ?"
     A boy with acne raised his hand.
     "Ah did," he volunteered. "But then I got ill."
     "What happened ?"
     " Mania," he said. "I was diagnosed with mania."
     Mabel blinked. "Nae bother."
     Fair play to her. She was not about to let drop. Ball, breakfast or brat.
     She went on briskly to describe the proactive role voluntary work had to play as part of the recovery process. Most of us knew the script.
     It's a side effect of being subject to repeat examination. In court. Detention.
     The dugout at half-time.
     You eventually learn to give a little of what's expected.
     Mabel fed us from the line. Pointed at the spot.
     Two or three of the clever ones converted a free kick down the wing and finished with a well rehearsed set piece. Some dribbled inside the box. The more blatantly injured - the most cunning, maybe - never set foot off the bench.
     I wondered when Mabel got fucked last.
     More recently than me. It was not the reason I was here, but it was part of the conundrum.
     Over time the various medications turn a body flaccid. The tissues hang like an overcoat left out in the rain.
     It runs deeper than appearance.
     I glanced around the table. Most of us looked like we'd never been laid at all. You could almost smell the underlying arrest. The frustration. We resembled a bunch of deviants getting ready to rehearse a walk in the park.
     Even those of us with bread crumbs still in our beards had lost their hard-on for pretending to feed the ducks.
     And the women all nursed menopausal chiselings.
     We just did not tick the boxes.
     Initiation into the "Young Persons Befriending Services" quite frankly seemed absurd. Two tickets for a Sunday matinee. "Accidents & Disasters", while initially more promising, smacked of malingering. On closer inspection.
     "Do any of you's have a bus pass ?"
     Two or three woke up just long enough to delve unnecessarily in anorak pockets.
     It was not clear whether Mabel's experiment in largesse might prove prejudicial to our financial interests.
     Most of the vacancies offered no remuneration for travel expenses. Lunches.
     By the time Mabel signed off, interest in the accompanying PowerPoint presentation had waned to a degree where A&E nurses wheel out little square trolleys and doctors administer atrial fibrillation.
     "All right," sang one of our patrons. "All right." 
      There was an inevitable smattering of applause. All the red crosses had been laundered and folded away. Our facilitators all nursed wounds.
     "Next week is DVD week, so you're all invited to bring in something you feel might benefit the group."
     Thirteen pairs of eyes mildly blinked in unison. Crutches were palmed.
     The boy with acne lit up like Linda Blair on a crucifix.
     "La plume de ma tante," he rasped.
     His face a rosy stepped on welt. The quarter inch of tongue a turd smothered in Peri Peri sauce.
     "Well," one hausfrau standing near the door smiled. "That's not entirely appropriate.
     "Frozen? Have any of you's seen "Frozen" ? I kid you not, it's a fabulous film."
      A tiny shiver waltzed through us, erupting zits and spasms.
      She had recently had her hair done. It hung like sculpted ice cream scallops. Defrosting curl by curl.
     ""Frozen", it is, then. And don't forget to tell your chums."