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PROXIMUS
We
are society, we belong to this modern age and
therefor, by supposition, we are enlightened.
So, here we are comfortable in our superiority
of times past, the next best thing as it were.
We are more in tune with the advances of our
world, our fellow human beings, we’re more
compassionate, quite simply more aware about the
issues affecting people, race, sexism. We all,
more or less, give voluntarily to charitable
organisations – ‘yeah, that’s right missus
just you rattle your cause under my conscience
“spare a coin for an ex-leper” and here’s
a £1.00 salve that has made me feel so much
better.’ I thank you.
You still with me so far? Thanks for hanging in
there, cause I need some compassion. I stated
earlier ‘this modern age’ because let’s
face it every ‘age’ thinks itself the modern
age. The Victorians were at the forefront of
technology and quite rightly thought themselves
thoroughly modern. The Roman Empire conquered
the world and created architecture the envy of
history; they built like stone was going out of
fashion. The Egyptians created wonders we still
marvel at today and so on back through time to
the Neanderthals and who knows what else.
Ancient times we say, modern ages they would
have said.
But…
there’s always a but, isn’t there? Anyway,
this is the age of being politically correct, we
tie ourselves in knots trying not to offend
anyone with our inherent speech patterns, our
jokes cannot be offensive, (yet, somehow the
whole point of a joke is it is somewhat
offensive to someone, am I wrong?). We have
minority rights that are now leading to the
marginalisation of the supposed oppressors of
these rights. A new Human Rights Act is now in
place making us even more civilised and yet
September the 11th, India and Pakistan still
continue to happen.
According to our television advertising
‘it’s good to talk’, yes, but not to the
shite littering the streets of our fairest
cities. It’s like something from the Monty
Python boys, but really something they just
observed and stole from other similar modern
ages. ‘Spare a coin for an ex-leper’
translated – ‘got any loose change mate’
or scrawled text on a torn strip of cardboard
‘HUNGRY AND HOMELESS’.
Any city in the land has its share of these
squalid bundles of humanity and similar comments
can always be heard emitting from people who are
not uncaring, not unfeeling, just swamped by all
of this sensory deprivation and growing immune
to human suffering. I’m the same, no
different, although right now I do require some
TLC. (Tender loving care, in case you didn’t
know.)
The eyes stare deliberately into a
middle-distance seeing but erasing the flotsam
and jetsam demanding entrance to their world.
Not so much whisky galore and abundant piss. Old
London Town smog hangs over these homeless,
unemployed creatures with their eclectic
collection of mangy mutts, sleeping blankets,
pathetic gazes and rollie ups – all necessary
accoutrement to garner sympathy and a few
shekels for an ex-leper. Mostly these people
have become parodies of themselves with society
no longer believing that they are all homeless.
Go sell the Big Issue they cry collectively.
I’m sitting here internally moralising about
life, images I have lived in and little street
plays I have actually played a bit part in.
‘Roll up, roll up, appearing for two minutes
only.’ It brings home the absurdity of being
enlightened and caring.
For the last five days I have been in purgatory
and I mean absolute Hell. Allow me to explain. I
have been in my comfortable, fully
central-heated and exquisitely furnish home with
the mother and father of all flu bugs. I could
hardly move and really did have difficulty
breathing; even now my rib cage aches with the
aftershock of that hacking cough. My pain was
and is real; my throat was a ragged cavern of
stalagmites and stalactites trying to pierce my
living tissue. I had a plentiful supply of
medicines and paper hankies, coffee, warmth and
love but I still, not unreasonably, wished this
flu would go away. Just fuck off somewhere else,
a bit like my social conscience. I was
completely immersed in my suffering and to hell
with Afghanistan and delayed trains, starving
kids and nuclear war.
I’m now sitting amongst other miserable souls,
with drippy noses, hacking coughs, aches and
pains. And do you know the worst part of this, I
have had to wait five days for this appointment,
the bloody bug is deciding it’s time to
offskey, but I’ve made the date with the Doc
so I’m going to have it mate.
The waiting room door bursts in on itself and a
large man stands like a lighthouse, his ocular
vision scans the room then devotes itself to the
sheet in his hand. Everyone looks up expectantly
an eager air of anticipation fills the room,
‘me next.’
He looks up once more and his gaze falls upon
me, change for an ex-leper mate? He calls out a
name that I have already forgotten; it’s not
mine. It’s a woman with two small kids who
arrived after me, bloody shame the kids look
miserable and one of them is coughing fit to
burst.
I get to my feet and leave the waiting room. I
go to the little window with its restricted air
space and report to mission control and tell her
that I am actually feeling better and could they
give my appointment to someone in more need. I
leave, feeling slightly better with myself.
I’m obviously returning to health, that would
not have happened three days ago, believe you
me.
The End
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