Hospital Memories I

He had bloodshot eyes, moss-covered teeth and malodorous breath. We were in the corridor. He reached out and tried to pull me towards him.  I hit out at him and backed away.  There was a nurse sitting nearby.  He did not intervene.  He just looked away.

Why?

We know how he died but we don't know why. A few nights ago a neighbour killed himself by jumping from the balcony of his sixth floor flat. He died, they said, of 'horrific' internal injuries. We don't know how long his broken body lay on the grass before he was discovered. His closest neighbours cannot even remember his name. They only remember that he was 'very mentally ill'. He was deemed worthy of a couple of columns in the local paper.

We know how he died but we don't know why.
Perhaps we never will.

Ridiculing

Commodity Fetishism. Note to Apple Evangelists: Steve Jobs is not God. I know because Richard Dawkins told me. In fact, that's the title of his next book. And Bill Gates is not Satan. Get it?

A little online temper tantrum in response to some spoilt little brat who said that she would never date a shelf stacker:

I find it shallow. Shallow and thoroughly unpleasant. You are aware, I'm sure, that there are many reason that individuals may end up in the situation you describe. As it happens I have a friend who is, at this moment, stacking shelves. He developed schizophrenia in his mid-twenties. He has a first class degree from a rather prestigious university. Ask (deleted) or one of the other medics just how difficult it is to sustain a successful career and remain on a high dose of neuroleptics. You may well be academically brilliant but you need to work on acquiring an imagination and a capacity for empathy.

Oh, and how's this for the very epitome of the Karpman Drama Triangle: Victim/Perpetrator/Rescuer? Each playing their alloted roles. Balding middle-aged men on white horses, anyone? No, it doesn't appeal to me much either.

The blogger makes a good point about rampant, untamed typography.