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CHRIS MAJOR
Ssssssssssssssssss We never knew Nan, knew only that she'd died quite young. Then, one tea-time over egg'n'chips Dad told of approaching her house, thinking it strange that doors and windows were tight shut to summer's heat. Peering through 50's lace, he saw the ironing board propped against the oven swallowing a permed head. The rest a bit of a haze, until the note's incoherent ramble about 'being useless' and 'not wanting to go on'. He'd held it all in for decades, that enormous pressure shaping him from skinny youth to the bulge of middle age. Now, with his head in hands, we watch him re-live that days events; and as they swirl then condense to pool his eyes, words hiss, leak to coughs and sniffs....... FESTIVE (for jm) Don't hang decorations. No shimmering baubles or twinkling stars. Don't light the arse-end of the year with gold and glitter, in a tacky attempt at brightening life. Nah, just drink and smoke and soak up anything that eases the pain. For Christmas is a cunt; with its advent countdown, its atomic explosion of bright bonhomie, that just accentuates her absence, then etches her shadow on every day of the coming year.............. 'HELP WANTED' I've tried to kill myself twice. I rattle with pills- (seroxat 8 years); I'm obsessive compulsive and anxiety prone have panic attacks and counselling take beta-blockers and sleeping tablets think about death everyday killing someone hourly. So when the job application asks if I have 'mental health issues', or are 'currently taking medication', of course I print 'NO' . I'll not lose sleep; well, I will, but at least the insomnia gives me time to self-harm......... Chris Major's work has appeared online at Zygote in my coffee, My Favorite Bullet, Remark, Lily, Stirring,Pemmican, Snakeskin and Underground Voices. |
© 2005 Underground Voices |
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