Oh hurrah - something nice happened. A kind soul spoke to me just as I was contemplating that long-awaited meltdown. Cheers, Noel - you averted chernHObyl by reminding me to go for a swim. Meltdown? Why? Surely not during this blissful month of May, when the birds are twittering away and flowers are blooming...when depraved maniacs murder little children (BBC News) and suicide rates skyrocket...
I was just about to declare victory over the world; I thought that something had finally decided to go right/according to plan for the first time in 22 months. I was wrong. Yet again, the world decides to spit in my face. Oh well. I don't like spitting in public - it's dirty, spreads disease and is intolerably ill-mannered. Very trivial, really - I wait and wait and wait for a book (Handbook of Clinical Anaesthesia), conscientiously checking my 'library holds' each morning for news that the one copy available has finally passed into my possession. Greed, really - notification finally came...this morning...
The rush to St Mary's Hosptial, the pounding heart as I entered the library and produced my swipe card to claim the book... only to be told that it has been 'downgraded' from a standard loan to a short loan due to extremely high demand. As I said before - greed. Argh. All the anticipation to get my grubby little hands on that piece of literature and it has to be returned in under 168 hours.
I'm such a selfish, ungrateful, lazy cretin - but when things don't go well, you're tired, lonely, hungry, depressed, unsuccessful, self-stressed, wondering why, irritable, shunned, miserable, homesick and you've forgotten the combination to the lock that releases the safety valve, then it only takes a gentle tap to tip you into the abyss. Oh dear. I think I've overdone it - it's quite a calming feeling - you sit there, secure in the knowledge that even if things become 'properly worse (as they very easily could),' you couldn't react any worse fashion - there is nothing below absolute zero and in fact, you can't even reach absolute zero (thanks, Kelvin).
Back to Marion's cat...
Marion's cat actually thought he was a ferret - of course, the whiskers would give him away instantly. He wasn't very fussy about his owner or what he was fed, being the kind of animal that would adapt to the situation and try on all accounts to please the kindly soul who had taken him in. From Marion's point of view, the cat was yet another oddity; it often stared at her with a faintly unnerving glance that seemed to say 'that's right, human, wipe that smile off your face and get back to preparing my dinner' or 'write your will and leave everything to me - and don't forget to start a trust fund for my litters.' Nevertheless, she often chose to ignore it and went about her daily business.
It had been a while since Marion had last typed on a computer keyboard - she used to work as a secretary but had to resign after RSI got the better of her. Now, as a lonely spinster sequestered in her studio flat at the end of a row of terrace houses in Ealing, she decided to pass the rest of her days in relative peace and quiet, baking delicious cakes for the local primary school's lunchtime puddings under the new 'Herr Jamie Oliver Meisterplan fur kinder' scheme that aimed to give all children a chance at sampling the five different taste sensations in a single meal (the fifth, 'umami,' had been formally recognised by the Health secretary some two years previously). Thus, as summers and winter flitted past, both Marion and her cat shared the same lebensraum in comparative harmony, not really interacting very much except to acknowledge each other's presence....
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