Out of chaos and coincidence, there is no evidence for fate.
In the randomness of rolling dice, there is only technique in the shake
of hand or twist of wrist that spills the numbers of fortune
(or of ruin or of breaking even), which gamblers read like runes.
But I am not a betting man. I wanted nothing back from life.
It was pure accident that saved me and led me, out of danger, to my wife.
When the car emerged from darkness and smashed me in the street,
I did not count it a lucky break: With my arse beneath my feet,
as I somersaulted through the air; my leg shattering the headlight
and my face scraped in the broken glass, so that my features were a fright-
mask of blood and broken bone. With the tendons in my hand exposed,
where I had tried to break my fall, what did I hear from my girlfriend, Rose?
“Ouch! That must have hurt!” Well, thank you for the sympathy,
sweetheart. That was all the excuse I needed to say goodbye.
Bones were healed and bruises faded; with the help of tender Barbara,
who found my limp endearing and saw romance in my scars.
I had to have some teeth removed that were shattered beyond repair;
but one snapped off at the root, causing agony without compare.
So the stump was left to heal itself and my smile crowned with porcelain.
Now that I had cheated death, I thought I was immortal again.
Unseen, the shockwave to my nerves was eating at my very core,
until my intestines collapsed in a welter of filth and gore.
Unable to eat, I faded fast; growing pale and skeletal,
with no energy or the will to fight. I said, put me up against the wall
and shoot me to end this misery. Not knowing that depression
was a symptom of my illness, not a result of the condition
in which I lost all dignity; gloved hands invading places
no longer under my control. Surrounded by masked faces,
I was given one stark choice: Either linger in the thrall of C,
or let them gut me like a fish and live incomplete, but cancer free.
By then, I had seen the swirling void and walked in a tunnel of fading light
on two occasions, but turned away from darkness in a state of fright.
Somehow, though my life was shit – quite literally – all the time,
I gave the word and signed the form, and they cut along the dotted line:
From groin to chest, I was opened up, for the removal of my entrails
(like some medieval torture), but I will spare you further details.
I spent December on the surgical ward, hearing Stop the fucking Cavalry,
sung by Jona fucking Lewie, for the millionth fucking time on Christmas Day.
And Barbara did not visit me; yet I cannot blame her
for not wanting to tolerate my bitterness and anger.
We parted without arguing. I started the year anew;
which is when I first met Geraldine and my life’s real romance grew.
Despite feeling like Frankenstein’s monster, looking pale, skinny and scarred:
Though I couldn’t see the attraction; to her, I was a Byronic bard,
with my air of wounded arrogance. (Even if I could not write
for fear of being vulnerable to the gaze of poetic insight.)
Instead, I turned for security to the ordered world of work;
commuting to an office and becoming a stuffed shirt.
Within a year, we were married, then expecting our first child.
As both pain and dreams receded, my thoughts became less wild.
I settled for normality (however that is defined);
for home and hearth and family – and for career – all intertwined.
Thus, the decades passed, in a slow paced stumble of disorder
that passed for tranquillity, while I never crossed the border
between the unknown country and a state of sheer denial.
Except each year at Christmas, when I heard the bugle call
to Stop the fucking Cavalry, which took me back to a world of pain:
That dark place in my head, where all I wanted was to die again.
Except for Geraldine, who always stopped me at the brink
of something selfish or stupid. Whatever anyone else may think,
I still had much to live for – if only for my family’s sake -
until the worst I had to deal with was a nasty bout of toothache.
The broken stump from the accident had finally erupted
and needed to be taken out. So my routine was disrupted
by a visit to the dentist. I booked a late appointment,
then changed it to the morning, to avoid the disappointment
of missing a crucial meeting (which seemed important at the time,
but soon paled into nothingness in the face of a terrorist crime).
Instead of catching my morning train, I kept my date with dentistry
and emerged, face numb, with bleeding gums, unaware of my brush with destiny.
Though I noticed the queue at the station, I had not heard the breaking news
of explosions in the underground. I was just confused,
so I went home to Geraldine and we watched the television
with a mounting sense of horror, as we realised my decision
to change the time of one event had kept me safe from harm.
Whatever the pain of a broken tooth, it had been like a lucky charm.
A chain of circumstance had started, from being hit by a car.
Regardless of the anguish it had caused me, the outcome was better by far
than being healthy up to the moment of being blown apart
in a tunnel beneath the city. My story now has a new start…
In the end, my message is very trite: When things are bad, they could be worse.
Out of chaos and coincidence, today’s blessing may have been yesterday’s curse.
