Ten million tears

Tonight, a song 'The hounds of love,' is playing on my pc in MP3 format, it's late and no lights are on. The windows are open and other late night sounds are wafting in on the breeze.

I'm stuck for something to write, but tonight like so many nights recently, it isn't writers block that is suppressing my ideas. So to kick off or to try, I make up and type out the title 'Ten million tears.'

This song I mentioned earlier is not the Kate Bush version; it's by a band going by the name of The Futureheads, the band in truth are awful, the lead singer has a weak shallow voice which is drowned out by the bizarre vocal whooping noises and the playing of an over zealous and very mediocre backing band. But there is something here, but as much as I strain my ears, I still can't hear the lyrics.

I play the song over and over again¦more than is normal or healthy even. This is a song it appears the singer doesn't want us¦or perhaps just me to hear, but now I want to know.

The Internet however provides the lyrics and I see that although the song on the surface is simple and repetitive, the band didn't want me to hear this song, well because they're almost singing about me.

The themes are amongst my favourites, and are about cowardice, fear, suspicion and confusion, in it a boy is scared to live and has spent his life running away.

There is one verse in the song where the boy rescues a fox from hounds, the unusual thing being the fox recognises the boy, as it's only route to safety, and thus lets him carry it away. The fox is metaphor for him and the hounds are the love that is surrounding him, he can't deal with it but no one is coming to rescue him.

It's uncanny, but later my cat Lou Lou brings in a baby mouse for me, she drops it on the floor under a desk unscathed and starts chirping and hollering wanting me to notice her gift to me, it scampers away to the edge, but she catches and stuns and brings it back to the centre. I make a move for her, hoping she'll carry it away and finish it off, but no¦ she thinks I'm joining in on her sadistic game, and her excitement and brutality become more frenzied as she toys with the poor tiny frightened thing.

I breathe a heavy sigh and get on the floor to try and stop this wicked game, spraying deodorant or something usually scares her away, but not tonight when she has prey. Cats are only meek when they want to be.

So I have to try and catch the mouse, but she's having great fun, giving it the idea it's got away and then pouncing, so I try and intercede. And you won't and I don't believe it; but the mouse escapes and runs straight into my cupped hands, Lou can't believe it either, so much so she looks elsewhere frantically chirping away. But no the grey baby mouse is here in my hands weightless, shaking, looking up at me sorrowfully and with little mouse tears in it's tiny dark inquisitive eyes¦ it's almost as if it's saying, 'Save me.'

But what can I do? Well one thing I do much, much later is, get up the next day and write this thing called 'Ten million tears.'

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Ten million tears today.
Another day and ten million tears have been sprung.
For every which way and reason.
Another emotional river of tears, a course has fully run.

In a hospital room a man looks down at his wife of fifty years, she has gone. Alone together for so long and forgotten, he is now all alone at last and in his eyes are quiet tears of regret, for things said and not said, tears of reminisce and fear, fear for the long nights of loneliness that lie ahead.

' My lovely darling, I will join you soon, very soon.' He says.

As soon as her last breath is taken, it's given again to a new life down the corridor, and there the parent's tears of joy are resounding.

Under a foreign distant sun, a fifteen-year-old deserter cries for mercy, for this he first tastes the butt of a gun, and then when through a broken jaw he lays, calling lowly for his mother¦he gets the full flavour of the smoking barrel.

In a suburb in a nice part of the country its 2am, its got all too much, she looks through glistening eyes, at the magic blue pills that Ben gave her, pills that will keep her awake all night, so she can swot for the exams and be the success that mummy and daddy want her to be. But she doesn't want to be what mummy and daddy want her to be¦but she doesn't want to fail them either. But the only way to go, in the great divide between these two famous impostors it seems, is to Ben's magic blue pills, pills that seem to seductively beckon her in.

On a winter's day by an isolated roadside café, a man looks out over a desolate landscape searching to find something we can't see, a pasty sits untouched in hand, his stare is fixed. Perhaps the stinging cold wind is the reason for his sudden laboured breathing and eyes that are shining, full of salty tears?

Another day, another ten million tears¦

A wedding, and she watches, as her little girl becomes a woman.
And he watches as another guy takes his girl.

Another river of ten million tears today.
And for every reason under our sun.

The joke that was just too good and hit the spot.
The bell, the klaxon or the whistle, that signals a final defeat.
A forgotten piece of music, from out of the blue drifting across the air.
Fading photograph of people she once knew.
Onions being peeled for homemade burgers which are way better than Burger Kings.
A child waiting, dreading for the opening of their bedroom door.
A beloved family pet doing an undeniably cute and funny thing.
Middleclass women in Epsom watching the TV, pretending they do care about Africa.
Students saying goodbye to retiring teacher and beloved friend.

Every kind of reason for ten million tears today.
And you add it all up, and you do get ten million tears again today.
Another day, and once again another river of ten million tears.

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But what about the mousy?

Well yes¦ so, I'm walking downstairs with this little fellow or lady in my hands, it's not moving, not compelled to try and jump for freedom. And I'm thinking what do I do with this little mite?

Set it free?

In the pitch black, my massive untended back lawn looks like an evil jungle, and I'm about to set this baby mouse free? God knows where Lou found it. God knows where its nest is¦ does God know anything?

This is like putting a three-month-old baby down at the edge of a desert or an ocean and saying, 'you are free my son¦ off you go,' and then turning your back on it¦ oh and I'm very good at that.

So I stand and dither, and this little mouse is a metaphor for big responsibility all of a sudden¦JEEZ!! I hate and run away from big responsibility. And all I do is stand helplessly hands clasped¦blind in the dark weighing up several ridiculous options of what to do with it. Kill it, give it back to Lou, look after it (GAWD!) or do what I first thought. I really want to make the right decision for once.

Then while I'm thinking about little things being metaphors for bigger things, and other decisions that weren't handled or concluded satisfactorily and wondering if the little damp room at the back of mind has anymore room for grudges, jealousy, missed opportunities and moments like this, Mousy makes the decision for me.

It can't wait for me to decide its fate. It spots a gap between my thumb and index finger and jumps for it, young and independent its decided to take a chance and live rather than exist for an eternity in my clammy hands. And it's gone and although I make a halfhearted attempt to see where it has landed and make sure its safe, I can't see my hand in front of my stupid face.

Ah but anyway¦

He, she, it or whatever has made the choice I wanted to make, and as I peer into the black I can feel its pitying gaze.

'Go back inside mate and have a cup of tea, you can walk again free of responsibility, I don't have the luxury of thinking or waiting¦life or death will just be a thing that happens for me¦ don't worry I don't even know what the difference is, I'm only a fucking mouse after all!'

So that is what I do, walk back inside make a cup of tea, think for too long about these little things being part of a much bigger picture¦then other more personal things¦things that are so big, that before you go to sleep, make you silently give your very own personal donation to the day's ten million tears.