I have,
of late, met quite a few people from my dim and distant past, with
quite a few surprises. Even while having a chat with a close friend
the other day, I was quite surprised to hear just how age is catching
up with him. You see, when you are young you are invincible, and illness
is something that other people have. You have the ability to abuse
your body, only for it to bounce back the next day looking for yet
more abuse. When you get older, your body starts to remind you just
what an abusive master you were. Bits that had worked perfectly
without any concern suddenly decide that they no longer want anything
to do with you and stop working. While other body parts such as hairs
migrate from the top of your head to your ears and nostrils.
I have
to own up to being quite abusive to my body in the past, but I have
always exercised and taken time to be nice to it from time to time,
where some of my friends liked to make the donkey work! The friend I
mentioned earlier has had a couple of heart attacks and has now been
forced to change his life style, but it has still taken its toll on
him. In the past both he and I have spent not only whole evenings but
whole days and nights drinking and smoking and eating crap food while
doing stupid stunts that put us in the local accident and emergency
departments. He now finds it hard to walk more than a few hundred
yards.
I have
to admit that I like breasts, busters, boobies, norkes what ever you
want to call them. I like the way they hang, the feel of them and the
whole aesthetics of them, but I don't want them on me! I like them on
women, that way I can really appreciate them. The friend I have just
spoken about seems to have developed a pair of double 'D' cups that
any glamour model would be proud of. I'm beginning to think I have
got off quite lightly. My eyesight is getting a bit dodgy and my
hair has turned white and is starting to thin at the front but I'm
still boob-free and, as yet, no illnesses.
I saw a
woman in the local supermarket the other week, she came over to me
for a chat. I had no idea just who this woman was, but I never do
know who people are, I meet so many. She started to chat about things
and once the "how are you?" and "it's been nasty weather" side of the
British greetings were finished, she started to talk about school
days. This always worries me because I remember very few people from
my school days, mainly because my school days were spent down by a
local river swimming and causing problems for others.
I started the
usual scan in my head of possibilities of who she could be. She was
small and fat her hair was thinning and grey. She seemed to have had
more than her fair share of visits from the tooth fairy. I think I
counted two teeth bobbing about in her cavernous mouth. Her flesh had
the quality of autumn leaves before the rain, veined , wrinkled and
dry, with a hint of yellow. It was safe to say she didn't moisturise.
As she spoke, I was at a total loss to just who she could be until she
told me the sad news about another person that I was at school with
who had died recently. I wasn't a friend as such of this man but I
did know him to say "hello" to. She then added just what a shock it was
to her when she heard of his passing, with her going out with him
through out her school years! I nearly choked when she said this.
The
man she spoke about was the really cool lad at school, he was the lad
that all the girls fancied and the boys hated. He was a few years
older than me, so I didn't really know much about him except his
girlfriend was regarded by all the lads in the school as the most
beautiful girl in the school. She was small, and slim, with long blonde
hair. She was incredibly attractive and had the best set of boobies a
young man could gaze upon in his early years. This vision of beauty
now stood in front of me looking like an escapee from Macbeth! What
in the name of google had happened to her in the years since leaving
school? Just what the fuck had she been up to? Actually the amount of
grandchildren she had snapping around her ankles was probably a
clue. She was quite pleasant company, and even said just how well I
looked. Obviously I repaid the compliment, so we were both a couple of
lying bastards.
But the
saddest of all things about ageing is something I encountered a
couple of days ago and is something I can't get out of my mind, it has
upset me so much.
When I
first left school, legally, many years ago and got my first job, I
worked with a man who was in his mid 'forties. He was a short heavily
built man with an enormous amount of strength. He would smoke a brand
of cigarettes known as Capstan Full Strength. These were also known
as "coffin nails" because of how strong they were. This man had lots of
charm, and a wit that could slice paper, it was so sharp. His intellect
was that of someone who was surely in the wrong place of work. He,
like a lot of people, was a victim of his birth, and found it hard to break
free from the shackles of poverty. But I loved this man's company. He
always told me to get out of the the job I was in and go explore the
world, which I did. I had met him a few times since over the years.
Once we met at a mutual friend's party, which ended in one of those
spontaneous nights where you drink, laugh and feel happy with the
world.
The
other day I met him in the town centre. He was walking with a stick,
and his body shook as he tried to walk. His once powerful body had
dwindled to a fraction of its old self. His hair had long gone and he
held on to to the arm of his wife, the woman he was devoted to for
sixty years. To be honest it was his wife that I recognised, as he
looked so different. I went over to say my hellos and was shocked by
just how much he had deteriorated. He looked through me, not
acknowledging that I was there. There was no sign of the rapier wit
or the sparkle of the eye, just an old empty shell standing before me.
His wife told me that he had suffered from Alzheimer's for quite a
while now, and it had robbed her of the man she loved. He was now living
in a care home and she visited him each day to take him out and to be
with him. I tried to talk to him, but he didn't know who I was. I said
my goodbyes to her and gave him a hug which he didn't appreciate,
then walked away. I had to go back to my car, as tears were rolling
down my face at this cruel twist of life.
So
cherish your true friends, keep them close, live life to the full and
when the reaper calls I hope you still have all of what you came into
the world with!
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