Untimely #19 - I wanted to call it "Chattin' Bubbles"

Are dance moves based on illnesses immoral? Say I’m at home doing the Mumps, does that mean I’m a bad person?

When people tell me I have Worms, because there’s no way I could eat that much otherwise, does that make it true?

Stop. I started to write this all funny. I wanted to be light-hearted, mix fiction with biography, do the task. You weren’t supposed to know what went where; no beginning, no end. A list of illnesses I may or may not have had. You wouldn’t know if I’d really had a bad case of Chattin’ Bubbles, or if my wisdom teeth had really been impacted, or if London did make me so sick that I had to drink enough until I could see my way out. Then I didn’t know.

I thought about how little I talk to my Brother. I thought about how I reacted when my Mother told me that my Aunt has had heart problems. I thought about how there used to be another Aunt. I saw my Father, transparent in a bed near north Wales, fluid draining from his spine as he had visions of the past. I remember our Dog Ben, my first best friend, watching me eat crisps and wipe my hand on the settee like a juvenile delinquent.

I’m not enjoying this.

My Granddad used to wear Brylcreem in his hair. I’d show him some break dancing, then sit on his legs and give him a Mohican. My Brother and, I think, my Father were scared of him. He’d try to feed me homemade brawn and I’d stand there in my football kit and pull sick-face.

My Nan wore stockings and didn’t cross her legs very well. She had wild teeth and cuddled you with nylon arms that made your nails curl, but she was golden.

 My Nain. The welsh side. Grandmother to all of Wales, or so it seemed. The endless food. The mountain behind her house. The friend who’d had a stroke. Auntie Winnie, or similar. Nain was thin with big ankles and little slippers. She was the last to go, on Christmas Eve, the real big event.

If I dream that my Wife uses me as bait for zombies so that she can escape while I am eaten alive, does that mean I don’t want to lose her?

If three of my Grandparents die in the same year, and I later find out that maybe only one of them is a blood relation, will I still get cancer?

I’m not enjoying this.