I know an attack is coming on because get this vile taste in my mouth that reflects the mental bitterness I feel inside. My skin feels like it's flea infested. I get severe indigestion because I feel life is hard to swallow. Perversely I also get the munchies, where nothing I eat satisfies this craving inside (Stuffing down my feelings because being sick means no longer being able to control them). Coffee is one of my triggers. I know this from vomiting up a cup I'd drunk half an hour earlier, in a distilled version (no sugar or milk, just the black steaming caffeine).

I reckon the reason migraine is on the increase in this society, is because of the ever-increasing pressure on its members. It's like an orgasm or a massive electrical discharge. Things build up to a climax then explode like a volcano. Epilepsy is that way and I think migraines are no different.

It's like trance dance as seen in voodoo and whirling Dervishes too. Continual motion, leading to inevitable collapse of the organism through adrenal fatigue or society through panic attacks par excellence! I believe were just vacuoles sucking in and blowing out experience or electricity generators, accumulating then discharging energy. I believe too this explains ageing as motion between two points and again dementia as chronic delirium or loss of contact with the world, leading to balance problems, loss of appetite and inability to keep food down (The big trip of unconsciousness as opposed to small deaths on the way). All of this fascinates me and why not? My doctor says I'm talking rubbish in his own particular, polite, professional way. I accept his reaction with a pinch of salt. What does he know? He should be on my side of it.

I awake the following morning. Awake, is that what I really am? I feel like death, staggering about the flat like a zombie. It took ages to drag myself out of bed and look in the mirror. Yes that confirms it – I am dead again. That sallow skin, those lifeless eyes – black around the edges, bloodshot within. Tongue out. Yes, it's that white flag of surrender again (another overnight snow storm, covering it). Sometimes it's yellow with vile bile and it tastes bitter and ugly like my mood too.

I just want to curl up and die – oh God, here it comes! The wretch throws himself down before the God of the toilet seat and retches. He prays to the Lord of Vomit. 'Please accept this humble offering – yurp!' Oh God, here we go again. Yurp, yurp, yurp! Nothing there but I don't listen to my stomach. Once more with feeling – yurp!'

I sit there for five minutes, leaning back on my heels. Is it over? Is another eruption on its way? Eventually I stumble back to my feet and walk shakily back to my bed. 'I'm ready for my shot, Mr Romero! No, I don't need anymore make up and I remember my lines perfectly. Groan, grimace, stagger isn't it?' I don't need the thump, thump, thump of his music above me anymore – I've got the recording going on in my head already. Sorry no, make that the sound of blood pounding around somewhere in my crunched cranium.

When I'm like this I hate everyone and everything, including myself. As the old joke goes 'I'm not prejudiced – I hate everyone equally.' I just want to die and want everything else to go as well. Lights are too bright, sounds too loud, smells too strong and touch makes my skin crawl – don't mention taste – even water won't stay down. These dead eyes back away from the world in disgust. They don't want to see, let alone look. The curtains are closed, the blinds are down and the eyes shut against a cold, uncaring world. Every system breaks down under pressure (overload): The final straw on the camel's back or the bucking bronco, kicking back against the heavy load and going into defensive mode (protecting the friend within by closing down and shutting the intrusive enemy out). This is probably why all my orifices dry up or block up, after an attack – gunge in my eyes and nostrils, wax in my ears – skin pores blocked with stale sweat and let's not forget the constipation (if only I could) and the thirty minutes straining on the toilet seat. Everything shutting down and trying to shut out, everything else outside.

I slip between dreams and wakefulness, in a delirium of self-loathing. I spit out the odd syllable oh hatred as I twist and turn, in a sweaty melodrama of contempt. Future? What future? As for the present, I don't want to be here and don't mention the past with all its interwoven failures – the parents I let down, the jobs I dumped for no good reason, the women I discarded like empty cigarette packets, the towns I moved away from. I couldn't face any of it. And now here I am again, wallowing in self-pity and spitting at any help offered me, in a mad rage. I don't want your pity, your helping hand – I just want to be left alone to die! (But I don't die and that is the bitter pill I swallow every time). This hell circles me like a bunch of vultures , each time this mini-death strikes. I smell and look like a corpse because that is what I am. The world's biggest hangover never goes anywhere – it's always there, waiting in the wings for its next curtain call. Still Scarlett, tomorrow is another day!

Today I feel flushed out like a toilet – drained, empty and my breath stinks like an open sewer. Work tomorrow, if I'm lucky – if not another day in bed at least. The reward of sin is death and I've hit the jackpot again! Another bowl of scorn flakes, to set me up for the day. Hi-ho, hi-ho and it's off to work we go! This anger driven obsession gives way to laughing at its absurdity again and the brave face returns. The sad clown gives way to the mad clown, giggling away at nothing; instead of frowning at something as though this speck of dust, this instant in eternity, was a ten-ton rock on his chest (or head more like).

Paigetheoracle

02.12.19 Front Page

Back Issue Page