Symbolic Forest

Popping into town at lunchtime, ambling down a side street, I passed a dirty-looking one-legged man in a wheelchair.

“‘Scuse me, mate,” he said.

“Yes…?” I replied, warily. I couldn’t see this conversation going well.

“Are you from here?”

“Yes.”

“Have you got any ten-pees?”

“No,” I replied. I had no idea if I had or not, but I definitely couldn’t see this conversation getting any better.

“Have you got any money at all, mate?”

“Not much,” I answered. “Why?”

“I’m from Doncaster, and I need to get back home. I need another £4.50 for the train fare.”

“Really,” I said, trying my best to sound unbelieving. I’ve never had beggars try to pull this trick on me since I moved here, so it made a change to hear it again. I also noticed that his accent was nothing like a Doncaster one.

“I’m a diabetic,” he said, pulling a hypodermic from a pocket of his dirty cardigan. “Look. Diabetic. I need to get back to Doncaster.”

If I was quicker at thinking, I might have said something meaningful and concerned, like: isn’t it convenient for you that you can wheel straight off the train into the street when you get to Doncaster?^* If I was more violent, I might have just grabbed the handles of his chair, kidnapped him, and wheeled him onto the next Doncaster-bound train, with instructions to the guard to definitely make sure he got off at the right stop. Being me, I just started walking onwards.

“I’VE GOT NO LEGS, MATE!” he shouted at me as I walked away. I felt like turning round and replying: look, I can at least count to one.

* For people lucky enough never to have to go there, or change trains there: if you are in a wheelchair, there are no public routes to, from or between the platforms at Doncaster station. The only thing you can do is to ask the staff to put you in the parcels-trolley lift.

Keyword noise: Grimsby, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, begging, charity, con trick, disability, scam.

After we had one office leaving party at the weekend, it seems everyone now is trying to do the same thing. People are updating their CVs on their lunchbreak, and flicking through the job pages of the local paper. My manager has been asking why Big Dave has been leaving early so much lately. I have no idea, and I told him so. Privately, I assume our manager has been going through the same thoughts as me: is he leaving early to go off to interviews? I don’t blame him if he is, because he doesn’t exactly look happy in his current place.

Keyword noise: career, colleagues, Big Dave, CV, job interview.

In today’s news, top scientists have discovered that being a bit chilly does indeed help you catch colds. For me, it’s a timely discovery; on Saturday I started to feel a bit wobbly at the edges, and I spent most of Sunday in bed, sneezing, sinuses blocked, hoping my fuzzy headache would clear itself. I’m blaming the rather ill-planned heating arrangements in my office. It does have a radiator, but at the far end of the room to my desk, which may as well be 1,000 miles further north as far as I can tell. Every ten minutes I have to walk to the far end of the room to warm my numb fingers, so I can keep typing.

The Mother was pleased by the news: “Look! See! Mothers are right when they tell you things!” I tried to point out that she had always said the exact opposite when I was small. If I looked at all sniffly on the day of a PE lesson, I’d be told: “getting out there on the field will do you good – the cold will kill all the bugs off.”

Keyword noise: cold, illness, sickness, sneezing, sniffles.

It’s not often that I go for nights out around here. Sometimes, though, you have to, just to remind yourself why.

There was a good reason for it: a work leaving do. So, we all went off for a meal, before going to one of those horrible crowded town-centre bars that wants to be a nightclub. It doesn’t want to be a nightclub all the time, though, so it ends up being the worst of both worlds: a big, shedlike bar with plenty of tables and chairs so they can serve food in the daytime, a tiny little dancefloor, and loud loud cheesy dance music.

As it was far too loud to talk apart from by shouting right in someone’s ear, I spent some time just standing and watching the crowd. Being Friday, the place was packed, with a strange mixture of college students and 30-somethings. All the men had velvet-short shaved heads;^* and all the girls had shoulder-length layers and tiny denim skirts. Everybody in the place had been stamped off the same production-line; everybody in the place had bought their clothes from the same handful of shops in the shopping centre.

A random stranger came up to Big Dave, and spent a good ten minutes chatting to him – well, I mean, they spent ten minutes shouting in each others’ ears. I assumed he was an old friend, or something like that.

“God, some people,” said Big Dave when the man finally left. “The last time I saw that bloke, I beat the shit out of him.” I’m glad Big Dave and I get along, because I’d be quite scared if we didn’t.

* the older men – the fortyish ones – all seemed to have porn moustaches too

Keyword noise: bar, club, colleagues, drinking, Grimsby, Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, nightlife, work, Big Dave.

I’m getting that Friday afternoon sleepy feeling yet again. I wonder if I can get away with hiding in my office for the rest of the day.

I didn’t sleep well last night, which didn’t help. The cat, too, didn’t sleep well. He was trying to snooze at the foot of my bed; but every so often the sound of cats fighting outside would come through the window; and immediately he would jump up, run to the window-ledge, and prowl back and forth trying to see what was going on.

Keyword noise: The Cat, sleepy, tiredness.

The last couple of posts make me sound like an old curmudgeon. I try not to be.

Too many people have died this year. When you’re in your 20s still, you don’t expect people your own age, people you know, to go. A dead friend comes at you like a kick to the ribs.

In the past six months, two people I got to know from the Sinister mailing list have died suddenly and unexpectedly, in very different ways. The second death was yesterday: sudden, unexpected heart failure. We hadn’t been in touch for a couple of years, but even so to know she’s gone was a sudden, nasty shock. I keep thinking of all the greetings and apologies that I should have said, but didn’t.

I’m not sure that I should be posting this picture – I’m not sure that it’s what she would have wanted. I want to show you it, though, because I think it shows what a lovely, lively person she was.

Rest in peace, Amy

Keyword noise: death, Sinister, sudden, unexpected.

Walking through the town centre, I heard a piercing scream, loud enough to make me jump. “What the hell?” I thought, worried that something horrible was going on.

Turning the next corner, I found that something horrible was going on. “HOW LOUD IS YOUR CHILD COMPETITION,” said the sign. “WIN A BEAR.”

That’s really not necessary, I thought. Children are loud enough already. They don’t need encouragement to scream as loud as they possibly can, because it happens often enough in any case. If only it was a real bear.

Keyword noise: children, competition, noise, screaming.

Following on from yesterday: at the end of the week, the only way to recover is to spend Saturday not thinking about anything, not doing anything serious, just slowly relaxing until my brain eventually starts to return.

Keyword noise: recovery, relaxation, weekend.

I start the week alert and active. As it goes on, the alertness slowly fades away. I find myself yawning in public. I find myself staring into space more. By the time I reach Friday evening, all I want to do is rest. It’s a good thing we don’t have six-day weeks, because if we did I’d just end u…

…

…zzzzzzzz

Keyword noise: asleep, exhaustion, tiredness.

Following on from the vague theme of: does it matter what I look like? A couple of weeks ago, at work, Colleague M told me: “you look like the sort of person who would have a website“. Today, I had the chance to talk to M again, so I asked why I do.

“Well,” said M, “you’re a computer geek, and I assumed that all computer geeks have websites.”

“But do I look like the sort of person who does.”

“I don’t know, really.”

“I was hoping you’d say something interesting!” I said. “So I could write about it on the website!”

“Well, say that you look like a computer boffin, and all computer boffins have websites.”

We talked about the sort of things I write on the site, and, if I was more sensible, the conversation would have stopped there. However, being me, I blundered on.

“You can read it if you want. I don’t really want people here to know about it – so I can write about them – but I trust you not to tell anyone else.”

“Well, I’ll have a look,” said M, “but it sounds like it might be a bit boring.”

I wrote down the address on a scrap of paper, and M burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny about it?” I asked.

“It just is! Partly because you wouldn’t see why it’s funny!”

So, hello M, if you’re reading.

In other, geekier news, the site stats reached 10,000 page views some time today.^* Woo!

* that’s when the logs are analysed by Analog, at least. Webalizer thinks it happened a few days ago – presumably they disagree on which files count as pages.

Keyword noise: Colleague M, colleagues, geek, stereotyping.