No News from Nowhere

Nothing happened between the days, just the family circumstances of old age parents going through their dramas and filling their days with tea, food and supermarkets. Banal conversation about things I no longer cared about, strange neurotic babbling and reversions, routines and fear.

Everyone seemed trapped in their time space co ordinates, it was not liberating and that was obviously why I stood out from every part of the experience. It started in an argument when I arrived.

For some strange reason my legs from knee down had turned bright crimson, in a pattern that was similar to a giraffe. My mother came with me to the Doctor who referred me to emergency at the local hospital.

They quarantined me. I sat outside a doorway while the Doctor put his tight elastic surgical gloves on. He had left the door slightly ajar and I couldn’t help but notice the disapproving look he gave me when he saw us. I guess he was not used to wild unkempt hair with feathers dangling down. He was not used to seeing people in psychedelic tee shirts with the sleeves cut off and reading a book called ‘cryptonomicon.’

He invited me inside and my mother joined me. He asked me a list of questions which my mother answered. I interrupted and said to my mother I was capable of answering questions about my health history better than she would as she had no knowledge of me from after age 16.

The Dr. Continued with his questions.

He requested I lay down and started inspecting my legs. He seemed baffled and asked if it hurt. I shook my head, ‘No, not at all.’

Then he nodded and asked if I took drugs.

Now I do smoke a lot off weed but I was never going to confess so I said, ‘No.’

He asked me later if I took hard drugs. I repeated my answer and wondered if he was serious.

After taking a few basic tests he informed me that I was on drugs. I corrected him that he was wrong, and I do not take drugs. He said he had never seen anything like the marks on my legs and that I should take antibiotics. He wrote the script and charged me.

As I walked out my mother said to me, in all seriousness, ‘You look like you take drugs, everyone thinks you do.’

Now I should have let this pass but my mother is an impossible woman to deal with, her irrational mouth often emits the most bizarre and ridiculous comments.

‘Everyone looks at you when we walk down the street and thinks you are on drugs. You dress like you are on drugs, your hair is like a drug addicts and you talk like one.’

The barriers are broken and it floods out from my mouth a barrage of self defence against anti logic, I should have known better.

Later at home mum and dad break out their medication box and show me the horde of prescription drugs they have, literally hundreds of blister packs, tubes, and foils. Lotions, creams and tinctures. They even have the antibiotics I have been prescribed.

And I am the drug addict!