Baggins’ World

Most nights, I go to bed wishing I was dead and cursing myself for a fat, useless idiot. It’s been that way for a long time now – the death wish being the default settings on the self-esteem formatted brain-drive. Sometimes, I’m distracted from it by the day or evening I’ve had, and, most of the time, I don’t really notice it’s there. Unless I’m having a bad day – that’s when the only things that calm me down are thoughts of me dying in a variety of ways. If I’m having a really bad day, I’ll plan it – my escape route.

I mention the above merely to set the scene for a truly remarkable event which took place on Saturday night this weekend.

We’d taken a group of the young people from the church away for a combination of outdoorsy pursuits and a weekend looking at the subject of the Holy Spirit. After a day’s worth of study sessions and activities, we held a small service – during which, there was a chance (for anybody who wanted to) to be prayed with if they wanted to be ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’*. In due course, I sat down and was prayed for, and felt nothing.

After the service, we hung around and chatted, drank tea and I tried to plan the mini-seminar I was due to be leading in the morning. Eventually, with half a sheet of A4 covered with scribbled ideas, I decided to call it a night. Back at the cabin, I changed, turned out the light and lay down. As I closed my eyes, I noticed that something was missing: any kind of thought of self harm or suicide or death whatsoever. And more than that: any negative thoughts or feelings about myself were similarly absent. I felt completely peaceful – at ease with myself and life – grateful to have escaped so painlessly. To be fair, I was occasionally aware of the old thoughts trying to creep in, but they seemed to come from a long way off and to be in no way part of what made me me.

I was kind of okay when I noticed that I wasn’t getting to sleep – let the insomnia continue if lying in bed is going to feel as good as this! I couldn’t even stay cross when the boys came charging into the cabin in high spirits and took their own sweet time quietening down. Even Pete’s snoring from the next room seemed less madness-inducing.

So, this is what life on the outside feels like!

Eventually, a not-particularly-fitful doze became sleep for the remainder of the night.

When I woke up, I wanted to die. My glorious release/escape had only been a night on remand, but no less glorious for that.
 
Since writing this article, I’ve had another death and misery free night, and didn’t even feel too bad during the day.
 
 

* Most Christians believe that, when somebody first becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes and somehow lives in them, and that it’s possible to be ‘topped up’ with ‘Spirit Power’…

At this time of cold and death,
At the sinking of the new moon,
The clearing of the sky of clouds,
The retreat of warmth from our world,
The freezing of our breath,
And the fading of the light from our eyes,
Be with us in these dangerous hours
That we may live again
To see new light and feel new warmth.

Evelyn Johnson strolled down 34th Street, hand in hand with her on-off boyfriend of the past three years. Bernard had moved out the previous September, when his work offered him a hundred percent raise, a company car and dental insurance. Over the course of Bernard’s ten month residence and Evelyn’s three visits, neither of them had become accustomed to the square, building-block town layout, and, not being good with numbers, they both found navigation around New York to be a problem.

Evelyn admired her boyfriend’s newly-shiny pearly whites and wondered how to break the news to him: she had recently been diagnosed with a severe phobia of the final letter of the alphabet and would no longer be able to relocate in the new year. She fully expected this to be the final nail in the metaphorical coffin she felt the relationship had become.

Admiring the reflection of his newly-shiny pearly whites in Evelyn’s sunglasses, Bernard wondered how to break the news: he’d secretly arranged a permanent visa for her, flown out her friends and family, and was walking her to their surprise wedding - he couldn’t bear any more time apart and was sure that she’d be delighted.

Being a fairly traditional kind of guy, he reckoned he’d better propose to her first.

Shortly after crossing 5th Avenue, he pretended his shoe laces were undone and stealthily dropped to one knee. So stealthily in fact that Evelyn didn’t notice. More subterfuge was called for: “Hey! Evie! Help me up, I think I put my back out.”

Evelyn turned around, just in time to see a gold blur in the place of her would-be fiancée.

Liberace’s concert was rescheduled, and his lawyers obtained a super-injunction preventing any reporting of a solid golden Steinway even being anywhere near the Empire State Building, let alone its falling from a badly secured winch and crushing Bernie Rollins to death.

However, due an oversight that later cost the lawyers their contract, the following day’s New York Times front page headline screamed, “Lady Tourist Killed by Falling Stool!”

This isn’t really being written by Tim.

I know his log on details and passwords.
I know his bank details, where he works,
His car registration, birthday and mother’s maiden name.

I know an awful lot about him:
The places he goes, the people he sees.
Those he loves and hasn’t told.
Those he’d like to but won’t tell.

I know what he did last summer.

But this isn’t about Tim, it’s about me:
The monster that lives in his head.

On a good day,
I confusticate, vex and confuddle him,
I could also m*ddle him
But the rhymes are saved for the last verse.

On a good day,
I help him forget,
I help him wish upon vain fancies,
And idly while-away the hours he could better spend.

On a good day,
I paint it black
In wondrous shades that hide the light:
A stormcloud in front of stars.

On a good day,
I don’t have to do all that much
- The merest of whispers
and

He
almost
believes
he
is

me.
 
 
There’s no room for a monster under his bed;
Tim’s personal monster lives in his head.
I am Tim’s monster and I want him dead.
But not yet(d).
I’m having far too much fun at the moment.

Tell your monster I said, “Hello.”

Always a little late to the bandwagon (and not so much jumping on as thinking, ‘Hey that might be interesting.’) I thought I’d imagine that I had a Twitter account and see if it was possible to write a short story in a mere one hundred and forty characters (or fewer). These masterpieces were saved as draft text messages on my phone and made it look untidy, so in the spirit of giving worthy of the season, I’m going to let them clutter up your RSS feeds and blog-rolls.

Attempt One
He sat outside, deliberately passive smoking because he’d run out of cigars.
That, really, was all there was to say about him.

Attempt Two
He was proud to have removed her bra with one hand at his first attempt.
She confessed: it had turned her on, but using a knife was cheating.

…except for the non-shitty Christmas music which I do like.

Okay, so Sharks Took the Rest, whom I saw earlier this evening, weren’t really a Christmas band, but the fourth Sunday in Advent is as close to Christmas as “damn-it” is to swearing and they were utterly awesome. Three quarters of a string quartet, a guitarist, pianist and Becky Owen singing her heart out and banging a big bass drum - this band had me grinning ear to ear, almost crying, and going ‘hmmmmm’ within the space of a couple of songs. They claimed it was only their fourth real gig - on the strength of tonight’s performance, we should be hearing an awful lot more from them.

Last year, Glasvegas recorded a Christmassy EP. ‘A Snowflake Fell (and it felt like a kiss)’ is a wonderful little recording - a fragile, ugly, beautiful, angry and (ultimately) hopeful piece of miserablism, it begins with the (very sweary) story of a relationship breaking down irreparably, and moving through the consequent homelessness, it climaxes with the final verse of the title track:

The ringing from the bells keeps screaming out love
As snow fell from heavens above

Directionless no more
Emptiness no more

Now I don’t feel so all alone in the cold - wondering where I’m going today.
Then a snowflake, and it felt like a kiss.
Now I’m OK

Christmas at its best brings healing and wholeness where it is most needed, and I would argue that that is the whole point.

Oh, and ‘Fairytale of New York’ is still one of the best Christmas songs ever.

Apparently, mammals are in such short supply that the Times can’t find any to illustrate their story, One in five mammals threatened with extinction, choosing instead a varanus mabitang lizard:
 

A story about a jealous ex-lover, the blackmail he perpetrates to get his woman out of an abusive relationship, detailing the long journey to a new place together whilst she faffs about and struggles to come to terms with the idea.
It ends with him opening the door for her and the girl hesitating just outside.

A story about somebody who creates his perfect bride (for reasons that are never fully made clear), of her stealing from him, the subsequent breakdown of their relationship, her moving out, and several attempts to put things right.
It ends with them settling back down together and him fading into the background of her life - almost forgotten, but always watching.

A story about the preparation for the wedding of the millennium, old debts must be paid, threats dealt with, their old, run down homes demolished, and a fabulous new palatial residence erected in time for the wedding.
It ends with the wedding - the bride and groom will finally consummate their relationship their relationship. Nothing can go wrong now.

A story about the exploits of a series of chaperones for the beloved as they struggle to keep her on the straight and narrow, and of her wavering between complete wantonness and almost comical obeisance.
It ends with the beloved left to her own devices and doing exactly as she pleases.

It is a truth universally acknowledged* that amongst the almost-infinite number of parallel universes each of us will be born only thirty-one times. Generally, our parallel selves lead similar, if not identical, lives and although there may be some variation between parallels (freak accidents killing off two or three out of thirty one, for example), most of us will die old and in our beds.

Research has thrown up some anomalies.

Take the case of Bernie Rollins (b. 19th-24th August 1942 d.2nd November 1980-2003). This, otherwise remarkably dull, man is the only person in all history to have been killed by a falling, solid-gold piano thirty-one times. Once in each of thirty-one different cities, always on the 2nd November but never on a Monday.

Or maybe that of Catherine Smith (b. 31st December 1977, d. 31st December 2008) who merits attention only for having been born on exactly the same day and having died on her thirty-first birthday in all of her thirty-one parallels.

However, my favourite of all the life and death studies I have come across so far, is that of Evelyn Johnson b. 8th-21st April 1953, d. 5th June 1970 - 29th February 2028. Although not much is known about her early life, the stories of her widely varying deaths - collected here, and available to the public for the first time - are known. They make interesting, sometimes sad, sometimes humbling, sometimes entertaining reading. I hope getting to know Evelyn enriches your life as much as it has mine.

- Professor John Rollins, International Parallels Research Centre, New Stafford
 
 
 
 

*universally, that is, by the select small few who have done research into this matter and those who have read their papers. It’s generally agreed that quantum and probability and (possibly) quantum probability have something to do with it.

edited to add a missing word