Clearing the air

‘I am sure the houses across the street are creeping closer. It’s only a couple of inches a day. They think I don’t notice it – but I do.’

If his doctor had paid sufficient attention to Derek’s observation, he may have caught an earlier bus to St Botoph’s. But, as I have recounted earlier, it was only when he set himself on fire that they sat up and took notice.

I have told you before how he said he hated suburbia, and how it eventually got too much for him. He told me he used to live in ‘Claustrophobia Close’. Of course that wasn’t its real name, but it was a ‘Close’ of some sort.

I don’t know if you colonials use that word? It is a cul de sac… a dead end. And that is where Derek felt he was: trapped in a dead end – going nowhere. And he said that like a creek, a backwater, cut off from the fast flowing river, it got clogged up with rubbish, detritus (actually he said ‘shit’: emotional shit, psychological shit… but shit – all of it.)

Why am I telling you all of this now? Because my dear (soon to be ex) wife has been in to see me. Oh yes – it was a surprise. Of course, it was to do with some of the finer points of the divorce: who was going to get custody of the fish-tank… stuff like that. But I started to get flashbacks… of when we lived in suburbia, and I mowed the lawns, cut the hedges, cleaned out the gutters. And yes, it was a close. I never got as far as setting fire to myself but I can certainly empathise with Derek.

I think we are going to have a thunderstorm. I hope so. Clear the air. Always good to clear the air every now and then