It
was a funny old journey on the tube a few minutes ago. I was reading the
book I had started concerning how the brain stays active for ten
minutes after your heart stops beating. It takes that long for the
blood to stop circulating.
I
was leaning against the double doors which slide open to let people
off and I got so comfortable standing there, reading my book, that I
actually felt I was in the location of the book; Istanbul.
The two red doors - above.
I'm
not one of those who wears head phones to block everybody out in my
travels in fact I quite like the noise of the rhythm of the train as
it goes over the tracks. Sometimes the train goes round a bend when
the track bends and then straightens up later. I never hold on to
anything as I like to judge whether I can stop from falling by
tensing the muscles in my thighs and I think it's good for those
muscles.
I
knew a fella once who told me if I want to get fit and keep fit I
should get to know what each muscle is called and work on it and I
got to thinking about that and it occurred to me that you don't have
to know anything of the sort; I mean the crow doesn't know it is a
crow does he and what could be more knowledgable about crows than the
crow itself.
I
noticed that the train was full and all bits of space were covered by
people. In this situation I don't like to sit down; I can't stand the
distance between me, when I'm sitting down, and some man's arse. I
know it's a strange thought but just imagine how you'd feel if that
arse farted.
So
I was miles away leaning against the doors when, for some reason,
they parted and threw me out on to the track. The only sensation I
felt was a big blur and a kind of deafness in my ears which started
with a big wind and then silence.
I
knew I was a gonna before I hit the track and what seemed to make it
really real was the fact that I didn't feel any pain – not one
little bit. I couldn't see but I knew my brain was going to tick over
like a hot electric two bar electric fire that suddenly gets switched
off; it stays warm for a while. I wasn't sure what I could do besides
think so I tried my hardest to figure what I could do. I remember
reading something about telekinesis where certain people could make
things move by using their brain but I knew, or thought I knew, that
I would only have memory so it was a surprise to me when I discovered
that my brain was trying to fool me by flooding my thoughts with
memory so I wouldn't notice when it 'ran out of fuel.'
Telekinesis!
That was it I had to think hard in the ten minutes I had left to see
if I could contact my loved ones and let them know that
. . . . what?
That I was all right?
But
I wasn't all right.
And are they loved ones?
My
body no longer had anything to do with me and I didn't even know
where it was as I could no longer hear. But if I really concentrated
really let my mind try and move something somewhere something near my
loved ones in Manchester that somewhere in London between Baker
Street Tube Station and Finchley Road I had expired. At least they
wouldn't be searching for me in all corners of the earth because I
had nothing on me to say who I was – really was
– so there had to be some way of letting them know.
What could I do
with my mind – how powerful is it?
I thought of Vernon
Street in Manchester a street in Hightown which may not even be there
any more. Other streets there Bellott Street, Waterloo Road, Brideoak
Street; all in Manchester 8.
What good did it do
me to think of those streets?
How could I ever
even try to contact them in such a short time – and to say what?
In Bellott Street
there used to be a large piece of waste ground and it was black. It
was obviously bombed during the war and one day, as a child, I fell
off the top of a car which had been dumped. I cut my wrist quite
badly and had to go to hospital. There was blood all over the place
even on the black earth and nobody had cleaned it away.
But what does that
have to do with anything?
I thought about it
thought what happened to my blood, the blood of a child and that
blood because it was from a cut was the kind of healing blood with
antibodies which would mend the wound, make sure my wrist wasn't
going to get infected with something nasty.
In fact the blood
did do its job and I had no infection but . . . . . my blood was
spilled on to the black earth; what did it do for the earth did
anything grow in it or from it?
What was I
thinking?
Where was I going
with this?
My brain continued
filling my mind with nostalgic thoughts; maybe this is what they mean
when they say as you die your whole life flashes in front of you –
but how would they know if they hadn't died?
At the eye
hospital, when you have a sight test they have a thing in the shape
of a Halloween mask which you hold over your eyes. One side is plain
and the other is full of tiny holes. So if they are unsure about your
sight they test you with that little mask. Looking through the side
with holes you will find that things become clearer which gives them
a better idea about your sight. This is because it cuts out all
peripheral vision.
Many a time when I
have been standing on the platform of the tube station I can see in
the distance the information about the next train; where it's going
to and what time. But as it was so far away I couldn't make out the
detail so I would close my fist, slightly, leaving room along the
palm of my hand to make a little funnel that I can see through and
the information becomes as clear as a bell. The reason: the
peripheral sight has been cut.
All my life my
brain has been looking after the whole of my body, sending messages
to get my legs to move, to tell my finger to scratch my head and
telling me to duck when a snowball is thrown at me which is something
I always hated. I went through the whole of my life without every
having a serious falling out except the time someone threw a snowball
at my face. My brain didn't see it coming so I suffered.
My brain, at the
moment, doesn't have any jobs to do at all apart from trying to keep
the fact that I am about to die out of my thoughts.
It does it to
everybody every day of everybody's life. It tells its host that the
'thing' never happens to people like you; you know winning the
lottery, getting run over by a bus or that the cancer will really
kill you. It's a shield.
So I will try and
take that duty away from my brain, all the peripheral stuff, just
like the eye test, will go and I can concentrate on telekinesis –
but what should I try to move?
Maybe my
imagination maybe some kind of virtual reality but what good would
that do me even if I could achieve it.
There
are two tall buildings one is the shard near London Bridge in London
and the other is the Empire State Building in New York City. Each of those buildings charge visitors to get in the lifts, or elevators if you like, to go
to the top. But each of them take a photo of the guests in front of a
photo of each building then when you get to the top of the shard
there is a man with a virtual
reality mask
who charges people to wear it; why don't they just go up and look out
instead?
Right back to the
planning: Stephen Hawking, Professor Stephen Hawking, would
communicate with a little piece of equipment attached to a muscle in
his jaw. This muscle would enable him to speak. He chose the default
voice even when he could change it so that's why he spoke with that
monotone.
I'm not sure what
that piece of information is going to do for me I really don't.
I don't even know
how long I have left as the oxygen in the blood must be running out
soon. I suppose planning for the future when you are already dead is
the height of optimism but it saved me thinking about the terrible
orphanage in Manchester gave me hope and – oh dear it's going. It's going fast and I can
feel it!
©
2019 Chris Sullivan
