On the cusp of death

My life, while not going swimmingly right now, isn’t quite at the stage where I want to end it. Yet earlier today, about four hours ago, I found myself in a horrible position where I didn’t know if I was going to die, or live.

I’m not sure how I want to tell this story. The narcissist in me wants to arrange some kind of clever narrative, like in ‘American Beauty’, where my death (or near death, I mustn’t forget that I’m still, technically, alive) is the start of the tale, and we work backwards from that point. Which, I suppose, is essentially what I’ve done with this aimless, irritating preamble. So forget all this guff, and we’ll start, as my Mum used to tell me to do, at the beginning.

My girlfriend has to get up early to leave for work. At about quarter to seven this morning she was swanning round in her usual panic, barking instructions at me. I was tired, and grumpy, and still mostly asleep. I payed little attention to her orders, preferring instead to try and recapture the dream I was having about a beach, a lighthouse, and a large, shaggy dog. But the moment had gone. In my dream the dog started yapping loudly and incessantly at me, trying to tell me what shopping I needed to get and telling me not to forget to do stuff I’d failed to memorise in the first place, let alone forget. The peace, and solitude, and happiness had gone, to be replaced by the drudgery of everyday life.

I woke up, eventually at about half ten, and spent the next two hours dicking about on the internet, playing Brian Lara Cricket on the PS2, and drinking tea. In the back of my head I was desperately trying to remember what it was I was told I had to buy today. I knew there was something, as not only could I recall the sound of being told what to do, I’d found a pile of money that had been left to pay for it. I flirted with the idea of taking the money and fucking off to the pub to get drunk with it instead, but I must be maturing, as I soon realised this would be a grossly stupid move.

Milk? Bread? Teabags? I was listing things we seem to buy a lot of, in the hope it would jog my memory. Washing powder? Cat food? Ah! That was it. The cat has fleas, and we need some Frontline flea stuff from the vets. I stuck my jeans on, threw on a pair of flip-flops, and began to walk the short distance to the vets.

As I got out of the back door, I realised it was raining lightly. This was nearly enough to make me go indoors and stick on some shoes and a jacket. But fuck it, I thought, it’s not far to go, and it’s not like it’s pissing down, is it? I looked

to the sky to check the clouds, and there was an absence of what my Dad calls ‘thunder boomers’ but what experts call cumulonimbus (or something). So I braved it as I was.

This, I guess, was my mistake. There’s a little cut I travel down to get near the vets. It’s an alleyway between two lots of terraces. At the top of the alley, there’s about a dozen or so concrete stairs, and at the top of these, with the concrete wet from the drizzle, and my flip-flops greasy from, well, fuck knows what, I slipped.

I felt my feet go from under me right. I slid along for what seemed like seconds, just waiting to smash face first in to each of the dozen or so steps, down in to the alleyway. “I knew I should have put some fucking shoes on!” I almost, but didn’t yell, too busy was I bracing myself against the imminent danger of neck breaking.

But as soon as the slip started, it stopped. Right at my heel. I was balancing, precariously over the edge. Teetering even. Like the bus at the end of ‘The Italian Job’. I looked down, looked around, and placed my foot in a safer position. A cold sweat was now mingling with the rain. “That.” I said to no one in particular, “Was fucking close.”

I bought the cat flea stuff, and came home the way I went, determined not to be phased or intimidated by the experience. Later on the girlfriend phoned to make sure I’d got the shopping, I told her I had, but neglected to mention my near death experience. I didn’t want to panic her at work, and I may never tell her, such is her fragile state of mind at the moment.