Open Writing

When I was a young man, I knew that I was immortal and that whatever Life poured out upon my noble head could never harm me. I felt that I was protected by being "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful," and I was, therefore, beyond the power of man to injure, of nature to disturb, of fate to scourge, or of death to claim.

This was an indwelling and unshakeable assurance. As if to secure the delusion, Life itself conspired to reinforce those expectations by sparing my life on many occasions when either it should have been forfeit or that I should have been maimed and mangled.

So I continued in spite of buffetings that brought me to the edge of darkness, and often to the place of agony, but less frequently to the infirmary.

Several close and intimidating encounters of the third kind with two hundred and fifty volt mains electricity served only to sharpen my perception of Divinely guaranteed imperishableness. I viewed them as special and personal blessings, when I ought to have considered them warnings from the dark-robed faceless visitor whose name is Death. However, when one has gained a sense of their indestructibility, the powerful delusion obscures important truths about human existence and its duration.

Another equally fatuous misconception was that I had the gift of eternal youth. Although the years added one to another with regularity, my countenance stayed youthful, so that I was often mistaken for someone of more tender years. Even after seeing "The Picture of Dorian Gray" at Huddersfield’s Savoy Cinema in Marsh, I didn’t understand its message that we all grow old even if it is not visible from the outside.

The first rousing knock at the door of my self-deception occurred when Matt was seven years old and I owned and ran a café on Colne Road, and Matt attended Stile Common School. Each morning, I ran him to school in the car, kissed him goodbye, and dropped him off. One day he alighted without the kiss and through the open door asked, "Dad, is it alright if we just shake hands?"

I assented and we exchanged an extremely formal but welcome handshake, and that was the parting that we had outside the school gates that day. As I drove back down Newsome Road, I understood that life would never be the same again, and knew that he was getting older and, therefore, so must I be. I would have mourned longer at the passing or my youth, but cafés are busy places, and I had bacon to bone, chips to fry, and pies to make.

Even more indicative that I was ageing a little, was the comment made by my youngest son, Peter, who with all the innocence of a seven-year old, announced, "You’ve got a neck like a tortoise!" I smiled. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained wisdom." We are impervious to any truth that threatens our peace of mind, and denial is not just a river in Ægypt.

Years passed, and it became harder to guess my age, although every five years or so someone got closer to it, resulting in some of my self-satisfaction melting away like morning mist at noon. Even as I continued to see a youthful face peer at me from the bathroom mirror, mentally I continually postponed the onset of Middle Age and my notion of when it actually began receded almost at the same pace as the years gathered upon me.

I ignored tell-tale signs such as bodily afflictions alien to the young, my children’s children presenting me with great-grandchildren, and when the bottles and packets of pills in the bathroom cabinet grew to such numbers that I had to install overflow shelves.

I continued to drive over the speed limit, fool around with electrical appliances with the power switched on, climb tall ladders when I was alone, and remonstrate with large groups of noisy, antisocial youths. All of which I am forced to acknowledge are signs, not of Middle Age, but of Dot-age!

In spite of these sure signs my mind remained fixed on my certainty of deathlessness, and I carried on much as before, except that in the last couple of years I mostly keep to the speed limit and now I never exceed it by more than five miles per hour, except in extraordinary circumstances, but not out of dread that the Grim Reaper is closing in on me, rather out of consideration for my sweetheart and her gentle nature. Myself I knew still to be indestructible.

- - -

And then, out of nowhere, came the Tsunami, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people in its exacting course out from the great earthquake’s epicentre, and spread across the Indian Ocean to fall with deadly effect on other shores.

Since then, I have considered the plight of those caught up in its merciless clutches, and I ask "Why them and not me?"

Some have said that the wave was God’s punishment for sins and shortcomings, but I reject that idiocy outright. I do not believe that the dead were any less good and deserving of blessing that those who were spared the embrace Death’s icy arms.

The raw forces of nature are boundless and when, in response to enormous pressures, tectonic plates move against or over each other, the results are always catastrophic to those who dwell in susceptible areas.

Like every other sentient human being, I pray and mourn for the victims of this tragedy. It has had a sobering effect on my self-image, and crumbled like a castle of sand before the rushing tide the mystical armour that I believed granted me freedom from conquest by the Dark Angel, he at whose summons all must turn and follow. Now I know that when he comes to bid me walk with him, I shall leave this world without a murmur "nor take one longing, lingering look behind."

The pity of it is not so much that the cognisance of my fragile mortality took so long to come, but that it came only in the wake of such great cost to others.

As the Arab proverb has it, "Death is a black camel that kneels at every man’s tent." For the first time in my life, I am watching the distant horizon for the Visitor who beckons me to abandon those whom I so dearly love, and that which I have so dearly cherished.

Copyright © 2004 Ronnie Bray
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED