whole ginger

the ginger didnt hang in suspension

he had to keep stirring his tea

stirstirstirstir  sip


 
                        a little bit later stirstirstir sip or he wouldnt taste its heat and zest

he was convinced the ginger helped him sleep it overran the pain that forced him awake and to stretch his body out after a paltry two or three hours of sleep up at three in the morning or earlier moving through the lighted house for hours before he could turn them off and be treated to the new day bathed in the rising sun

these early mornings tempted him to go next door to his neighbours and goose his roosterCockadoodledo!
so other human beings might join him in the mornings darkness

misery loves company and he had an opportunity to embrace it and deem if it was a justified tenant because before he couldnt

No
    he was better than that    

so he left the rooster his neighbour and the neighbourhood unmolested

he was just a tad better than that though sorely tempted  bitterly he amused himself with its thought as he gazed exhausted into the dark house before flipping the electricity to overhead fixtures




the rheumatologist checked insomnia on his list as he remarked his pain woke him

Excuse me doctor  Im not describing insomnia

the physician curtly asked him if he was telling him his business(he was irked the physician referred to his health as the doctors business)(a tete-a-tete) 

Business  No
Im telling you Ive resided in my body for fifty years  I cant assume you might possibly know my body better than me

the rheumatologist darkened the X he placed beside insomnia

it joined the X beside joint pain without comment and concluded the doctors list where the other symptoms were un-Xed because they didnt present                            

then leaning back the doctor pronounced he exhibited classic symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis
Or as we prefer  RA



Classichuh
Youll excuse me for noticing doctor but youve marked only two symptoms of  wha  sixteen

And doin the math  if yadont mind Ill do the calculations  they aint your specialty  we have two of sixteen as you say classic symptoms 
                        By my reckonin    sixteen into forty   two         eight  eighty
sixteen into eighty  five   What we have is a mere twelve and a half percent

If we flop the statistics  twelve and a half pro  we have eightyseven and a half con  theyre not convincing
Im not convinced 

I assume you sought me out for my medical specialty my years of experience
Those credentials should convince you

Your years of experience are with others peoples bodies
Not mine 

Then why did you make this appointment

I made this appointment to have a frank discussion regarding my health with a professional

Fine  Ive given you my opinion   RA


Doc  everyones entitled to their opinion however you must admit that statistically your opinion is questionable  Id expect youd have animosity towards such a low probability

I work in health not probability

Okay lets put it another face on itId have no problem putting a revolver to my head play a game of Russian roulette pull the trigger with twelve and a half percent odds against me

And Id take my odds enthusiastically when compared to your eightseven and a half percentor nearly nine out of ten

Would you put a revolver in your mouth – Id want you to do it right – and pull the trigger with your odds


This is absurd

No  Supposition
We went off your professional checklist  To make matter worse I disagreed with you checking off insomnia 

Therefore one of sixteen was struck  Thats not seven percent doc  Not seven percent

I wont answer suppositions

You wanna tell me what the hells the matter with considering a supposition a possibility

People act as if they entertain a supposition its punishable like having their nuts put in a vise and it twisted Tits in a vise  Absurd  What can possibly be absurd in the realm of medicine  People Patients They defy expectation all the time They exceed and fail 

Were not finely-engineered and machined German and Italian motorcars     

Our disconnects arent as readily apparent as cars are to trained mechanics

You act like youre fingering Lincoln logs taking em out of their tube one at a time scrutinizing them singularly rather than just upending the lot and dumping all the pieces out onto the floor at once and see recognise in their tumbled heap their myriad of possibilities 

Then sort them out from there

Its open season no holds barred

I think your fastidiousness possibly mars your perception  Diminishes your objectivity

I have never suffered insomnia
Though Ive drank black coffee too late into the evening and paid for it



My opinion is you have RA





the ginger wouldnt hang in suspension
                                      it was unlike the suspense that still piqued him
the two women he came upon in the woods in Luxembourg Ardennes near Lac de la Haute-Sure

they endured to this day  he was mesmerised  he watched them turn lazily in the slowing vortex of his stirred tea

perhaps his compass was skittish Truth North tired of his begging tired of him sticking It with its magnetic point



the very thorough innkeeper noting the puny rucksack slung over his shoulder eyeing the late morning hour on the elaborate carved longcase clock encouraged him
Nach Westen nach Westen (West) Sechsundzwanzig (26) der kilometers Sechzehn meilen (16 miles)

a kind accidental tourist standing in the broad rustic foyer near him translated
his German wasnt good 

he thanked them for their kindness and turning to the innkeeper he said Vielen Dank mein Herr

the innkeeper nodded and restlessly repeated Nach Westen Sechsundzwazig der kilometers Nach Westen

the tourist said Ardennes is an Old World forest  It is filled with Old World things

What do you mean

I mean he means you ought to be going so youre not caught in the forest in the night

A bit ominous dont you think

I shouldnt want to be lost in the woods at night



and it was with those appeals their swath blush those broad strokes that he departed and entered Ardennes

the warm sun gave him a departing kiss on his back which cooled and briefly shivered his spine

in deepening shadows the air temperature fell


the trail he followed was slender and as it hadnt rained the earth was worked to a talcum 

running off its sides were thin spidertrails made by wildlife

he was arduously tempted to see what the wild things saw 

perhaps  if he had thought things through better and left earlier  perhaps  but his fascinating burden as he walked was the utterness of the wild forest
its vivifying absence of humankind

it was easy to imagine despite knowing otherwise that where he stepped he was the first man ever to have stepped there

a primalness invaded him   and upset him

he didnt dare stop walking moving 

he felt if he did hed take root

not that he would mind




his pace was unhurried

he figured walking as he was hed be shy of four miles in an hour  against the sixteen miles he was advised of if he didnt misstep need to backtrack hed arrive in the next hamlet late afternoon with sun easily remaining 

that he was accompanied only by the hush and creak of ancient limbs moving overhead he was mesmerised as he walked

he guessed he was in two hours

he came to a dusky shaded bend in the path which curved to his left

his head was down albeit briefly

he saw he was at the beginning an incline

raising his head at its crest he saw two women standing on the path facing each other

over the ones shoulder whose back was to him the second woman slightly higher on the path seemed dressed in exactly the same garb as the first woman who he could easily made out

she who faced him stopped talking

the woman whose back was to him shifted slightly as if alerted by his approach either by the second woman words and her quit

the second woman cautiously backed away  and as she stepped he lost her behind the first womans figure

he never saw her again caught up with her on the path or saw any evidence of her walking ahead of him

he looked hard at the path for any telltale footprints leather soles for any kind of disturbance                     

it was if no one walked ahead of him  not recently


as he continued approaching the first woman held her back to him

he was flummoxed that she hadnt turned to acknowledge him since she was keenly aware of his presence  small starts like a birds in her shoulders arms  though not fearful  

her clothing was handstitched made of rude cloth  a hooded cloak to her knees  it gathered at her throat and flowed down unformed  her gown beneath it was black and heavy and unadorned

she seemed otherworldly  possessing an ease a naturalness a confounding fearlessness which given their place deep in the forest provoked his own attentiveness he found odd 

where she stood seemed oddly warpedno  oddly repeating  as if reflected in a mirror  

her double somehow having be able to move off  untethered  while all else seemed held or captured   the trees  the small plants and shrubs crowding the hem of her garb like anxious children  their fingers imploring her pulling at her clothing  the talcum of the path itself stirred near beside her and also up the path across from it   reflecting

approaching within a rod of her his footsteps fell mute  the path sighed  she turned about over her left and passing him scarcely nodded 

he never saw her face 

it was buried in a black scarf that crossed the bridge of her nose

he saw only her eyes as she laid hers briefly on his

passing shoulder to shoulder she was then suddenly at his back walking noiselessly from whence he came

and the dank cloistered atmosphere he entered wavered and trembled like radiation

the trees and plants retracted and from somewhere  or nowhere  there seemed almost an audible breathing a hiss receding to echo  of someone hiding

or the forest itself                               

to his left there was a shimmer from a dark hole in the crown of a tree  a pale limegreen lighter than the surrounding leaves 

the trees crown was broken by smaller tree felled by storm and laid propped-up suspended  a rotting crumble like a hapless drunk collapsed in a railway car too crowded for anyone to push them off

where it slashed the canopy it pointed at the flickering limegreenness 

he stopped to look  and watched  and wondered if it was natural or unnatural 

there was a tension between it and he  an anxiousness in his neck and shoulders  a footplay as if legs without direction would flee

and watching and watching the forests fell more silent in suspense
                                                    suddenly it shot from the darkened gap like a bolt of atoms and slinged past his face to and pulled up before a flowered branch he did not see  its petals rubyred  petite 

a hummingbird  it fed  it didnt query him of its shoulder  it ignored him and quaffed and in and out and quaffed and in and around to another and another an another

and in the same kind of hurtle it reared then flung itself back to its perch in the rented tree

pale  flickering  limegreenness

unnatural

it ran at him he decided to defend its foodstuff

and standing now his feet shifted undirected pointing back up the path insisting  urging before him there was a groan  a relieved branch  a fixed-shadow hurtling at his head

he dropped as he dropped in the war at any provocation  some slapstick   some murderous
and stone-dropped an owls breast suspended between a sixfoot wingspan creased the silver air above his face against the crossed-branch and thatched ceiling and tickled humoured leaves

it happened and didnt and the owl didnt wheel and kept on
              
its mistake between it and he
a ridiculous attack

unapologetic



ridiculous




                      
             as the adamant rheumatologist


he stirred his tea

the spoon softly grazing and clattering at the sides of his cup  distracting him  like the sound of dry blown leaves brittle pine needles or clods of soft earth dislodged and falling from the hooves or paws of woodland creatures stealing afoot without the surreal luxury of two-footed beasts stomping and unafraid of becoming part of the foodchain   the unestimatable entitlement rarely usurped by hungry predators who likely recognise their awful scent but figure   Ohwhaddahell
                                                     frail hands    butched teeth
no match for honed claws fangs no conscience and their utilities perfected over the Ages




the ginger didnt hang in suspension

1234,  Friday,  5  8. 16

1018,  Day-between-Two-Ts,  17  8. 16