Post by papillion44 on Feb 4, 2015 1:06:43 GMT -5
Hi everyone I haven’t visited here or posted for a while but I wanted to share this story and get some honest feedback. It’s a spoken word piece that I want to turn into a longer story. It’s only about disability in a roundabout way I hope that is okay.
Creatures of the Night
My life is very different now from how it was many years ago. In my former life I lived in a densely wooded inner suburb of Melbourne. Maple trees surrounded the railway line; flowering gums filled the air with lemon scent. A glorious Norfolk pine rose high above my flat, while Morton bays figs offered shade in summer.
During my time in this leafy alcove I battled a painful spinal condition. The pain began after a football injury. It insidiously invaded my body overwhelming me, baffling doctors, myself and my family.
I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I entered a nightmarish world; people suddenly began to sound like quack medicine salespeople. Use the power of your mind to heal they said, stick magnets on your spine or hang upside down like a bat, it worked for my grandma you know.
Doctors and specialists couldn’t help either many of them were adamant their medicine would cure me but their treatment failed miserably. I learned to be wary of the medical profession.
I continued my descent into an abyss of pain. I desperately searched for a ledge or crevice to stop my fall but I found nothing. I kept sinking deeper; I feared I would plunge forever into a bottomless ravine.
But In time I found a lifebuoy to keep me afloat and drive away the pain. I discovered by walking a certain way I could ease the stiffness that shackled me. It wasn’t a normal walk, I flung my arm in the air and twisted my torso to make my spine and hips work properly. As I got stronger I added a hop and a skip, it helped even more. I didn’t care what I looked like, I only cared that my strange walk stopped the pain. So I walked every day no matter whether it was scorching hot or bitterly cold.
Not everyone understood my bizarre gait. I tried to explain but it was too complicated for some and didn’t fit their philosophy of normal good, different bad. They preferred to think of me as a modern day man of La Mancha, fighting an imaginary foe as I hopped along swinging my arm wildly. But I wasn’t fighting sorcerers or demons; I was trying to ward off a horrible twisting and warping of the structure that held my being.
To avoid the disdainful looks, crude remarks and laughter I began a nocturnal existence. It’s not that I was ashamed or couldn’t face the daytime masses; I just needed respite, some time to recover from the glaring daylight that shone an unwelcome spotlight on me.
The silence of the night was beautiful, darkness enveloped me. Moonlight soothed my battered spirit, its serenity a welcome break from the violent sun. I took refuge in the dark but I wasn’t alone the creatures of the night kept me company.
They didn’t judge or mock me. They also needed the cover of darkness to avoid unwanted attention. They were kindred spirits, like me their activities weren’t sanctioned by humans who dominated the daytime landscape. The residents didn’t appreciate possums eating their precious flowers or foxes foraging in their rubbish bins, just as they disliked the endless games of hopscotch I played along, “Their” pathways.
Over the years the creatures of the night became used to me. At first the foxes were ghostlike, silent and barley visible. In time they become less concerned about my presence, they crisscrossed the road on bin nights searching for food, they came closer and closer eventually losing all fear of me. Sometimes they paused to watch me as I danced along the path like a maniac in the moonlight.
The trees were full of possums. Their eyes followed me whenever I passed a constant audience to observe my samba. But unlike people they never bothered me.
The darkness provided me with solace, I savoured the peace and tranquillity of the night it freed me to think, imagine and wonder. Misty nights were special the landscape was eerily beautiful and the fog hide me in its veil.
I spent so much time walking I became a feature of the suburb, a figure of dubious notoriety. I became acclimatized to the cold in the winter and the heat in the summer. I knew every crack in the pavement, I knew all the neighbours cars by sight. I was known by everyone as the crazy guy who hopped and skipped along the paths.
Now I live in a suburb with little vegetation, the sun burns me in summer; there is nowhere to shelter from the wind and the rain. The streets are unfamiliar, I don’t recognize any of the cars that pass and no one knows me.
My pain is gone. Thankfully I no longer need to hop and skip and swing my arm like Shane Warne as he bowls his flipper. I have re-joined the daytime rabble. Darkness is no longer my friend, the night is hostile, I can’t see in it. I shiver from the cold when I put my bin out and scurry back inside.
But sometimes I remember the beautiful peace of the darkness and the animals that seemed to understand my plight and I long to once again be a creature of the night.