25-5-2022: Day 350
I was sitting bolt upright in my flat-packed, King-sized bed – wading in the ocean shallows of blood, sinew, and guts of a crazed psycho killer I had just despatched with Bob Marley’s small axe – from the underworld basement of my deepest, darkest, loneliest nightmares from civilian street.
Outside the new day sun was shining, with three little birds chirping outside my window. Inside, the love of my life, the mother of my children, was sleeping beautifully.
Lost in a peaceful velvet morning.
Gasping for breath, the painful emotional revelation occurred, I had just slain the dragon.
The fire breathing dragon stalking the corridors of my mind.
The sleeping leviathan coiled in the dark shadow recesses of my subconsciousness since my birth.
Reflecting on this stark realisation, I stared down at the tattoo on my left arm – of the ocean blue dragon, with fire red chest, coiled round a silver moon – and wondered whether Destiny had come calling in the early hours.
And wondered whether we all have our inner dragons to slay, in this lifetime or the next.
26-5-2022: Day 351
The goosebumps rippled up my spine like the latest Viral Pox, when the tune lilted on the breeze to the washing line, as I hung up the freshly washed laundry with peace and love on my mind.
It was Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ haunting the airwaves on the digital classical radio station and the tune instantly flooded my imagination. A memory picture surfaced, of the dying Willem Defoe in the crucifixion scene of the seminal war movie ‘Platoon’. Painting a long-forgotten portrait of the tragic highlight of the film where the brave, sacrificial, US sergeant falls in battle, immortalised in the hellish red-hot-heat of the Vietnamese jungle.
From nowhere, I find myself having a deep rummage in the total recall chest, while pegging out the anarchy hoodie on the washing line.
And, in the half-light of morning, I experience a dizzying flashback to schoolboy daze, when my brothers in arms and I would play at war, playing at death-or-glory scenes from the battlefields of our imaginations.
29-5-2022: Day 354
The world was spinning. I was skulking in the shadows of the Wellington, as the Bowie tribute band hammered out ‘Heroes’ to the high energy crowd gathered for a little peace, love, and unity on a Friday night mash-up.
I was intoxicated, several large bedsheets to the wind, as I bowled out having drained the dregs of the last pint order of premium IPA.
Into the cool midnight air, I struck for home, treading rubber trainer sole on the abandoned concrete streets of the sleepy port town of Shoreham-by-Sea.
The memory went hazy on staggering like Shameless Frank over the train crossing, past the freshly emptied boozers, carefully navigating the cracks in the pavements.
When – on reaching the ivy arch gateway to the local village green of the wealthy well-heeled – I fell, a drunken master versed in the ways of wu wei, flat on my face.
Lost in time, space, and ancient Taoist teachings, I woke up in bed the following morning with a split lip, mild astringent hangover, and lingering sense of having dodged the silver bullet of fate.