The Ballads Of Mister Rhodes

Today has been made from undulating length. There are still a few traces of clay mud on my feet. Between the toes and just underneath my right ankle. My wife will see my white vest—even after has been through the wash— and tell me I shouldn’t wear it, but I’ll wear it. I’ll wear it amongst the sartorial parade. Unshowered. Unshaven. Amidst the peacocks. Your brothers and sisters are doing well… It took me longer than I had hoped to get to the place I wanted to be. The children stood around me whilst I dug the hole. They wanted to see you when I carried you outside so I sat beside you and smoked three cigarettes, stroking the side of your face, until they got bored. As children do. So I wrapped you in a towel. The children watched me fill in the hole. Playing games behind me. I thought I was ready when I came back inside and sat down to smoke some more cigarettes, but the children were at the gate. They handed me sweets and mulberries. I said thank you. They left to get more and came ba...

I can’t quite remember how long ago it was, but I seldom forget who I was and wasn’t. At 41, I am still aware of the person who has walked closely behind me, but at least the larger parts of him are dead now. Just the odour of what rots inside the past. It is somewhat important to preface this with a small admission: I can’t promise you a flowing prose-piece highlighting how easy and serendipitous this has been. It has been a different version of difficult. Perhaps, that’s just me. I think it’s silly for me to ever entertain the notion that I might be a ‘recovering alcoholic’. There is no pull from the past. No warm memories to reminisce over. There is no yearning to escape, that way. At 41, I understand that there is no escape in any cocktail of drinks, just delay and amplification. I see no fun in it. I see hiding. I see lonely people feeling a sense of togetherness amongst paper bonds. What brings them together chains them to something else. Some might call it blindness.  Why am...