The office

I went to the office today. Not the cell above: our office doesn’t have a bed, nor a direct window to the outside world. I worked all day. People kept telling me, you’re not quite well. I know, I said.

Then there was some leftover Covid booster vax in the vials after the clinic was over. It never gets wasted, so I was offered a shot, but then the GP, who had come to find me with her basket of paraphernalia, said it might make me feel even worse. So I decided against it, and went home via the library, the other surgery and the bus. Thr only place I forgot to go to was the pharmacy, to collect a routine prescription. It’s only right next door to the town surgery!

The conversation on the bus was about fishing. Then it turned to eating fish, and then Italian restaurants. Eventually the driver’s pal got off the bus so there was no more chat about the sharpness of a Conget Eel’s teeth. I was riveted by this conversation, but pretending to send Whats Apps, and play Mah Jong. When I got off (always the last on the route) I advised the driver of the benefits of eating grilled sardines in
Portugal . Oh no, said he, I prefer to take my holidays in the mountains. The Rockies, Montana, California…
I thanked him and said I’d check out Montana. (The state capital of Montana is Helena, my name). When I got off the bus and trundled my bag up the hill, I pondered on the fact that I could listen to an entire conversation about fishing and overfishing. And never know that one of the participants is a Mountain Man.
Of course, none of this matters, but listening is what I do for a living…

Then I was tired so I got into bed after a salt water gargle. I wish there was a kind of safe cleaning fluid that I could drink that would clean out all my nasal passages, throat etc. And then a powerful chest rub to clean the lungs. I’ve made a cream with frankincense and may chang, but it’s not as fast as, say Lung Master, a product I’ve yet to trademark.

I’m sorry, I’m taking nonsense. That’s what happens after a day spent writing emails. .

Thr illustration above is by Malin Guillenvaan, and accompanies a précis of a book called Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins, which is described as ‘a deeply upsetting novel’. Nonetheless, the more I read about this book, the more I want to read the entire novel. In a nutshell, evil and coercive control in 1870s London. Google it if you dare.