Patient Blue

The Wang Pulse has intensified and I’m feeling depressed. There are several reasons for this, the first being that I’ve been looking forward to the new series of Boardwalk Empire on Sky Atlantic, it’s not quite Breaking Bad, but I’ve grown fond of Nucky Thompson. Now I’ll have to splash out on the DVD box set. Sky TV has finally crashed and may be off air permanently. A gloating BBC, what’s left of it, will not show the series as it says it can now only broadcast a limited poor quality service consisting in the main of public information and emergency announcements from scientists and politicians. Radio broadcasts especially long wave transmissions are marginally better though still of poor quality. I can sum up my feelings at this turn of events with the phrase; bollocks, to global warming and worldwide catastrophe, what a pain in the arse.

Although I’m obviously concerned, fucking terrified in fact, about what’s happening globally, it hasn’t really affected me that much. Especially as most of the time I remain in an alcohol enhanced Narcostym chemical calm, naughty, naughty, don’t tell Doctor Death.

With all this Solar Eventing and Wang Pulsing screwing up the telly I have more time to brood. I think about Davey quite a lot, especially as he now seems to be haunting me, literally. Although we were born identical twins, as the years passed we diverged more and more.

I suppose at about the age of fourteen I started to grow plump, puppy fat really, but this didn’t happen to Davey, he just grew hard and toned. Girls avoided me like the plague but were all over him lake a rash. He was trendy I was painfully gauche. He was sporty I wasn’t. I remember one excruciating basketball match, we were on opposing sides, skins and shirts I was a skin. I played like a donkey,, kept dropping the ball, falling over. Davey played well, kept scoring baskets, dancing round opponents, getting cheers from his army of female admirers. At one stage, and the shame of it still stings, I was nervously pulling at my not inconsiderable love handles and the PE teacher a lard arsed fascist git called Read, shouted across the court, ‘stop playing with your flab Johnson and concentrate on the game.’ I heard laughter and jeers. To this day I have retained a poor body image. I am always that sad chubby boy playing with his flab. Worse still I always judge everyone by their looks and if I find them lacking it’s not them I am judging harshly but myself.

My parents loved Davey and although they never said it I think maybe they loved him the best, the great white hope, destined for great things. I loved my brother, idolized him and I was proud of all the things he was. I somehow basked in his glory we were like two halves of the same soul. But as we grew older I knew something was wrong. I sometimes caught the haunted look in his eyes, once I found him crying but he said it was nothing, just something in his eye. He had some strange friends and they were doing drugs seriously. I smoked a bit, but they went a long way beyond that, Davey went a long way beyond that.

Then one wet Sunday afternoon I found him, on the floor of his room. Cold, eye’s open, pupils fixed and dilated I knew from watching Casualty that was a very bad thing. I tried to revive him but it was already too late and he was gone. I was devastated, my parents were heartbroken I’m sure it killed my dad who never got over it. The Coroners verdict was accidental death an overdose of Barbiturates mixed with alcohol. There wasn’t enough evidence to prove suicide, no note or warning signs. I accepted the verdict, but to be honest I’m not sure. His life seemed perfect his future golden, but there was something inside him, darkness a deep unhappiness, something that made him crave oblivion. I don’t know I can’t know I never will.

I am convinced that he is haunting me.

God I wish the TV worked.