Memories. Memories. They creep up from the basement of my mind. Like monsters in the dark. Rancid. Stinking of puss. Soaked in Sicks Lethbridge Pilsner. They capture. They provoke. Evoke. Bursts of light captivate my attention. I gut sob. Wrenching. Tears cascade. Drown my cheeks. Dripping on my knees. Naked. Afraid. Terrified. “Mommy!” “Mommy!” “Mommy!”…
C.A.R. — The Finale I sit up in the bath. I pull back the shower curtain that has been cocooning me in my bath. I twist the drain control and the water quickly starts draining out of the tub. I place my right hand on the bottom of the tub, slightly behind me. I rotate…
It is 4 in the morning. I am listening to the rain piss down on the stone tiles outside my room. The balcony door is open a foot and the 27 degree Celsius, muggy tropic air wafts in. I have been awake since 2 a.m. And, IT is happening again. IT being the return of…
P is for PTSD The taxi pulled up in front of my daughter’s home. I was waiting on the porch at the side. Shivering in the cold. My breath making clouds of cold steam. I hurried to the taxi, cane in left hand, small travelling bag in right hand. I opened the right front passenger…
Preface I started this memoir when I was a patient on Unit 58, Neuro Rehabilitation, of the Foothills Medical Center in Calgary, Alberta. Sunday, September nineteenth, twenty ten I wrote these lines, “Dr. Manfred von Neumann was a prick. A very capable prick but a prick nonetheless. Manny, as he was known to his peers.” I…
I last saw Brandi when she was swimming with me in the VRRI pool. It was over the noon hour, January sixth, twenty eleven. She made the appointment for the swim at our last session just before Christmas twenty ten. Brandi was the Recreation Therapist assigned to me by the CAR program. I still remember…
I looked up into chocolate eyes. Like mine. But much darker. A face soft, smooth, rounded. Shortish hair curled in disarray. She spoke. “Hi. Are you Lyle?” “Yes.” She said, “My name is Monick. I am assigned as your Occupational Therapist. Do you know what Occupational Therapy entails?” “No.” “The official party line is that…
I pulled my Oldsmobile into the small dirt parking lot. I would come here often when I wanted to feel lighter, happier. The parking lot was reached by a very potholed dirt road running off of fourteenth street in Calgary’s northwest. The parking lot overlooked the district of Huntington Hills where I had lived aeons…
Here is what I wrote in my diary July 20, 2010. I have been in severe pain every day since i came back from the mountains 3 weeks ago. Basically the pain starts at 2 or 3 in the morning and goes for 12 to 14 hours. I’m not sure how long I can sit…
I was wandering around the Calgary Zoo. I hoped that the visit would cheer me. I started my zoo day, as I usually did, with a visit to the tigers. They weren’t out today. So I wandered down to see the elephants1. I got lucky. Their keepers were putting the elephants through their paces. Kamala…