DEMENTIA CARE: SUDDEN DEATH, FIREWORKS, AND GILLIAN ANDERSON.

The last time I wrote here, I left off one piece of information. Let’s have a flashback.

But the appointment is shortened. I can't shop for clothes. Well, I do what I have to do, grab a few cakes, and make my way back in even heavier rain.

On the return to the clinic, sliding through pissing rain, I paused at the last road I had to cross. And I stared out into that road, thinking, this is where I’m going to die. Right here, and right now.

I turned right and stared at the fastest car in the world. It roared from nowhere, throwing up its own battleship wake. The car slewed too close to the pavement. That driver had no business being there.

   Astonishingly, I’d conjured up the information at just the right time. In analysing the street, time of day, low visibility, high quantities of rain, and my own dumb fucking luck, I’d correctly assessed the situation.
   If I’m going to die in traffic, it’ll be right here. This is the worst place to be, on the whole street, in this weather.
   Raging rain.
   I slowed, and I survived the encounter with the car. Now I’m not saying the bastard was speeding. The fucking bastard was fucking speeding.
   Anyway, I didn’t feel like writing about that last time around. I wanted some distance. A few feet made all the difference.

This is a theme. Writing after the event. November came and went. With it, November the 5^th and fireworks. No bonfires, on bonfire night. There weren’t any.
   Usually, gangs of suspiciously-young children roam the streets gathering any wood not nailed down.

   The wood is spirited away into hides, bushes, behind walls, under tarps…
   Not this year. There weren’t any bonfires going up on the day, just before sunset. I know, for I went around in search of them.
   Y’see, your honour, I had a few planks of loose wood to dispose of. And bonfire night proved my best bet. A bet I lost.

But there were fireworks, and I treated my mother to a display by heaving the curtains wide and leaving the windows clear of obstruction.
   She even had a seat by the window. We watched in amazement as red and green and gold vied with purple and orange and blue…all for our attention and delight.

   We reminisced about various professional firework displays she’d seen. The memories are still there, shooting off in the wrong order, just like the rockets in the sky.
   Those memory fireworks explode in the right wrong order, though…

   You can tell she has a story to tell, and she tells it well. I remember it clearly, on her behalf.
   If the first part of the story happened last, does that matter to an audience of me, myself, and I? No more than the detonation of a blue firework ahead of a red one, in the smoking sky.

   We enjoy the scene, and laugh, and we enjoy the laughter for the laughter it is. Then a Chinese lantern floats over, skimming our roof by no distance at all. We rush to the other side of the house and discover the culprits.
   People setting off Chinese lanterns.

   They are just far enough away to get this right when they launch the incendiary illuminators. Nothing burns our house down.
   We catch sight and sound of more explosions. It’s a memorable display. And then we’re done. Pops and bangs and crackles fade with the deepening night.

I don’t often dream of caring. The job of being a carer doesn’t intrude on slumber. Slumberland is the place to be. Sometimes, as a dementia carer, Slumberland is the best place to be.
   The realm of sleep is walled off, and protected from concerns thrown into the air by the daily grind.

   And yet…occasionally, I’ll dream I am caring. This is a rare event in Slumberland, and that’s the only reason to mention the thing here.
   The dream. I was caring away, struggling to get business done in town. No change there.
   By necessity, the business is always early so that I can return in time for morning routine…

   Handing out pills, getting the cared-for out of bed on the long journey to breakfast, and so on.

   In this dream, I had a hell of a time getting back early. So hard, it’s true, that my simple bus journey warped into a cross-country train ride with mountaineering/hiking thrown in for the hell of it.

   Dreams are funny that way.

   I wasn’t too worried about getting back in time. There was a load of business to take care of while I hiked along. I was on an assignment to grab scenic shots of the Scottish countryside. Easy. Job done. My task ended, and my return was disrupted by the arrival of Gillian Anderson.

   She needed my help investigating a strange disease. If we acted quickly, we’d avert global catastrophe. I went off with Gillian Anderson, and we were never seen again.

   Dreams are funny that way.

If I’m going to star in a heroic role, assisting Gillian Anderson in fighting disease, before I am stricken with the fever and she has to mop my brow, then I think I should be having more of these dreams in which I am what I am. A dementia carer.