Last night I drove my dearest friend to hospital, to the trauma unit where they treated him as if just another of the regular visitors – overdosing on heroin, stabbed, DT’s from some or other misplaced life. He had lost his memory. Suddenly, within the space of two hours at most, the past few weeks disappeared, and he with them. Meditations on mortality become so much more real in the contemplation of infarcts, and the possibility that fate may not be done toying with you yet. And then, the slow and sure realisation – again, and always – that you’ve again mislead yourself, and that you place your bet, and take your chances. And the house usually wins.
He’s improving – it turns out that this was a warning shot across the bows, and that no permanent damage is likely. But in thinking about memory, and the ways in which we elide the detail that doesn’t suit us, the rest of us can improve too. Raise a glass to Slack2Slack, who begins to remember. Raise a glass to Debored, another who we cherish. And toast with me Conejito, who deserves to remember less.
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Thank you for the warm and touching note, and for being there when all went wobbly. I am sleeping a lot, smoking much less; memories are coming back to me, the ones closer to the ‘event’ slowly so. I am surprised to realise how something like reading – which we take for granted – is so clearly a complex function: I read a few pages from P.G. Wodehouse (light reading?) and get exhausted, then fall asleep. Soon, though, I will be back… I promise.
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