fiction

Could I Change Someone’s World?

For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a question rattling around in my head which won’t seem to pipe down. It first occurred to me on the day my powerchair broke down on the other side of London. Just before that catastrophe, I had been once again thinking about how wonderful it is to live in this fantastic city, and about how it all stemmed from the fact that I met Lyn. Had I never met her, I simply wouldn’t be here: I would never have moved to London and got to know this incredible metropolis. The chances are that I would still be living in Cheshire with my parents, and the notion that I could ever live in my own flat in south London would still seem absurd, or even frightening.

Meeting Lyn put an end to that: during my ten years living with her, not only did I start to get to know London, but I also learned that I didn’t need to rely on the cozy support structures which I had been used to since childhood. My world changed from a quiet, conservative two-storey Cheshire town to one of the greatest, most vibrant metropolises on earth.

When I think about it, it’s hard to sum up just how different those two existences are. Here I am, exploring this city, flitting on and off busses and tube trains, trundling around shopping malls and skyscrapers and royal parks; going to cinemas and concerts and shows, just like any other Londoner. I’m living a life which would once have seemed unimaginable. And it’s all because, around seventeen years ago, I received an email from someone called Lyn. Had that not happened, and had she not had the kindness to invite me to move in with her, zark knows how things would have turned out. That is not to say that life before Lyn was bad or uncomfortable; but that meeting Lyn took it in an energetic, thrilling, previously unthinkable new direction. She showed me what is possible.

What I find myself wondering now though, is could I one day make the same sort of difference to someone else? Could I change someone’s life as fundamentally as Lyn changed mine, and bring as much joy, wonder and potential for awesomeness into someone’s life as L brought into mine? I profoundly hope I can: It seems only fair, after all. The only question is, how?

Fooled Into A Spinoff

I was expecting to write my response to the BBC’s exciting new science fiction series today. From the trailers it had looked quite promising: at last something new to get into and blog about. Something which would potentially divert my intellectual energies away from the usual staples of Star Trek and James Bond. Thus last night I settled down to watch the first two episodes of The War Between the Land and The Sea full of optimism.

I freely admit I can be a dumbass sometimes, but it took me a few minutes to realise what I was watching. The opening struck me as somewhat cheesy, but I could let that slide. It wasn’t until I kept hearing references to “The Doctor” that I realised that, rather than the brand new science fiction series I was expecting, I had stumbled upon some sort of godawful Dr Who spinoff. The odd thing is, there had been no mention of Dr. Who in the trailers, leading me to feel rather misled.

I have not watched Dr. Who in years. It is, let’s just say, not my thing. As much as I love science fiction, I prefer it to be grounded in some semblance of reality – something which Dr. Who does not have. The plots are derivative and contrived, lapsing so far into the fantastical that it becomes nauseating; the special effects third rate at best. Thus to have been tricked into that fictional world when I was expecting something far more refined irritated me. More to the point, I quickly found that what I was watching wasn’t any better.

As an educated, aware man I have nothing against environmentalism. Of course we must do what we can to curb the damage we are now doing to the environment. However, to have such an ethos rammed down my throat with all the subtlety of a shovel wielded by a Eastend builder whose football team just lost five nill was another matter altogether. What we were witness to last night, with its mysterious sea-bound yet humanoid species emerging from the depths to reprimand us for filling the seas with shit, made Beavis seem like an expert in Lacanian psychoanalysis or a three-year-old with a well-loaded paintbrush look like Turner or Matisse.

Check out this no less critical Guardian article for slightly more detail, but if guys like Russel T. Davies want to spread the message of environmentalism, there are far better ways to do it than through something so crass and infantile. Of course, people need to be told about such issues, but to do so so heavy-handedly risks putting people off.

Pavements, Powerchairs, and Jaw-Dropping Kindness

To be honest yesterday afternoon for me was long and frustrating, mostly sat stuck going nowhere on a pavement in my powerchair in Kensal Green. I had headed that way to try to explore the area, and hopefully find a new way to the old family house in Harlesden. It looked straightforward enough on the map: take the Elisabeth Line to Paddington, follow the canal west for a bit, then turn right. I didn’t think it was that far, and I’ve been wanting to start to explore that part of London for some time.

It had been going rather well and I had nearly got there, when my chair suddenly came to a juddering stop. It has done it before: the power lights start flashing, and it refuses to move. Of course I immediately started to panic: without wifi, I couldn’t contact anyone, so I was stuck. Fortunately – and I can’t believe my luck with this – within a minute or so a young woman came the other way along the pavement. She asked if I needed help, so I explained the situation to her.

Remarkably, she then spent the rest of the afternoon with me, making countless phone calls, including one to my parents, and eventually arranging for a wheelchair accessible taxi to pick me up and take me home. The young lady, who introduced herself to me as Agatha and had a violin case as a backpack, didn’t know me: she didn’t have to do what she did, but acted out of pure, jaw-dropping kindness.

To cut a long, frustrating afternoon short, I got home at about six last night, Artur waiting for me, slightly worried. Thanks to things like the Elisabeth Line, ferrying us at daunting speeds under London, it is easy to forget just how vast the metropolis is; only for it to come juddering back when you spend two hours in a taxi, crawling at rush hour across the city’s surface. It had been a long day, and I got home knackered. Yet, ultimately, I suppose in a way yesterday was a good day: I explored a new area, and had a new experience. Best of all, I made a new friend. It is only thanks to people like Agatha that I can live here, roaming London in my powerchair. Without her, I would have been truly stuck, going nowhere on that pavement the other side of London. I’ll always be grateful for the staggering generosity of people like her. Of course, we established contact on Facebook, so I now really hope we could meet again sometime, perhaps for a coffee, so I can thank her properly.

Help With My Water Flask

I’m quite sure everyone will be having issues in the current warm, stuffy weather. Long story short, it was probably the reason for my hospital visit a couple of days ago. I obviously got extremely dehydrated. The thing is, when I’m going out and about in my powerchair, I don’t get much of an opportunity to drink much water, and frankly it usually slips my mind. When I’m trundling around the metropolis, the fact that I need to take on water gets rather forgotten about.

To help with this, a couple of days ago my friend and PA dom bought me a great flask which we can fill with water (or ‘fake’ mojito made with alcohol free rum!) which we can put in my bag and I can take around with me. It was the obvious remedy, you must admit. The thing is, the flask now goes in my the bag which hangs on the back of my powerchair: to get to it, I now need to stop my chair, take my Ipad off my lap, get out of my chair, walk around to it’s bag, open it, and so on. For someone like me, that isn’t a straightforward task. Rather than going thirsty, then, what I’ve been doing is going up to people and asking them to help me with the bottle.

Obviously I try to stick to guys I know I can trust, such as policemen or security staff; yet what I’ve been finding is that most people seem happy to help when I explain the issue to them. They are okay with going to my bag, getting out my bottle, opening it’s suckable spout up and holding it to my lips. A lot of times their fingers get rather wet or sticky, but they usually just ignore it. I must say that I find this enormously reassuring to the extent that I thought it needed noting here. We keep hearing how we live in such fractured, ostracised times, but the spirit of human kindliness and friendliness is clearly still there if you look.

Rowling Should Never Have Been Published

I am now rather ashamed to admit that I have fairly warm memories of listening to Stephen Fry reading the Harry Potter audio books. We listened to them as a family, as my parents, brothers and I drove through various parts of Europe. I remember being quite captivated by them at the time: they might not have been on a par with Tolkien, Melville or Hemingway, but as stories they were certainly  entertaining, especially when delivered through Fry’s rich, maple syrup and Lord Melchett voice. Now, however, I never want a single word written by the hateful bitch Rowling to pass my eyes or ears again; and the same goes for the film adaptations of the fourth rate, pisspoor shyte she made her fortune from.

Accuse me of cancel culture all you want, but Rowling should never have been published in the first place. Now that she has revealed herself to be nothing but a rabid, vile transphobe, it’s time we recognised her work for what it is: a collection of stolen ideas delivered with all the talent and wit of a pile of horse shit. It is an insult to english literature, with it’s two-dimensional characters and simplistic, infantile themes and plots. Frankly, it should be taken out of print immediately: young people deserve better than to be subjected to such derivative, talentless crap. I’m glad to see that Fry now feels the same way, and I would personally urge him to get the audiobooks he recorded taken out of circulation: if I was him, I’d be sickened by the thought that this bigot was making money from my voice. The fact of the matter is, Rowling is now using her undeserved success as a platform to spread hate, and that platform should therefore be destroyed.

But You Don’t

Do you know what Muscular Dystrophy is, you stupid bitch? Do you know what MD does to young boys, slowly sapping their strength away? Do you know what it feels like to go in to school, day after day, and have to watch your classmates, boys you grew up with, fading away? Do you know what it’s like to wonder which of your friends will die next, until there are only two of you left by the time you’ve reached forty? Boys who all deserved long, happy lives, but the sight of whose grieving, distraught parents is now seared into your memory like molten iron pressed into flesh. I don’t think you do, because if you did, you wouldn’t have stood up on that bus back from Bexleyheath earlier and started to hand out leaflets about a god which can’t possibly exist. You wouldn’t have started to talk shit about how everyone should love Jesus, trying to indoctrinate your fellow passengers into believing in a god who, if he actually existed, did nothing to prevent the suffering of so many of your friends. A god you demand everyone should love, while being nothing but an entity of contempt, rage and malice.

You would understand why I reacted with such anger, disgust and horror, demanding that you either shut the fuck up or got off the bus, while you arrogantly went on spouting bullshit. You would understand why I for a moment wanted with every fibre of my being to put my hand out and break your neck for thinking you had a right to force everyone on the bus to believe the baseless nonsense you do, as if you were the purveyor of all knowledge. You would realise why I find you an arrogant, vile, brainwashed bitch, deserving nothing but my white hot fury. But you don’t, so in the end you went on your way thinking you have a right to come onto busses and try to spread your bullshit.

Happy Retirement Mrs. Hickson

I came across some news which I think is quite astonishing last night. On my old school’s Facebook page, I saw that Chris Hickson was retiring. That was a name I hadn’t heard in a long, long time: Mrs Hickson is – or was – the Speech and Language Therapist at Hebden Green. One of my very earliest memories is of her coming to the nursery department of school to take me to her office for our weekly sessions. I must only have been four or five at the time; the sessions were one-to-one, as I was the only kid in my class who needed speech therapy.

My weekly meetings with Mrs. Hickson continued throughout my time at school. If memory serves, they were often basically just chats, where she would just encourage me to speak. This was long before I got my first communication aid, so it was obviously important to get me to talk as clearly as possible. We used to talk about absolutely anything, especially my favourite books at the time. Obviously, Mrs H would then structure exercises for me around those subjects, but I remember sessions with her being fun and engaging.

Once, getting into her office, I threw my school bag onto the floor before sitting down. I was at the age when throwing things around seemed like a fun thing to do. I remember Mrs. Hickson looking quite aghast at me: “Matthew,” She said, “What if that bag contained a communication aid? It wouldn’t be a good idea to throw it around like that if it did.” At the time I didn’t feel very concerned, but I can see now that it was the beginning of something which would become far more significant for me.

Indeed, it was with Mrs. Hickson’s help that I was given my first Lightwriter. It was a relatively primitive device, compared to the communication aids we’re using now, but it completely revolutionised my life. I was suddenly able to talk to anyone and everyone I wanted, not just people who knew me well enough to understand my speech. The first morning I got one, I remember going up to shop keepers in Macclesfield and asking them for all kinds of bizarre things. It was like a whole new world had opened up.

Obviously, it was only because I had this new ability that I could do all kinds of things which would have been difficult previously, like going to the comprehensive school next to Hebden for GCSE english classes. That then lead to me going to college, then university, and eventually moving down to London. That would simply not have been possible had I not had a communication aid: talking to anyone like Esther, Charlotte, John, or the guys over in Tesco, would have been off limits. These days I use my communication aid daily; it is essential to me. The last twenty years of my life could not have happened had I not had the ability to communicate with other people efficiently.

All that is ultimately thanks to Mrs. Hickson and her foresight. I am thus highly indebted to her. No doubt she has helped countless other young people in similar ways. Frankly, given that I left school over twenty years ago, finding out that she is only just retiring yesterday struck me as astonishing. Indeed, Mrs. Hickson had been working at Hebden since the seventies: her legacy must surely be incredible. In many ways, it is because of her that I lead the life I now do, trundling around South-East London, talking to all kinds of people; going into shops and asking for all kinds of things. I therefore wish Mrs Hickson the happiest of retirements. Most of all, I’ll always have fond memories of our weekly speech therapy sessions back at school.