The Appointment at 08:41 & 26 seconds
By Christopher Mathews
“Late again for the school run and a broken
fingernail too, why is my life so unfair! Perhaps I can fit in the nail salon
after dropping off Porcha and Miles, then on to the boutique for my first
appointment. Typical, it’s raining, my hair will be ruined.”
The irony of a black 4.2 litre, top of the
range Land Rover that had never seen a muddy field now stuck in the morning
traffic had entirely escaped Tiffany. Her day was a frenetic schedule of
frivolous and joyless appointments. She had this in common with her circle of ‘friends’,
or were they simply competitors?
She was approaching the busy, town centre
interchange, which is always snarled up with impatient drivers and pedestrians.
Driving at fits and starts through the traffic, she did the arithmetic in her
head “My first appointment is 9:30 so I just have time for…”
Her mobile rang on the seat next to her.
From the corner of her eye she saw it was Jasmin.
“It must be urgent, she normally texts me,
no one about, I’ll just…” She looked down and reached for her phone but at that
moment the lights changed to red and…
At 98, Jack had lived through at least
six different communities in his lifetime, but always in the same house, his
parent’s house, the one where he was born. As a small boy, his town was little
more than a rural village with a distinct Essex character. It was then
swallowed up and became overspill from the Eastend, and later became gentrified
by city traders escaping their frantic London life. Most recently, other people
from all over the world came and setup little outposts of their home countries,
many arriving in small boats. He felt like a man who was now living in a
foreign language film, which made no sense to him. Most recently, his Highstreet
was lined with overstaffed Turkish barber shops, which never had customers.
They all stood in a row with the occasional vape shop and of course nail
salons, the rest were charity shops or garishly signed takeaways. There seemed
to be no ‘real shops’ like a baker’s, butchers or tobacconists anywhere.
“I’ve travelled the world without
leaving my house, I have!” Jack used to say to his old dog Shep. All his
friends were now gone and his children moved away. Today he was clutching a
letter from hospital which read;
Your
follow-up consultant appointment has been arranged for 10:32am on 28th
September. Please attend the neurology department to discuss the results of
your scan, arrive early.
Please
complete the online questionnaire before attending. This can be accessed by
entering your NHS number, username and ID via our online portal which can be
found on the NHS website.
You may
benefit from the advice/comfort provided by our new AI generated ‘patient’s friend helpline,’ via the above
website to help you cope with your condition…
This meant very little to Jack, and
although he read the letter several times, it seemed to be written in a
different language.
He had very few pleasures left in life and
no companionship now his beloved Florence was gone. Ever since he could
remember he had walked to the corner where Mumbles the gentleman’s outfitters
used to stand to buy a paper and a tin of tobacco. It was now a busy intersection, a bewildering
rush of traffic. Like himself, everything Jack owned, was old, tired and slow,
he felt like an old 78-gramophone playing in a 33 1/3rd world. Shep,
his old dog was now much slower too.
Even the news paper made little sense to him, but old habits…
His mid-terraced house in Weaver Street was
like an old leather-bound book in a shelf full of glossy paperbacks. He now
approached the junction with a sinking feeling of apprehension. When he was a
boy, he felt a thrill of excitement here in the heart of the town. In his youth,
this was where the whole town met, everyone stopped as drovers took their sheep
to market through here. Once, one of Mr McGregor’s pigs got loose and ran into
the church! The Blacksmith’s hammer once rang out like a Church bell and the
Town Crier sang out the news. The smell of freshly baked bread once filled the
air, now it’s just car fumes, and foreign languages. On Sundays the whole town
was silent and at rest, but now everyday the same, full of noise. Above the
sound of traffic, costermongers could be heard singing out their poetic chant,
“Three for a Cockney Hen or four for a
Commodore.” A street market was held here every Wednesday for as
long as he could remember. But nothing like what it was when he was a boy.
Mostly, dodgy traders selling tat now. But never ask, where it comes from.
At 08:41 & 18 seconds, the lights
changed, pedestrians rushed across the road like sprinters at a starting
pistol, umbrellas shielding their faces from the stinging rain. Jack hesitated,
slowly taking in the bewildering scene as a pack of strangers seemed to be
rushing towards him. Stepping aside he politely waited before he started
crossing. Too slow, at 8:41 & 26 seconds a screech of car wheels on wet
road, a black Land Rover, an inattentive driver and Jack was…
A crazy man wearing a sandwich board stood
on the corner, his banner, high above his head read;
“…It is appointed unto men once to
die, but after this, the judgment.”
For Jack, that final appointment had
been postponed - for now.
Copyright, Christopher Mathews. September 2023
