Nasty Endings

The young man with his hood pulled up, loitering menacingly by the bus stop at the corner of my street, was only waiting for a bus. And the jogger, giving me sidelong glances, surprisingly jogged on by and didn’t cross the street to attack and molest and dispose of me horribly. In all, an uneventful walk home, save my own morbid fear of the dark and an overactive imagination. Nasty endings; I waste the spare minutes in my day envisioning my horrible and untimely death. Getting my foot stuck between the train and the elusive gap in the platform as hordes of oh-so-busy commuters trample off the train to their oh-so-important destinations, without a thought for the young girl they will unduly slaughter before 9am.

Or tumbling off the train platform as the 0803 to Liverpool Street approaches of a morning. I’m not entirely sure how. Curiosity, perhaps, or a gust of wind. Or another one of the devils in grey suits with grey faces, desperate and eager to charge into their grey days.

I could be strangled by the telephone cord as I sit at my desk at work, or slip down the spiral staircase, all four floors, and crack my head on the tacky statue at the bottom of it. At least the claret and brains pouring out of my skull would match the red, grey and cream colour scheme in the building. Perhaps they wouldn’t mind the mess too much if it co-ordinated.

Given that there are so many very plausible ways in which I could die in my working day, it’s a wonder I ever leave the house, and return to it, every single day without fail.

I was almost hit by a bus once. I was fifteen, and rushing out of school with my brother and his friends. Charged out into the road, whoosh! Bus! It braked, the driver got off and shouted and swore at me, and I was so shocked I fell over and grazed my knee. Not particularly exciting, as far as near-death experiences go, but my closest shave to date. I’d had my tetanus injection and everything, and as much as I picked the scab, it refused to bleed me to death.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in the least suicidal. Or one of these death fanatics that watches TV programmes entitled ‘1000 Strange Ways To Die’. I’m just scared of the dark. And walking to work in the mornings, with all the hazards it brings (crossing roads, deep puddles, a sea crashing over the sea wall, strangers with dishonourable intentions) and walking home in the dark, with just a headlight to warn of oncoming HGVs, dressed all in black, and not fit enough to run for my life if required, I spend a good hour of my day gripped by a mortal fear that I’m going to die, in some headline-grabbing way.

I don’t eat cheese before bedtime, but I do worry that I might suffocate in my sleep if I close my bedroom door. All that stale air being re-respired again, and again, and again; I imagine it would be something akin to being in an aeroplane on a long distance flight. And we all know how that ends. Crash, bang, wallop.

Apparently you can die from a build-up of propane and butane in the blood, absorbed through the skin. You might think you’re okay because you don’t work in a chemical laboratory, but actually both of these are found in aerosol deodorants. I could die from my deodorant. It wouldn’t be a particularly nasty ending, but it would certainly be an odd one.

Death of course can happen at any time. No one could function if they spent their time worrying about it. Hence we learn to ignore this ugly possibility as much as possible. However, accidental death usually occurs out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s just plain bad luck. Sometimes it’s incredible stupidity. But my reasoning seems to be, not that I’ve paid it much mind before, that if I worry about it, if I expect it, then it just won’t happen to me.

--written spontaneously, half fictitiously, for writer's circle this evening. And yes, my friends now worry about my state of mind.