Blog Trolls and another Port Brokeferry piece

(A warning to anyone tempted to make a positive comment on what they read here on my blog: if you do you are likely to be visited by an anonymous Blog Troll who will either say some very bad things about me (and lies, too) or will attempt to rubbish you in an effort to undermine the positive thing you have said. I am sorry. I can do nothing about this... except to warn you and to say there is no need for you to comment at all... just visiting is enough... but if you do want to comment you can do so anonymously or by e-mailing me direct at douglasrdbruton@hotmail.com )

TOM TASTES BLOOD

There’s gravel or sharp stones in his breath. He can hear the grating of them in his throat and his chest. It hurts when he coughs and he can taste blood in his mouth. Tastes blood in the spat curses he makes against the pain.

He has not risen from his bed today. Has slipped in and out of sleep. It is better when he sleeps. He is in another place then and the pain is far from him there.

Beside his bed is a jug of water and a glass that is half full. A plate of sandwiches too, the sandwiches in a bag with ‘Callum’s Bakery’ printed on the paper. Tom has not opened the bag yet.

‘Cheese and pickle, just as you like them,’ Callum had said. He’d come from the shop. Left things just for a minute or two to check on how Tom was doing. Lillian said she would serve any customers there were until he got back. That’s what Callum said to Tom when the old man in his bed told him he should not stay too long.

Callum had opened the window a little to let in the air. He’d straightened the covers on Tom’s bed, too, and offered to fetch Doctor Kerr. ‘Just to check everything is ok.’

Tom had shook his head and put on a false cheeriness to reassure Callum.

‘I’ll drop in later then. At the end of the day and on my way home. Maybe bring you a strawberry tart or a doughnut ring?’ He winked when he said it.

‘Grand,’ said Tom.

Then Callum was gone again.

Tom looked at his watch. It was late afternoon. Outside he could hear the movement of heavy traffic on the street and Athol Stuart calling to Mad Martin to stand back from the road. A dog was barking too. And there was laughter. It sounded like Dodie Bredwell.

Tom wondered what day it was. All his days the same now. All running into one another. His nights, too. He could not sleep at night. Sat up in his chair in front of the television, watching shopping programmes and women in few clothes doing exercises on new machines. A cup of tea growing cold on the arm of his chair and a cigarette turning to ash in his fingers.

He should really stop the smoking. That’s what Marjory from the surgery had said. ‘There’s special plasters that can help these days,’ she’d told him. He laughed at the memory of it. Pictured himself wrapped like a mummy in plaster of Paris, his arms fixed to his sides so that he could not lift the lighted cigarette to the hole in the bandages where his mouth was. His laughing then set off the coughing again and the bloody curses rolled around in his mouth.