THE BLIND MEN SHOUT LET THE CREATURES OUT

               Moments before waking this morning I was far away from my warm bed . I was packed like a sardine in the tight , narrow tail gunner's nest of a large bomber , my legs too near to a heater without enough room to move away . The upper half of my torso was cold , numbed in the big , round bubble , my view was of the hand grips of the big machine gun .

              My only communication was through the crackling of my headphones , apparently we were somewhere deep behind enemy lines , the lines that generals and other officers saw on maps so clearly defined were blurred and hard to discern from way up here . Our large , explosive payload was putting a strain upon the  big propellers , the usual deep drone of the engines was up a tone or two . A burst of crackling static and the shutting down of the little overhead light makes me grasp the gun grips , my eyes frantically searching the skies , and then " There " I yell to nobody . Like flies they zip past the big , clear nosecone , most too quick to track , flickering fire dances from their wings as they swoop toward larger prey .

                I feel the impacts first , angry bullets whizzing through the thin skin of the bomber, none finding the explosive cargo . My legs finally have a relief from the too close heater as freezing wind screams in ... I struggle toward wakefulness feeling the icy cold on my legs , a freezing pain gnawing at the affected one and the last clear image before I revert to an old man needing to pee , is of a fighter streaking toward my bubble wing guns blazing , the big , double barrelled armament bucking hard and fast in my hands . I squeeze the triggers hard enough to hurt my fingers , trying to will more rounds out of the seaming barrels that way . As I shuffle through the dark room , trying not to step on the cat and wake my love , I step quietly into the washroom an old fella with very cold legs . I share this to explain my dear fellow survivors how it is that I learn from my brain even as I sleep . My right side worked hard all day the day before , my calf on that side burns a bit while my ever present nerves make the affected side feel cold . I leaned too hard on my cane all day and it's feel is like that of a pistol grip , my right wrist aches .  See ya in the skies Phil .

BETWEEN THE SALT WATER AND THE SEA STRAND

                   
                   Of the things either lost by me or stolen from me depending upon which me you ask , what has been the hardest to adjust to has been the music . A pain that is deeper and more chokingly silencing and that turns and twists the guts like a deer caught in barbed wire , the more that I fight it the more the ache fills my senses , the more that I grieve for the one thing that kills my pain .

                    The hours that were spent , hunched over an old guitar , ruining record albums by playing the same select parts over and over again , agonizing over the sounds I heard , frustrated at the ease and perfect grace of those magical fingers and the slow , clumsiness of my own .

                  All of my time was spent trying to live up to what I was supposed to be so that I could sit on that bed , that irritating , beautiful piece of wood digging grooves into my flesh hour after hour . Eventually it crept in secretly and without fanfare , my fingers caught on , they copied those notes in an awkward panicky way and then it happened. Though the spell remained it was one now of appreciation rather than envy . Success fuelled my enthusiasm and with practice came speed and with speed I felt my own cocky ease .

                Song after song , situation through experience , triumph after trampling I got better... and then , one fateful night , it was gone , the hours , the yearning and learning , the need and the speed was stolen , taking with it half of me including my left arm . So I sat for an eternity in a cold prison staring through the window bars for any sign of the man who had vanished until I heard the sound , the brilliant musical sound of the key to me prison , opening the lock and releasing thoughts of possibility again , an angel held the key and in my daze she said
               " Please , play my harp ."

AND IT'S GETTING HARDER EVERY DAY FOR ME

         I knew a guy once , no genius but a hard worker . Never had he grown beyond that childhood veil of immortality , he ignored the doctors and their pills, brushed away his poor wife's fears and he quieted both his own worries , pain and fears with too much alcohol

             One night , while he slept a thief crept in , no not the usual kind, this intruder slunk through vein and artery until it reached the guy's brain at a juicy spot called the basal ganglia. The saboteur cranked open the closed valves as he closed up the open , he flipped switches on and off and sent all of the body's system alarms , waking the guy up.

                Still half asleep the guy sat up , something was wrong ! Slowly , as his body awoke with him , the fellow had an odd sensation , a tingly still-asleep sort of feeling in his left arm. The arm felt numb as well  " AAAWWWW CRAP ! " he thought , he knew what a numb left arm could mean for an older , overweight , man with diabetes and high blood pressure . He paced around back and forth until he ignored his company cel phone ringing with another , high stress , no thanks problem and h went upstairs to tell his wife that he needed to get to the hospital .

                    They caught a cab and walked into the E.R. together and then among the bustling staff and beeping machines and being loaded into a helicopter destined for another city , the guy was pushed out of himself by the terrorist in his brain . Parts of him , traces if you will still remained lodged into place but the essence of the man that he was had been replaced with a copy , one yet to be imprinted with his speech and mannerisms .  The differences were not noticed though because in the confusion the interloper named 'the Stroke ' had caused , the entire left half of the body refused to function any more . As the guy rejoined the conscious he did so adjusting , to his broken body his broken brain and broken identity . An imposter housed in the original .

FROZEN SOUL , FROZEN DOWN TO THE CORE

                Now , I am a Canadian and that means that I have either all rights to complain about the cold or that I have no right at all , never the less , I will most likely apologize for complaining anyway . I have never really liked the cold very much , as a result of my heritage , I understand it's necessity and I accept it's place in the cycles of my life . I dress warm , in layers and I know how to walk on ice , in true Canadian fashion , if and when I do fall on ice , it is unlikely that I will spill either coffee or beer when I do .

             In 2014 when my life was diverted into Strokeland , I found that not only are the nights here cold , Winter finds us everywhere , and stroke cold is worse thanm regular cold , It intensifies , it plays puppeteer with affected limbs , sends nerve impulses rocketing like high - speed trains , too fast for the tracks in our brains . The frigid demons twist at our anxieties , it nudges panic ever closer to the edge of reason and muscles to the painful point of nearly breaking .

              Turning up the heat helps nothing , icy tendrils creep off from the frosty buildup on windows , drafts , the envelope of fresh on a visitor's coat .  The saddest method of all is the suggestion made by a weatherman on T.V. , a glimpse of falling snow beyond the window glass . It is our thoughts , we know the feeling of cold , carry it's memory with us . Our own brain can make us shiver on a sunny beach , can make our fingers numb with a whisper to our nervous system . All that we know , the trial , the error , our learned behaviours and responses , our experience , these things are yours , are in our war chests...but the brain keeps a chest of it's own filled with our same weapons , for it knows our defences so very well .

                    I know all of this , have learned it the way that I learn most things " Looked easy , wasn't and it hurt over a stupid long time " I understand how my brain is working counter to what I believe that I want , my eyes are open , inward and out .
" BUT I AM STILL COLD DAMMIT ! "

           Canadian SOCIAL CONVENTION DICTATES THAT I APOLOGIZE AT THIS POINT , in case any are offended and someone out there probably is .  You can put on a sweater or crank up the heat if you want to my dear fellow survivors but the real thermostat that needs some calibration is the one in the asttic .                        Bundle up folks it's a cold one out there . Phil .