Come On Let's Go

Our Karl is contemplating destroying all the mobile devices in the house and removing the house number from the front door. He's getting Salinger Syndrome which is cool. Jack and Karl stuck in the house together, agoraphobic, writing tomes that will never be published. Oh the satisfaction of splendid isolation...Yawn,yawn. Now it's time for me to sit upstairs and put my feet up again while he goes down into the servants quarters to wring his hands and wonder what to do next. He did to his credit, during daylight hours, make a feeble burst for freedom; a mobile phone call, a few text messages and an email. But that's it back to the dark again my boy and your endless attempts to find a solution to the puzzle(Jack) that is niggling at him. Like me he doesn't want surgery which is good from my point of view. I am a big part of his life even though he loathes me. Well he has no choice unless he does the dirty and cops out on me - which we all know by now he's not going to do. Too weak, too much respect for others blah blah blah...it's all lies 'cause what's really ailing the man is that he's scared of dying but there again, so am I. Shame...sad emoticon for Jack and Karl:-( Sad.Sad.Sad. Time for a brandy, a lorazepam and a hot bath. Water what's the fascination with the water he can't even swim must be some New Age floaty hydrotherapy shit he's read about. Huh, I hope the bastard boiler breaks down and the water goes cold. That'll bring him to his senses... Whoa, and it has, 'you can have your bath mate. I 'aint gonna stop ya' but he's well pissed with me, 'calm down, steady on old chap, no need to get nasty with your tumour. Share and share a like.' He's threatening to rip it out with his own hands, I told him that that would leave a helluva mess but he don't care, he's up for the fight now, grimacing and screaming and I can feel the tides turning...'COME ON LETS GO, COME ON LETS GO ITS TIME FOR YOUR DESTRUCTION JACK!'

He's Mine Tonight

He's mine tonight. No matter how many pills he takes he can't sleep. TV on, desperately trying to avoid re-runs of Holby City and Casuality he hops around the news channels; BBC, Sky, Fox and CNN. I whisper to him 'stop being a snob and watch Kyle.' I tell him it's okay, the house is empty and if he keeps the volume down no-one needs to know. But no, he has to stick with the news instead; Mandela, floods, student protests, economic growth forecasts(very boring)To be honest, I think he is searching for an antidote or a pacifier, something that says 'there are people all over the world a lot worse off than me.' Awful, grow up Karl, ditch the liberal humanitarian shit, your are dealing with one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse my son; tumour = death. Get it? He get's it but having failed to block me out he starts on a different tack. I must admit I expected him to get to this point a lot earlier. Yes here we go, the idiotic grin, fingers drumming on the kitchen table. Note: The way in which he's thinking would spoil everything. I try to mess with the electricity in his brain but a seizure is not forthcoming. He's resisting, thinking major distractions and spoilers - heroin, cocaine, whores, alcohol - oh he thinks he could forget about me but knows there's only one way to forget about me and he aint got the bottle to destroy Jack like that. So we settle down in the dark together and tune into the Mandela channel...bad news, our Karl's getting off on this...peace, humility and bravery...that's a sickly mix...but he drinks it down...and I puff myself up...come on sick it up...but he keeps it down...peace and the humility that's real healthy meal.

Jack

The curtains are drawn and it's kinda light outside but he aint up. What will the neighbours think of him - 'bone lazy, welfare scum?' Come on, he should be up and out by now but I know what he's doing, he's hiding, trying to kill me with indolence and sleep and trying to forget about me. But I don't sleep you see, I have no concept of time I just grow, mess around with his DNA and make up malign and rogue cells. Keeps me busy, keeps me busy you know. I feel him stir, eyes open wide, and by Christ I love this bit, for about twenty seconds after waking he will forget what has happened to him. He will have forgotten about me and all will be rosy and Christmas Day a certainty but I will lean on him and poke him and he will remember who's calling the shots here. Hey,well at least he get's a bit of time out. He shaves and showers and still looks like shit but then he smiles into the mirror. Cheeky bastard I aint having that. I pinch him, a little pain around the scar, he gets it and hunches his shoulders in response. Now he knows I am here but he ignores me and makes his way to the fridge. Surely he can't be contemplating food. This is disappointing and if starts on all that vegetarian crap again I'm gonna get well pissed off with him...as I thought; blueberries and cranberries! Jesus, he's really trying! Now it's my turn, a little tap on his memory door, 'Hello it's your brain tumour' he swots the thought away and shoves another lettuce leaf into his mouth. Right so what's the best way to make him remember who I am? I got it, I will give myself a name...howsabaut...'Sutcliffe'...no, 'Brady'...no...'Saville' he would hate that but not even I can stoop that low...It's obvious isn't it, 'Jack' all those scalpels and knives...that's funny. Even he's laughing.

The Third Tumour

It was June I think when I came back. He would definitely know with all calendars he keeps. You'd think he was trying to get pregnant the way he obsesses about time. Time is not on his side...'yes it is' no it isn't. 'Karl Moseley' has a brain tumour, his third...and that's me, here I am, 'his tumour' and this time I am going to do the talking. I will start with a frank admission that I am a nasty bastard, sitting at the top of the stairs, skulking around in that place that I call home beneath the parietal bone. You see that's where I have taken up residency, in the place that affects the reading and the writing - the words. And we know how much he loves the words. It must have come as a big surprise to him, five years without me but mind you this war's been going on for seventeen in all. It's shocking I know but he has been a lucky chappy to get this far. Anyway it's great to be back with our Karl, to feel all his ups and downs and his highs and lows; here's a secret, a little revelation, he's ate four mince pies today! That's really careless and unhealthy, he's looking for an heart attack just to spite me! Karl Moseley can be nasty can be too. But apart from his spitefulness and his stubbornness, I can still second guess what the guy's gonna do next. He'll keep on reading all that meaningless existential rubbish that he reads and listening to all that depressing grey music that he loves. That's what he'll do. But no, he's having strange thoughts when he should be crying and wallowing in self pity,he wants to go shopping, he wants to go to Asda. What a bastard.