Sweeties Like Radioactive Worms
A memorial pamphlet. Two cartoon strips, a photograph, and a recipe for Turkish coffee.
“For the perfect Turkish coffee use a fuller bodied bean such as Mysore, Brazilian or Guatemalan. Add these to a small milk pan of cold water so that there is just over three times as much water as there is coffee. Open three cardamom pods, checking that the seeds inside are black and podgy - the lighter, thinner ones are a bit like mouthwash and will spoil the taste. Add these, and if you like sugar add some now. Bring this mixture to the boil VERY SLOWLY, just simmer and bring to the boil three times, letting the mixture relax and simmer again between boilings. It should be on the heat for about ten minutes in total. Soft foam will have developed, and you should skim a bit off and put it in a pre-warmed cup. After the third boil, pour the mixture in to the cup and leave to stand; there is an ungodly sludge that will need to settle, and you should remember not to drain your cup completely when you drink or you'll get a faceful. This sludge can be used to tell the future, but I’m afraid I don't know how. The coffee is best served with something uncommonly sweet, such as Turkish Delight, a Danish Pastry, or those Indian sweets that look like radioactive worms.”
Alive. Dead.
“Ethiopian Yirgacheffe – Originally cultivated in the 9th century to keep monks awake, it has a strange woody flavour. In a medium roast it is an ideal “any time of day” coffee and takes milk very well. Its caffeine content is moderate and subtle with a strength rating of 3/5.”
It begins with a shoulder twinge. He sings to the cuddly toys on his bed. The red, black and yellow striped snake, the beige elephant, the plump bear. He changes the bed linen, even though it’s just for him. Clean white sheet, a simple pleasure. The twinge interrupts. The song becomes a curse.
No, that’s not the beginning, nor the ending. It starts inside, maybe, with DNA, or it starts outside, maybe, with the smokes. Inside out, outside in. Whichever way, the cells mutate, spread, attack. Neoplasm. One plasm? Thickening, eating, spreading, mutating. Metastasis. Tumour. Lymph. Blood. Cells travelling around his body. Unseen, unfelt, until a twinge. A twang. An ouch - what the fuck!
“El Salvador – A wiry, acidic top-end coffee with a reassuringly pudgy body. Grown at high altitude, this is a definitive South America coffee. Medium to large caffeine hit with a strength rating of 4/5.”
Despite morphine his voice sounds the same as ever on the ‘phone. The words shocking, heart jolting, but the delivery reassuringly familiar.
“They need to do a brain scan; they’re not sure if it has spread that far. Would be a bit shit if it had.”
“You don’t sound like someone whose brain is being fucked with!”
“It can just take over, you know, this terminal cancer business.”
The word clanging in the air. Huge, it swallowed all the other words that had been waiting to form.
“ Emsworth special festival blend - It carries a dark roast South American-type taste on a softer, mocha-ish bed. Very smartly done. The balance between the two things is seamless and even. Moderate caffeine content with a strength rating of 3/5.”
Yellowy lights and yellow hospital walls combine to produce jaundiced air. Germs wheezing. Inhale, exhale. Looking grey and exhausted, smelling sharply animal.
Losing count of magpies. One for sorrow, two for joy, good afternoon Captain, good afternoon Captain…
The world shrinks. He looks at it in tiny pieces. This bed, this arm, this coffee.
“Is there anything you’d like to say? Anyone you’d like me to contact?”
He declines.
“Tell everyone to drink more coffee,” he says eventually.
He doesn’t stop drinking coffee even when the radiotherapy and chemo burn his throat and make his voice a hoarse, angry sound.
“India Bibi Plantation – the strange thing about this one is that its creamy, soft flavour conceals a gargantuan caffeine content that borders on being classifiable as a hard drug. It sneaks up on you – wait with mounting impatience as the world appears to grind to a halt around you in your newly accelerated state. Most exciting. Strength rating 5/5.”
The agony of a broken rib, a chest that clicks. One morning his arm fails, another his leg. He loses mobility and clings to dignity. A life, an enormous, glorious wash of creativity and imagination fragments and becomes
torn
pieces
One day he doesn’t want his coffee, and asks…
“Is it okay if I go now?”
They say yes
and
hold him,
talk to him,
and he
Video: Foo Fighters on Later With Jules in 2005 with No Way Back
|
|
Contact me