Eighth Street and Vine
by Mr. Gold Tattoo
out on the terrible deep
danger silently creeps
come to jesus today
let him show you the way
you're drifting too far
from the shore
Sometimes
one wishes for comfort from a comforter. One is not likely to receive comfort
despite one's longings. What to do when caught in the rip current of such a
desire? Here are some tried and true solutions.
When one wakes on a morning and the sun
shines through one's window, making the room glow like a lily in bloom, yet one
feels an odd sense of detachment and sees a world gray and unattractive, one
likely has found oneself in a state of melancholy. Melancholy must be
distinguished from simple dementia for it displays symptoms decidedly more
ferocious than the latter. Unlike dementia, which might be analogized as a
fondling, melancholy more accurately appears as a being continuously kicked in
the solar plexes and about the head and testicles. The individual overcome by
dementia might yet smile and eat and exact retributions for the small wrongs
done her of a morning. The melancholic, however, feels no urges except her
pain, an inner sharp yet dull pulse of the absent pulse and a difficulty
breathing, with repeated, awkward in-gasps of air replacing the normal and
regular drawings of it.
Where the dementiaic struggles most to
determine that it was a bowel movement that she intended five minutes ago, the
melancholic proves herself a failure by refusing bowel movements altogether for
weeks on end. A great distending of the middle regions shows up as the main
excrementory symptom of the latter. Her midriff presents itself distinctly and
without flattery to one's person. Normally, when one suffers acute
melancholomania one requires a physician to initiate remedial action. No remedy,
however, guarantees the afflicted's health but only assists in the start of a
journey long and arduous into the inner reaches of the ailing one's conflicted
self.
The demented one coughs ceaselessly, not
so much for reasons of physical stricture but out of a need to wheedle and
disturb those in charge of her care as well as fellow patients. When, say, a
mother, aging and demented, lives with a daughter thirty years her junior, the
former will be expected to defecate on her bed, refuse the inserting of her
hearing aids, shout out vile names and epithets when visitors arrive,
especially ones the daughter admires and wishes to show her best sides to, urinate
on the floor during meals, require urgent assistance at night for two weeks
running, and appear before children at breakfast with her nightgown unbuttoned
from top to bottom.
The melancholic, as we have suggested,
seldom defecates, urinates with reluctance, may be relied upon never to swear,
disappears when visitors arrive, shows respect for those attending on her, and
feels awkward at even the thought of nudity, let alone the actual affecting of
it.
Much to the surprise of students studying
both symptomologies, the demented one's behavior brings about outrage and
despair in caregivers whereas the melancholic's brings about only utter
weariness in the same. Certain divergent activities help to calm and achieve
temporary reprieve in each case. Proffer one water laced with whiskey if one is
demented. Supply no liquor whatsoever if one is melancholic but only teas and
cakes. Sweets taken alongsider mild teas infused for short periods only smooth
the edges of pain. The demented one finds relief in boxing and wrestling. Set
up for such a one a pugilistic ring in which she may battle whomever steps up
to engage her in physical combat. Ensure, of course, the proper wearing of
protective gear since demented ones display
alarming levels of strength and
tenacity. You may have one on the mat in a headlock and a bear hug and one may rise
up bodily and slam you to the floor with sudden strength and rage precipitated
by a flow of strange and euphoric energy. The melancholic, on the other hand,
will never fight you. One will, however, long for sleep and the best thing to
do to accomplish one's peace for the moment is to bring one to a bed and remove
one's clothes and place one tenderly under a quilt thick and somnifulent.
