- hi, ; you were rash enough to e-ask for the following,
	despite my warning of its length...:


------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------

                _last easter monday, i rose from the dead_

        or, don't try to not take sides, if it doesn't come naturally?
                         (p) 1992 through 1993
         for publication in feetnotes #13probably at eastercon 1994

	         last easter monday, i rose from the dead.

	  this may sound  a  little  over-theatrical, so  maybe i had
	better elaborate and elucidate.

	  nick and jane, a couple of  my friends, had broken up after
	many years (many years together, and  many  years breaking up,
	not all of the one simultaneous with the  other) and, while i
	vastly preferred one to the other, i'd got to  know  them
	while they were a couple and from past experience, didn't want
	to take  sides or allow myself to be forced to so do (by eith-
	er, although  nick had not only not tried, but	was still deep-
	ly in love and  very  deeply hurt). so, although i liked him
	much the better of the  two  of  them  (unusually for me; i
	rarely prefer male to female or mixed company, and have only
	very rarely made close friends with men, since the end of my
	schooldays), i visited jane and her new partner at her invit-
	ation, and would let her know in advance when i'd be visiting
	london, which i did semi-regularly for both business reasons
	and to visit friends, in case it was convenient	for us to meet
	and talk - if she wished to.
	    easter before last, we arranged to meet in ted & dave's
	emporium, or "fantasy center", as it is self-proclaimed to be
	[1], upon the holloway road, as a convenient (and with dave
	and with sundry customers, for me, convivial) meeting-place,
	jane being a gardener not unknown in the "slug and lettuce",
	an establishment offering bar meals and refreshments of both
	non- and alcoholic natures, nearby.
	   as was my habit, i arrived at the fantasy centre mid-morn-
	ing, with plenty of time to browse and chat, share their
	coffee and my biscuits, and chat and browse.  by the time jane
	arrived, i was about done with all but light, and strictly
	social  mutual entertainment in the conversational arena  (as
	you may well be aware, it only takes a phrase - sometimes just
	one word - for dave to launch himself upon a diatribe lasting
	some tens of minutes and displaying a command  of  colloquial,
	but non-blasphemous and  non-scatalogical,	english that is
	truly worthy of respectful attention) (even though the argu-
	ment proposed may not, itself, be so worthy), and was slightly
	miffed that she didn't bother return my greeting as she came
	in the shop, after leaning  her  bicycle  somewhat clumsily up
        against the window, before starting to browse...
	                               ...especially as she progressed
	from checking the new arrivals shelves to closely examining
	the older stock that had, for the most part, been on shelf for
	a couple of months or more...   ...but one of the reasons  the
	shop was both convenient and mutually acceptable was its 
	stock,  so  i waited and chatted on and off with ted and dave,
	in between (and occasionally with) customers... 
	   ...when i noticed a somewhat strange-looking individual who
	seemed to be staring  at, rather than through, the shop	wind-
	ow. i didn't think much of it  to begin with (running a spec-
	ialist sf shop, you get more-or-less used to unlikely-looking
	customers), but this more than slightly grimy, and  distinctly
	dirty, light blue nylon park-clad guy just didn't seem to be
	reading the titles of the books on the shelves facing the win-
	dow, nor looking at their cover art...
	   ...when, suddenly, he looked quickly  up and down the road,
	and grabbed the bicycle.
	   i yelled "jane!" as i  ran  out  through  the shop doors to
	find him pedalling off south along the pavement, and i man-
	aged to catch up with him (though overweight and  unfit, i can
	run pretty fast for a short while [2], grab hold of the bike's
	saddle, pull it and him to a stop, and start to tell him to
	give up and try elsewhere, and not to be so silly, as it was a
	really _awful_ bike, not worth anything...
	   ...when i was hit so hard that i do not even remember start-
	ing to fall: i was already unconscious before the freed force
	with which i'd pulled him to a halt catapaulted me, head back,
	to the pavement.
	
	   i am told that the equal and  opposite  reaction sent him
	and the bike over but, the two together being that  much more
	massive, and he being trained at least somewhat in one of the
	arts martial (the blow he struck me with was, stuart says, an
	"empi" or turning elbow strike) less catastrophically for him:
	he was able to get up and run off southwards by the time any-
	one who'd caught on to what was happening reached where i was
	lying. an  ambulance  was summoned, and the police (whose att-
	itude seemed to dave to be pretty much  "well, there's nothing
	we can do,"  - they showed no interest in obtaining descript-
	ions of the fugitive, never mind trying to  track him down
	towards highbury). (this so incensed an american customer of
 	ted & dave's that he set off trogging  down  the  road in
	search of the guy, spotted him having a cup of tea in a cafe
	shop window - and called the police out again, who were not
	happy at being disturbed a second time (it's an awful long way
	from the police station at highbury corner to 149 holloway rd.
	- nigh-on three minutes' walk), but did arrest him.
	   i still don't know the american's name - ted & dave didn't -
	but he had said he was on stopover from the gulf. whoever he
	was, i thank him.)
	
	   i do not know how long i  was  unconscious, nor  what the
	technical dividing line between the conscious and the uncon-
	scious states may be, let alone the legal and/or medical ones.
	i have flashes of memories in no particular order, which  may
	or may not be "true" memories (including a policeman, and a
	policewoman, trying to give me some third degree to try and
	find out what  *i*'d been up to - and the man saying to the
	woman that they "might as well give up, we're getting nowhere
	with [me]."), or hallucinations (- but i've no particular
	reason to have invented a grilling by a heavy in a police
	uniform that i can think of, nor to have invented a man/woman
	pair of 'em).

	   for some three or four days (?), i was a vegetable. there
	was no "me" that i was aware of, so "i" could have no sense of
	the passage of time, i do not recall pissing  or shitting (so
	presumably when/if i did, a nurse had to clean me up - i  just
	don't know if i did either (or both) even once), nor of eat-
	ing. or  of being seen by a nurse - or by a doctor.
	   slowly(?), "i" returned to existence - light (sunshine) in
	the room, and after what was about three days [?], i recall
	making my way to the toilet - sitting up was extremely hard
	work and standing was damn near impossible. it  took  concen-
	tration to not fall over, and every time i moved, the world
	"swam" around me. there were no things to hang onto, so it
	took a long time to get there, and a long time to get back.
	how long is "long" - i can't tell you.
	   i repeated the feat a couple of times and also got myself
	water from a wash basin in the corner, from time to time,
	but it didn't get any easier.
	   i don't recall being examined, or even looked in on, by
	anyone other than a nurse(?) who gave me a white bread-and-
	chicken sandwich - which i made some effort to eat to start
	with, but rapidly gave up on. i found it completely inedible,
	but didn't know why.

	   and then someone must have told me to get dressed, and they
	told me to go out. i didn't know  which way was "out", but a
	bit later i found i was standing in a  waiting-room area and
	nick was there, and he shepherded me through some doors into
	this place that was "outside" and i saw a red bus so i knew i
	was somewhere in london (but didn't knowingly "think"  that),
	but it didn't seem to matter, or mean anything much.
	   nick got a taxi, i think it  must have been, and then i was
	in a room i recognised as his, so we must have gone there (but
	i don't remember the journey, except as a lot of noise that
	was also slightly muffled, and a lot of people and cars moving
	everywhere and in every direction, very confusingly, and they
	also were sort of both noisy and muffled, but not just their
	noise was muffled, somehow they were, too, but that didn't
	matter or mean anything, either, and from my memory it could
	equally well have occurred after my being in his living room,
	as before - which logically, it must have been).
	  i remember drinking orange juice, and nick looking anxious,
	but nothing else until jane was in his room shouting and
	screaming (at him) for hours and hours or it may have only
	been minutes, but looking back i think it could have been for
	half an hour or so, non-stop, (the light and shade changed
	several times  during it, which must have been due to clouds
	moving in the sky) and my somehow knowing without taking a
	decision that i had to get out of there, that i would not be
	able to cope with the atmosphere/situation/"vibes" (with  or
	without her there again - i couldn't work out that  it was
	only because she'd been there that it had been intolerable)
	and i must have told nick i was leaving (later, after she was
	somehow not there anymore).
	   i got my stuff  together  and  someone  who was friendly (?
	jane's brother, andy, asked by  nick  ?)  gave  me  a lift to
	victoria coach station where i got onto the coach back up to
	lancaster.
	   it takes some six hours, but  i do not recall time passing
	at all, although there was more or less non-stop traffic, and
	stops at places on the way.
	   i was met by the  ken/jo  and ken-the-penguin (i don't know
	if anyone else was there), so nick must have phoned them (they
	'd been shop-sitting for me while i was in  london), and they
	got a taxi from half-way to the shop, to jan's  house (- and
	"home"), when they realised i could move only very slowly and
	unsurely  (i could take a step, but then had to wait for the
	world to settle down and stop swimming, and i was permanently
	in danger of toppling over). i think  the ken/jo immediately
	realised they'd be shop-sitting for rather longer than they'd
	expected - or agreed to - i don't recall her attempting to tell
	me anything about themselves or the shop at the time. jan helped
	me in and got me to bed, and then nursed me as well as was poss-
	ible, given the demands of a full-time career (and still managed
	quite significantly better than they had in the hospital in north
	london).
	  jan also tried to get me to eat (but all i would do was drink
	water and orange juice), called the doctor out to see me a couple
	of times, but i don't recall being given anything to take after
	i'd been looked at.

	   one night(?), i was woken (by jan) and given a thick, slight-
	ly bitter and simultaneously cloyingly sweet, but otherwise taste-
	less, white drink(?) in a glass, and browbeaten into drinking it
	all when i could barely swallow the first sip, and hadn't felt
	thirsty anyway.
	   i remember thinking that maybe jan was trying to poison me,
	but it didn't really seem to matter, and anyway, another way
	could always be found, so i drank it. (quite a lot later, when
	i told jan about this, i was told  i'd  been  so  much worry
	(about my still not eating anything, especially as the doctors
	had said it was important i eat), jan'd mixed up as much sugar
	as could be got into a glass of milk (possibly also other things,
	i don't know) and made sure i finished it).

	   slowly (for by now i was  beginning  to be conscious of the
	passage of time, though not its rate of passage), i re-learned
	some facility with speaking and a greater awareness of my
	self, but concentrating on what anyone said to me and, even
	more, on my reply, took time and conscious hard thinking as
	to precisely what was being asked for; and how to put the
	knowledge that i had into what words and construction would
	mean precisely and unambiguously just that was very hard work.
	i just didn't have verbal skills that i've taken for granted
	for as long as i can remember  - my knowledge and my memories
	were non-verbal, the way that some of my very early (and very
	few) childhood memories still are.
	
	   as i grew stronger, i started to become aware of other changes
	- not "notice" them, because there still was not enough "me" to
	be capable of taking so dynamic an action: nothing tasted of any-
	thing, and sounds (still somehow muffled) didn't come from any
	direction, they just "were", and from my scalp down to my jaw,
	the entire right side of my face, crossing over to the left side
	a little, just below the level of my eyebrow, didn't feel right.
	i mean, its feel was not as i was used to, it felt wrong when i
	touched it. both a diminishment of and, simultaneously, an excess
	of, sensitivity. (a bit like, if you hold your right hand up a-
	gainst a friend's left hand (or contrariwise, left vs right hands),
	with just your fingers (slightly spread) touching, and then, with
	your other hand, simultaneouslylightly stroke his/her and your
	middle fingers with your thumb and forefinger (try it; it feels
	weird).)  a constant tiny moving interference in my right eye's
	vision, just above and to the right of the centre of my attention,
	which moves away from any attempt to look at it. the figures on
	the digital clock/radio alarm sometimes "jumping", and white and
	pale yellow not looking quite the same through one eye as through
	the other. both my eyes being slower to react to changing levels
	of light - my right eye is now a lot slower - which means i get
	dazzled much more easily than formerly, and stay dazzled longer.
	the entire surfaces of the skin of the  soles of my feet itching,
	and then peeling. an inability to find a  comfortable lying mode
	other than on my back, head straight, facing  directly upwards
	(hitherto, i've been comfortablest lying on my right front, or
	right side, from as early as i can recall - certainly  the  mid-
	fifties). my ability to concentrate (on anything) being far less
	than i am - was - used to, and still tend to take for granted,
	and its  degrading fast when i'm exhausted, which also occurs 
	sooner and more often than i'm used to. holes in my vocabulary,
	especially where the word i can't find is one i've rarely used,
	where i know i know the word, but it isn't there and i can't
	reach it no matter how hard i try, or don't try, and i can't
	reach a (near-)simile of it (and could only with great difficul-
	ty provide a precise and unambiguous circumlocution for it) - i
	call this effect "gruyere memory"; all the mental connections to
	the word have disappeared - also (discovered somewhat later, and
	some  still sometimes being discovered -  possibly  some still
	to be discovered) some individual memories, one-off events/meet-
	ings with strangers/etc. (from my life at ?random? times), gone
	without trace. (i'm used to having a memory that, while selective
	in a manner not under my rational control, is within its areas of
	interest (which (fortunately) overlap significantly with mine...),
	extremely good. but i can no longer depend on it where the result
	of failure would or could be unacceptable.)
	   all of these initially without more than non-comprehending ob-
	servation on the part of yrs trly.
	
	   but the worst most immediately, was walking.

	   i couldn't.

	   even when i was constitutionally stronger, i could manage no
	more than two steps (from standing on both feet, to my right foot
	forward, to my left foot forward) before the world wobbled/swam,
	and i had to pause to regain my bearings.
	   i wasn't sure where "down" was, although i still knew intell-
	ectually that it must be downwards..  ..nor where "sides" (= the
	horizontal) were.. ..though i could balance (indifferently well)
	on one foot with my arms out, if i didn't move, i had no sense of
	balance while moving.
	   after two or three weeks, i  made my slow and uncertain way
	as far as the langley road corner  shop, where mr. thaggia was
	pleased to see me (it took me hours to get there and back, it
	seemed - possibly as long as fifteen minutes in reality, for a
	round trip that would normally take nearly two minutes), and did-
	n't mind that i couldn't at first (or second, or third) remember
	what i'd offered to get nor, once i had worked out what i must
	have been asked for, what, if anything, i wanted for myself. i'm
	not sure he noticed anything odd about my conversation, though -
	(?) all us westerners seem odd to him, anyway ?) (he thinks it's
	ridiculous, this fatwa against salman rushdie, and it shouldn't
	have been allowed to get out of hand so. and cause the deaths
	of so many people. and so much bad feeling. he should have been
	killed quietly, straight away...) that week, i felt able to essay
	driving monster (Great White Monster, my x-registered ford cortina
	estate = large, mobile lump of rust for pouring excess money i
	don't have into, but essential for a (well, this) book dealer
	living in milnthorpe [3] (pronounced "millenthorpe") running a
	specialist sf/fantasy/horror bookshop and role-playing game shop
	in lancaster and occasional con tables) for the first time since
	vegetabledom/hood. immediately, it felt very weird indeed, even
	wrong, but since i had to learn again, from scratch if needs be,
	i got on with it. not only did everything  (= the outside world)
	seem wrong, but everything including inside monster felt wrong
	when i turned corners. a very strange experience, and it stayed
	that way the next day, and the days after that.
	   over the next week,  i  got  a  bit  better at this walking
	business, though i had literally to watch where i was putting
	my feet, and slow down or stop, from time to time, to check my
	"down" and "side" bearings, and be very careful  crossing even
	small side roads (not only was i tending to miss-step  or
	stumble over the kerb (going up to it or down from  it), but i
	couldn't tell by the direction of sounds whether traffic was
	coming or going, nor which side of me (left/right or front/back)
	it was  -  sounds still had no direction). walking is far more
	complicated than i'd hitherto assumed... having taken the skill
	for granted these past thirty-odd years...

	   and four weeks after The Big Blow, i made it down to the shop
	where the ken/jo, who'd expected to be shop-sitting for five days,
	was still shop-sitting after five weeks. (and after a couple of
	days in which it became apparent i wasn't all that recovered, she
	came in to help me in the shop a few days more.)

	   for the next twelve months, i ran the shop. i "did" nothing
	else, though my physical control of myself slowly improved - i
	never previously realised quite how much of walking is hard-
	learned behaviour (e.g. constantly sub-consciously one's brain
	is checking on one's (?eyes'? ?ears'?) relationship to the ground,
	the vertical and the horizontals, and to the presence, and the
	nature, of any small irregularities in the ground, and to the
	presence, size, direction and speed (if any) of "nearby" objects):
	i had to consciously learn these and remember to do them until,
	with practice, they once again became automatic, "instinctive"
	sub-conscious behaviour. some things never did come back: my left-
	side hearing is negligible, distorted, and with added tinnitus,
	while i have quite some right-side treble hearing loss; i can dis-
	tinguish just the presence of sweet, sour, salt + bitter -nesses,
	plus irritants, such as in pepper, ginger, and menthol, though
	not their flavours: i still cannot smell anything, nor "taste"
	any flavours (which is a sore trial for a greedypig).
	   i ran the shop in the mechanical sense. i recorded what sold,
	and paid bills, restocked and ordered new stock, paid the rent
	and rates, did the shop window-cleaning when it became apparent
	it needed doing (i.e. became obviously grimy), and made returns
	of books received damaged. i don't think i hoovered once in that
	year. i don't think i dusted the shelves once. i don't think i
	expressed emotion once, even when recommending books to likely
	readers (or avoidance of particular books) - unsurprisingly,
	sales plummeted  -  but i didn't notice. i didn't notice that i
	as running dangerously low on ukL and paid the ken/jo vastly more
	(in new books) than i could afford for the (tremendous) help they
	'd been while i was hors de combat. my weight, having sunk low
	from the (luckily fairly fit) heavy side, slowly increased as my
	diet changed towards "foods" i could taste - i.e. sweet, and/or
	salty things for the most part (or i don't salivate at all, which
	makes chewing a trial, and swallowing well-nigh impossible). but
	essentially, i didn't notice anything.
	
	   and i was still that way, good friday a year on, when i ration-
	ally decided i needed to tidy the shop (not clean it; i didn't
	perceive the dirt as other than "how it was") and put down a new
	carpet, as the old one from 1985/6 was by now less a carpet than a
	furry pavement. grimly, i set about the job (it's not a pleasant
	one in a shop this small and this crowded) and knackered myself
	well and truly, doing it friday and saturday. i was so tired, i
	couldn't raise the energy to wash myself in the bath i ran when
	i got home; nor to pull the plug after i'd soaked there till the
	water grew cold. (in the morning, the multitudinous little bits
	of carpet "hair" had all lined up sideways onto one another, and
	settled at the bottom in uniform ripples...  ...a sort of herring-
	bone pattern.)
	   and bank holiday monday morning, i went into lancaster to open
	up, not expecting to sell anything, but to shift the remaining
	stuff back to its proper positions on the new carpet, which took
	a couple of hours,

	   and i woke up.

	   i can't describe it any other way. i noticed that there was
	so little traffic on the one-way system (I.M.T. fronts onto the A6,
	the Great North-West Road) that i could hear birdsong, which was
	positively pretty, and the clouds moving in the sky were making
	patterns of shadow and light that were interesting, and the sun-
	light was warm and bright, and quite wonderful, and, i even felt
	happy.

	   i'd been in depression for a year, and not known it.

	   so,


	       "last easter monday, i rose from the dead."




   [1] - 1994: this has at long last been corrected - thank-you, erik?
   [2] - or at least, i could then
   [3] - i'd been living out there for about a year, officially, and
         most of my stuff was out there, and two-thirds of the second-
         hand book stock, even though i spent  weekday  evenings/
	 nights  at home, and jan week-ends  at the new partner's.
         social life in lancaster can get confusing - don't try to
         follow  it.  (i guess it's similar to fandom,	in some ways.)

	                                (copyright p.pinto 1994, 1997)

	(small ads.)[left in 'cos still "live"]
        can anyone supply a tape (cassettes or reel-to-reel) of david
        davies reading The Hobbit  (children's  hour,  the  home  ser-
        vice, bbc radio early- or mid- sixties (can't have  been  late
        fifties, can it?))? - tape and (surface) postage costs,  or
        tapes of things nla from my record collection, on offer.

	also -
	alan garner - can anyone find a h/cvr copy of The Stone Book,
	or bear to part with theirs, or (one or two h/cvr copies) of
	Tom Fobble's Day? - i carry these in the omnibus p/b, in the
        omnibus "educational  h/cvr" and, as i find them, in the in-
        dividual h/cvrs, and need one of each to  make  up a set, and
        the other for an RMember to complete his set.)
        	              (in their dust-jackets, if at all possible.)

------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------!------

	- sorry about all that.

	- love, ppint.
-- 
          "for those of you who don't know me, i have 2 husbands...
  they are like kittens ...they play together and keep each other company,
                   but it adds to the general clutter"
  - kitten (barbara trumpinski-roberts) on alt.pub.coffeehouse.amethyst,
                  11/3/98 (3/11/98 for the rest of us)