Creative writing submission from the Rest Less community – submit your entry here.
This morning, having taken Arthur out for his morning walk and fed him his breakfast, as it was mild, I decided to take my coffee outside and sit in the garden. Unfortunately, I am suffering an attack of sciatica just now and I’m finding, bizarrely, that the garden chair is the most comfortable.
If you’ve never had sciatica, it’s like your leg and buttock have been taken over by demonic gremlins and now belong to someone else entirely. Bending requires the balance of a flamingo. Standing on one leg, the offending limb raised, you attempt to reach your glasses, which have slid down your nose and onto the floor.
This is a precarious task like everything with sciatica, and risks either falling over or bringing on eye-watering nerve pain that shoots through your groin, down your leg and into the foot.
It’s as though the pain gremlins are poised, waiting on the start line, ready to go at lighting speed the moment you make a wrong move and the start gun is sounded. I say the wrong move, but any move actually – as off they shoot at breakneck speed like marauding children jostling and shoving each other, lashing out as they race towards your toes which permanently have pins and needles.
For some reason, in my imagination, they are a dark, mucusy green, slightly sticky and slimy, covered in small warty bumps. Attractive? Certainly not, but visualising them somehow allows me to better deal with their effect as in my world it’s always better to know your enemy.
Oh and another thing, I’m a squeaker! I know, I know, it’s really irritating to other people (especially if they’re driving), but it’s entirely involuntary, and I have absolutely no control over it. If I had, it would not happen as often the squeals and shouts that burst forth, make me jump as well as everyone else.
To tell you a funny story; when I fell, dislocated my elbow, and broke it in two places, I remember vividly this awful noise, which kept following me around the hospital to x-ray and the cubicles etc. So loud was this moaning, wailing sound that I said to the doctor through my pain: “Please, please…..stop that noise!”
When I came around after the procedure, the doctor (who I might add was wonderfully kind), was holding my hand, peering at me smiling. It turned out that the terrible wailing sound, which had followed me around was in fact ‘me’. I was the cause of all the noise, though, in my head, it was entirely outside of myself…bizarre!
Anyway, as I sat gingerly in the chair, there was a sudden flurry in my tree, which instantly caught my attention. There, to my surprise was a flock of tiny, green goldcrests, which descended on mass. It was amazing, their tiny greeny, grey bodies had flashes of black and yellow stripes which went up over their heads.
I sat watching them utterly enthralled, spellbound, and all thought of pain diminished. Fluttering on every branch, they seemed to be feeding on the aphids before suddenly taking off like a mini murmuration; their soft flight calls mixed with the noise of hundreds of wingbeats as they went. They circled, dipping and diving together, coming back to my tree twice more and then taking off again, going high up into the sky and disappearing up over the other houses.
My smile made my face ache and I sat in awe before I happened to glance down. Just next to the offending foot was another miracle of nature. Side winding across my garden paving slabs was a small snake worm! I had no idea that such a thing even existed until I Googled it just now, but that’s what I’m assured it was.
Looking like a baby snake, its dark, chocolate body was almost black and glistened wetness in the sunshine, whilst its belly was pale cream, the colour moving up in a line along its sides. The head was unmistakably snake-like and pointy and was about five to six inches long, had it been stretched out, and no thicker than string.
But it was the movement which caught my immediate attention as it slithered along in a sideways motion. Sadly, movement was understandably limited on my side, and I didn’t photograph it as my phone was in the kitchen. I was also worried in case either of the pups or I, inadvertently stepped on him – something he would not survive.
So, I focussed on rescuing him. Carefully using my garden dustpan and brush and the Flamingo manoeuvre, I gently brushed him into the pan and then popped him through the fence onto the railway bank, where I knew he would be considerably safer. Good deed done for the day!
Chatting to Arthur and telling him about my double adventure, I hobbled back into the kitchen in search of my computer and the identification of my apparent snake worm!
It just goes to show that whatever’s going on in life, there are weird and wonderful things in nature that come out of the blue to take you out of yourself – reminding you that life is good and that these things that come to try us, will ultimately pass. Add to that the fact that you learn new things all the time and how can you possibly be glum?
Are you feeling creative? We are proud to have a hugely talented community on Rest Less, which is why we’re so excited to open up a section of the site dedicated to showcasing the wonderful and diverse writing of our members. If you have a piece of creative writing that you’d like to share with the Rest Less community – you can do so here.