Dive-bombed by herring gulls

(What shall I listen to? Old, new, borrowed or blue..?)

... must be a herring gull chick, he thought, taking in the dull brown plumage with the huge size. Wonder why its sitting in the middle of the road.

Doctor: “What seems to be the matter with you?”
PV: “Everything doc and I’ve got it bad.”
Doctor: “Want to talk about it?”
PV: “Nope. I prefer to shut my mouth and keep my thoughts to myself all day… like I always do.”
Doctor: “Well, keep taking the pills and I’ll see you when I see you.”
PV: "Rot in hell arsehole."

Is that a pterodactyl? An ominous 4 foot six wingspan silhouetted against the scudding rain clouds made him fantasize Jurassically for a moment. With Kamikaze yells the shape plummeted toward him, veering aside at the last moment. Fuck, it’s the parent bird protecting its strayed young. Repeatedly it screamed in low and fast with raptor-like talons outstretched. Hey even the wildlife has it in for me…

It’s all downhill from here pal. You’re 49 and your best years are long over. The doc doesn’t give a damn, the world isn’t waiting for you, the gulls are suspicious of you…

He held similar conversations in his head all day. His favourites were about guilt, shame and self-recrimination. He did a good job of chastising himself. That seemed a more effective use of time than waiting for someone else to do it.

I won’t bother talking to you unless I love you, he said to no one in particular. I want to live on a desert island. He had a big heart and a head full of compassion but people barged into him in the street like he was invisible. How could he ever talk to people who were so oblivious to his sweet nature? He needed to be alone, that was the stark truth of it.

Some idiot shrink had told him, try to think of all the good things you have achieved. You have so much to be grateful for and proud of. He had never bought that. He was way off course for his usual lunchtime walk, even the gulls sensed that. The time on his wrist was well past lunch but he kept walking. Today he would make a decision.

He had a sharp plot for a novel in his head but he kept chipping away at it til all that was left was a series of fragments. Perhaps he would try piecing them together again soon.

SHUT UP! he screamed at the voices in his head. If the fools at work had only known how my depression and anxiety was crippling my physical health. Why had he never shrieked this to the banking fools, There is nothing wrong with my mental fortitude but you are hammering a square peg into a round hole and I won’t fit. I will last as long as I can but the strain you are placing on my emotional health is directly reducing my physical health. My immune system is failing – I am getting sick. It is not possible to be this miserable in my head for decades and for it to have no effect on my body.

With this admission at least now he would have a few things to say to the doc next time he went. Now, where the hell did I park my car?