Alan Baker

The Cardiac Diaries

Not only are the internal organs vital, but dressing-gowns assume a new significance. A window which we didn't think was there has been opened especially for us, and what views it affords! Exquisite autumn colours, sun, clouds, the traffic jam on the bridge, the construction site. I'll take it all. The very thing itself is what it seems. Birds are involved, somewhere, ruffling the picture. The procedure is routine sir, 1000:1 chance of cardiac arrest, stroke or departing soul, and involves catheterisation of contingent reality and a transformational rebirth. It only takes ten minutes. Painless, if psychologically discomfiting. Your relatives will never seem so useful again, but dreams of spring may spontaneously erupt. Accept them, like the tears of your loved ones; they act as healing balm.

Walk slowly. Treat each step as if it were a child that must be brought into being with great pain, but, paradoxically, with love. It’s progress. I’m weathered like a plank left out in the open, seasoned at last and ready to make a useful contribution to the future of the world. Barcodes make no more sense than they did. The wind is so much restless energy. Heere, about mine herte. The house opens its windows and yawns with delight across the park, even though the trees are rudely naked, disporting for my pleasure in an adolescent fashion. But it isn't me. There are so many books to be read, movies to be watched, unholy rows with relatives to be had, and so little time, and I feel that if only orchestras discouraged whistling in the ranks, a sense of order might be restored.

3.10am. Breathe in. Breathe out. Outside, footfalls. Outside, thick fog. The heart of the night. The foggy, blurred, sinister, confusing, damp, obfuscating, chilly, familiar heart. Of the night. Footfalls. Breath. The rhythm of pulse, of breath. There's no escape, no entry, no stopping, no retreat. Extensive tests/plenty of rest/the heart’s beat/no retreat/breath, speech/a sudden breach. Dreams are an empty mirror. I must add new items to tomorrow’s list: 1. Breathe in. 2. Breathe out. 3. Repeat indefinitely.

3.35am. The fog is still there. It has filled the previous twenty-five minutes. I understand at a profound level the irreducible essence of fog.

Mail arrives haphazardly, 8am, 5pm or not at all. Two Christmas cards, a book ‘Healing Into Life and Death’ (early Xmas Present), a tax reminder, and a leaflet ‘Four Cases We Need to Highlight’. Following his arrest in October 2003, Reverend Samba was sent to one of Equatorial Guinea’s most notorious prisons. And yet he has been charged with no crime and has had no trial. The Reverend Samba suffers from several chronic ailments, but the prison where he is currently held will not provide the treatment he needs. …He must rely on his family…they can only visit a few times a year. A postcard with a picture of ‘The Medicine Buddha (Skt. Baishajyagura; Tib. Sangye Menla). …employed to remove all afflictions of body, speech and mind’

Today, snow. Or rather, a memory of snow. In fact, fog. The TV sits up and begs for attention. It wags its tail and demands to be watched. If you repeat something often enough it becomes a form of truth, or at least a form of falsehood, or maybe neither but perhaps something you cease to question. That could be helpful. This is a chance to live in the present moment. This is a chance to live in the present moment. Not all emotions are red carpet events. Not all empathy is real. Today’s newspaper: Microchips in our brains and bodies will freeze the ageing process and ensure that everyone will be at the frontier of knowledge.

On the road to recovery! The Tin Man and his companions. The world was all before him and other literary references. Eat, drink, jog, swim, lift, swell, stretch. Entreat life-companions to be mutually available and counter-supportive. They'll be waiting. The boardroom has been booked. It is a glass room on the 30th floor overlooking the harbour with its refinery and dockyard. There'll be a room-full of people, hearts a-flutter, looking askance, nursing burning questions, hearts at ease, hearts recently electrocardiographed. I will need answers. Will you require an Electron Beam Tomography Scan? Electrophysiological testing? Are you the possessor of a Left Ventricular assist device? Do you have creases in your earlobes? Can you prise the lid off a jar of jam? Remove a spider from the bath? We hope you will still be able to fulfill your married duties. Are you still a caring father? Good. We will be in touch. Should we require your services we shall contact the agency. Goodbye.