daily grind on the phone.

Patient (middle aged woman):
“More chemo? no
no impossible
I’ve never felt so bad, truly awful
and the most scary thing
is how I got so thin?
I am eating but have never been so thin…
why am I losing so much weight?”

Doctor: “That is why I am requesting
more scans.
Tiredness, weight loss and numbness
in feet and hands, as you describe
are generally signs of
cancer coming back. So we are
no giving you more chemo for a while
as you’re much worse since
the last chemo course a month ago”

Patient: “I know, I would die
right away
if I took more chemo”

Doctor: “I will request a scan
refer you to the feet
specialist and prescribe you
a special cream
for you to use in the meanwhile
is there anything you want to ask me?”

…next call…
Psychologist: “…another CBT therapy session
like we had 2 weeks ago; I’ll bring my client”

Patient: “feel much better
the last three sessions have been
very good; Wednesday
I was lying in bed
in the afternoon
thinking and thinking
and my body was hurting
the aches were so bad I
thought I had lung cancer
or something much worse than that

Then I remembered your words from the session,
we have to focus only on what we can control
and although I can’t control my HIV
nor how people react to
me having it…
…I can control how I react!
I got out of bed and called a friend
had a chat with him
for the first time in ages
it gave me enough energy
to apply for a job
and on Friday
I passed the interview”

Psychologist: “Well done! Congratulations!
Are you going to tell your family?”

Patient: “I’m afraid to tell my family
that I have HIV
they are very conservative
back in Honduras but what
frightens me is what happened at my
previous address it was
very traumatic when
my friends… well…
— I thought they were my friends —
so let’s say my flatmates
kicked me out on the street after
they found out I have HIV”

…next call…
Social worker: “No that’s not true. Your daughter is just taking advantage of your lack of English skills; she told me she didn’t want to go back to El Salvador, and that she would threaten to kill herself if she could not stay in the UK… but just as a sort of emotional blackmail… and it doesn’t mean we are ready to give her an acommodation, we, social workers, always want to keep families intact, and we will do whatever we can for children to remain with their parents…”

…next call…
Girl: “my boyfriend lied to me and made me open the door to him but it is because he is very cheeky with words I didn’t want to let him in and now you must arrest him because he told me horrible things”, sobbing, “he told me he doesn’t love me anymore…”

Police officer: “I am very sorry, obviously I can see you are very emotionally disturbed but you must understand we can not arrest someone just because they have told you things you don’t want to hear..”

…next call…
Woman: “… I met his father in Spain and we had two children there but, we were always having lots of problems because he didn’t seem to have any sort of financial security, like a stable job…”

Family Suppor Worker: “what was his job then?”

Woman: “He… I didn’t know then but… after two years he stopped paying the bills at home, and caring about the children, I didn’t know what he was doing for a living but… I noticed very strange things that were not… not normal. And then his friend told me things that…that were not normal… and he… he denied everything and then one day he was arrested by the police. The police came home without warning and they searched for something.. I didn’t know what, and it was then I noticed he had been doing these weird things, and he was involved with these strange people, and he was arrested and deported back to Bolivia. He left with our son and I stayed with our daughter and after a while, like 8 months or so after, he returned back to Spain although I thought he was not allowed after having been deported… he called me from outside our flat and my daughter was still very little so I was happy he had returned but then… I learned he had returned with a forged passport from another person…”

Family Support Worker: “what do you mean by “strange things”, why was he arrested?”

Woman: “he was…” started crying, the following words came all through her sobbing, “he was dealing drugs!” — uncontrollable sobbing — “… …. … after he returned to spain we restarted our relationship and he said he would get a normal job… I was working as a cook at a restaurant and he said he would change, that he had never done that before we met, and only for a short while out of desperation… so I trusted him because he is the father of my children, I gave him another opportunity but… it never happened like he said it would!”, more sobbing, “he did it again, and even worse, with worse things and people.. so I had to escape with my children to another Spanish city but he followed me to this other city and again he said he would change, so we moved to a very small village next to a big industrial complex where I worked at a factory, and for a while we lead a normal live there in that small village… but I noticed he was very stressed all the time, jumping every time the phone rang and then… one day I answered the phone and it was such a strange call, a man’s voice told me he had found out where we were living, and that my husband had better pay his debts or…”

And just like that the line dropped. I looked at the time and it was past 6pm… and even though I hated the suspense and not knowing how the story would continue, I told myself “enough! enough calls, enough humanity for the day”, and disconnected from my phone interpreting job.

Nevertheless, my brain finished the story for me.
I knew what I had to do. I had to do my calisthenics session, my work out session, get into shape and strong before the gangs arrive. Those Bolivian gangs had been listening to it all and they were the ones who cut the phone line because that woman was telling us too much. Fine!
I live in the mountains of this tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic, off the west coast of Africa… surely I can see them coming and prepare the boiling oil before they arrive…?

So here I am
again
in this little village
being grinded by the mill-
ion story blocks — blocks of stories —
coming into my ears and through my brain

I’m just a conduit
grinding and being grinded by the
ordinary life and deaths of people
I will never meet but
have got to glimpsed

life like a relentless
rotten rosed rote
blooming all the time