Modern World

Yaya looks at me with anguish. The monitor beeps once, and her heart beat shows as regular, maybe a little slow. I can’t help but notice the hospital technology. The machine connected to her arm is outdated and was invented in the 1950’s along with floppy disks and the first non-stick pan. We live in a modern world but this hospital feature wasn’t included in the update. I watch the liquid drip from the bag, slowly through the funnel, and into the needle that connects to her blue veins. The doctor speaks slowly as he asks her if she has any pain in her chest. She says no, which is unusual given her condition of a punctured bowel. She looks at me and asked why I am melancholy. Two minutes later, she repeats the same question. ‘All bones’, she scoffs as she grabs my wrist. ‘όλα κοκαλιά’.

The next day, I sit in my office and stare out the window. It is a shitty day in February. The wind howls and I watch the dust, human hairs and umbrellas blow towards the sky, safe within the 20th floor of my building. My attention, for a brief moment, flicks to the task at hand of updating a mind-numbing spreadsheet. Again I lose focus and begin to browse ‘realestate.com’ for rental properties. I enjoy procrastinating from anything that I am supposed to be doing in my actual job. It makes the time go slower but I can’t really focus on one single thing. The blue skype icon pops up in the left hand corner of my screen. My boss leaves a message asking me to send the paper by the end of the working day. It’s 2:21 pm. I exhale loudly, but I am unconcerned.

I catch the train home at 4:13 pm. The Sandringham line. It takes a long while, but I pass the time by reading an article on Artificial Intelligence and how computers are becoming smarter than people. Soon they will be able to take over the cognitive jobs of humans, not just physical. I think of how we used to dig holes with shovels and now we have extravagant and expensive machines to do it for us. I think of what else we can use machines for and I come up with two options before I get bored: To prepare legal documents, and to drive cars. That’s all. Then I stare blankly out the window as the train speeds past the city, into the deep suburbs.  

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I’d spent this past month asking google absurd questions like ‘why can’t I sleep at night?’ This wasn’t a profound realisation or technique that I had recently come up with, but I was genuinely curious to see if other people had problems that mirrored mine. I wasn’t provided with ground-breaking answers and my insomnia was not cured but it was nice to know there were others out there with much larger problems. Google informed me that other reasons for not sleeping could include the following: Circadian Rhythm disorder, drugs (both recreational or prescription) stress and blue lights.

It takes me approximately 4 hours to fall asleep at night, which means that if I get in bed at 10:30, I will fall asleep at 2:30 am, give or take an hour. Once I am asleep, I can stay asleep, which is nice. My friend Evan does not sleep at all. Or he does in 5 minute intervals. Last week I watched carefully as the psychologist scribbled notes from her chair regarding my troubles, and I listened with one ear as she suggested I begin to regularly consume a medium to strong anti-anxiety medication. I stared at her and blinked once, half listening and half tuning in to the baby screaming in the doctors’ reception room.  Later that night I explained to my father what the psychologist suggested. He looked at me, pained, and told me to go on a long run.

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To both the psychologist, and my dad, I say nothing, but that night I go for a run. I take Bowie, the wild dog, down to the beach and I run along the track for 6.2 kilometres. I am a bad runner. I am short of breath on most occasions, dizzy, and I am built like a piece of spaghetti. All long limbs with an almost astounding lack of coordination. I look especially stupid when I run because my legs are far longer than my torso and my arms seem disproportionate. Similar to a prehistoric T-rex dinosaur. I lump the pile of knotted hair on top of my head at the starting line, and begin slowly. The dog runs circles around me and at this point in time I am grateful for his existence. Erratic and moody. Deranged dog. I run to the clock tower at the end of the beach track and don’t bump into anyone I know. I feel uncertain with everything going on around me but I don’t think about anything while I run.

My yaya is 88 years old. At the age of 81, she read me her tea cup and told me she was going to die in 7 years, which brings us to the current year, and she is in hospital with severe dementia and a punctured bowel, although she hasn’t seemed to notice.

She cannot remember Tom, my sister’s handsome boyfriend of 8 years who is quite memorable. I stand next to her and she asks me in a whisper ‘who is that tall man standing next to Cassandra?’ She is losing her mind, and I watch her scream at the young nurse in Greek while she tries nervously and rather patiently to fix the drip in her arm. I say nothing.

I have spent the last few months feeling very strange. Stanger than usual. I do not have dementia but sometimes I feel as though my mind is failing me in some shape of form. My thoughts are clear, but erratic, and I have to work hard to keep them in order. My face looks young, but I feel very old, which is a strange phenomenon to experience while in a hospital where everyone around me is 80 plus.

I focus every day and attempt to feel normal. Recently someone told me (in a rather scathing tone) that I had the weight of the world on my shoulders so I have been trying very hard to take that weight off my shoulders, and leave it in the hospital with the sick and elderly where I have been spending my time, and where it belongs really. It does sound unfair, plaguing the already sick and dying with the world’s problems, but in a selfish way, I no longer want it.

My hypothesis is this: The old people can take that weight to the grave and it can be buried deep beneath the soil, so I don’t have to deal with it anymore. I can revisit when I am dead, which will be when I am 65, according my grandmothers tea cup. I have 33 years left so I should stop worrying, and get on with life. I have an enormous list of things to accomplish, in this modern world.