My this metal bed is very hard Mary thought she lay on the scanner. Where should I look? Just keep my eyes closed that’s the best.

I think the iodine will have got into your kidneys by now, she heard a male voice say

Well I can’t feel anything but as long as you can see something I am happy Mary told them suddenly her phone rang.

It was nside her capacious bra Mary had forgotten.

Luckily she was not inside the scanner so she pulled it out and handed it to the radiographer who was standing by her side.

It’s lucky it wasn’t inside my knickers I suppose but then we don’t have those knickers that women used to wear in Victorian times with elasticated legs coming halfway down the thighs but they would be very useful. Actually my mother-in-law used to carry a handkerchief there.

Mary’s mind drifted on. Her shoulders were aching because she had to hold her arms vertically behind her which meant they were actually horizontal.

Finally they had finished and she sat up with the aid of the radiographer because the room was spinning round and round.

Well this makes a change, she told Annie. Then she heard a noise that sounded like a cat meowing

Have you got Emile inside your handbag she asked Annie?

Well yes I have because I did not want to be alone in the wait ing room while you were having your scan.

I don’t know if that’s a good enough reason…

we could have brought another person with us like that man who lives in the house across the road it’s about time we got to know him.

Mary you’re acting very strangely you’ve never expressed interest in men before not since we lost Stan

Well maybe it’s the iodine if it goes into my kidneys and bladder gets into my womb

Maybe iodine is like viagra for womenm I can’t say what it does for men .

But do not drink iodine at home as I will not be answerable for the consequences no will I pay for you to go to a nursing home to have a baby if you become pregnant after reading this storym

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale’s edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.
on wind-side,careful sight,
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh,wind on green,
oh,earth,
sky.

immense your held vision,
sphere without center,
pied geometer of flight,
oh, swift descent and ascent.
trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home

Mary went to the hospital to have her CT scan. As usual she was a companies by her friend Anne. But she didn’t know that Emile the cat was in Anna’s handbag today.

As you know some women like to have very big handbags but have you never wondered what they are carrying inside these bags?

Annie, they are going to put some iodine into one of my veins, she informed her friend .

Well it doesn’t matter which one they’re putting it into because all your blood circulates around your entire body is it once every 24 hours or is it once a year I’m not sure.

I think you’re thinking about the sun and the earth and the moon which has got nothing to do with the human circulatory system.

Yes Mary I think you’re right I was never very good at science.

And you have no common sense either

How could it take a whole year for the blood to circulates round my body. I would turn into a stone!

I just wasn’t thinking properly I apologize. But why should I apologize because I was born like this… in the lower half of the normal curve for the IQ. God must be very good at statistics.

Oh don’t worry I know what it’s like I’m sure I will say something quite stupid while I’m in the hospital. Doctors seem to bring out the worst in me.

If you feel like that maybe you shouldn’t speak at. After all irs only scan of your kidneys not your brain.

Do you think if you’re having a brain scan that talking will make the scan come out differently? It seems a ridiculous idea to me but you never know is these days especially if you watch Fox News.

Mary lay down on the on the cold metal bed that was part of the CT scanner.

Will it be alright if I put a cannula into your arm, the nurse enquired kindly?

If I say no, what will you do Mary asked

Well it’s not really a question it’s just a form of politeness so we don’t just grab your arm and stick the cannula in as it will be seen as very invasive.

You are in a very powerful position aren’t you as a nurse here before you could ask me a question which I cannot actually give a truthful answer to because I don’t like having cannulas put in. I really don’t want you to put it in but I have read the explanation on the internet and I realised it will better if you do put it in.

You really need to study philosophy and language and many other topics before you could understand these pseudo questions that doctors had nurses and other people may ask you.

Why it’s almost as if Benjamin Netanyahu rang up the new Ruler of Iran and asked him would he mind he dropped a bomb on his home.?

If they did that then they would say it wasn’t a war because the Iranian person had agreed or at least not disagreed when he was asked if he would mind having a bomb dropped on him.

Is it what they call a rhetorical question asked Annie nervously as she stroked Mary’s cat Emile who was in her handbag without permission of the hospital.

I knew I shouldn’t have brought a cat she thought anxiously.

If he meows it will cause a lot of trouble and since Mary can’t see him or touch him it’s of no benefit to her that he is nearby. I must be out of my mind she thought. Don’t tell me I’m getting dementia.

To be continued

The face that was familiar is no more

I gaze into the crowds, but see no sign 

I’m fearful like a child lost on a beach

But no one I see here can I call mine.

The face that was familiar disappeared.

I can’t believe you’re nowhere I can find

And as you are gone my own small self has too

I’ve lost my soul, and I might lose my mind

The face that was familiar is no more.

I cannot see or love you as I did.

I wonder where to walk and where to rest.

My  feverish ramblings do my half wit’s bid

The face that was familiar is no more

And my own eyes with weeping are now sore.

The face that was familiar is no more
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again
If ,by a chance, his life could be restored
It would affect me like the hidden chord
Which played, my own life force would go.
That one must live and one must die is plain
The face that was familiar is no more.
Yet in my dreams ,he is alive again