JOURNAL OF A COFFIN DODGER CHAPTER A (2)

I took a deep breath and stood up from Adrian's desk. I picked up the cups that Wayne and I had used and took them to the Staff Room on my way to the Recreation Room.

When I reached the room, I looked through the clouds of tobacco smoke for Adrian and spotted him

seated at the end of a back row of chairs.

I went up to him and said, 'Garth's gone off in the Day Room..'

Adrian cut me off by snarling.

'And you couldn't handle it. Typical fucking girl. And I guess the poofter chickened out and ran away.'

With that comment, Adrian stood up and addressed the room.

'Hey! Boys! The girlie here couldn't do a man's job.'

'Garth's gone psycho in the Day Room. Who's up for a bit of fun.'

'Only if I can hit him first!' someone yelled amongst guffaws and shouts of 'count me in!' from other male nurses in the room.

Adrian, with his back to me, yelled, 'Kevin! Go to the clinic, grab a syringe and fill it with whatever you think will knock the bastard out.'

As Adrian turned towards me, I said, 'I would like to go..'

'Yer! Go on! Piss off and play with your dolls. Why girls and poofters are rostered to this ward is beyond me.'

With that, I turned and fled from the room and headed for the Staff Dining Room for my meal break.

Adrian's response had taken a surprising turn.

But I guess, on reflection it was was not entirely unexpected.

But that's the way many of the narratives in my journal turned out.

They are littered with unexpected twists and turns.

Like a fire I ignited that raged through a building some fifty years after that incident with Garth in the Day Room of Ward 29.

One of several blazes which were an 'up yours,' like what I dished out to Adrian. Also, to blokes in the decades after that incident with Adrian.

Men who had slithered their way out of legal and social accountability for their depraved, immoral actions.

But now, in the 21st century as I write this journal, there is another unexpected twist.

My mind is now playing high-jinks with my moral compass.

My mind now questions both the morality of my actions and whether the statute of limitations applies to my involvement in those fires.

All the more so since one of them involved murder.

But until I reach the end of my allotted span and death reaps my soul or law enforcement officers knock on my door, I will keep writing my journal.

Who knows?

There may be another unexpected twist.

Writing about those fires and that murder might realign my moral compass and halt my mind's cruel games with it.