Billion to One Against

Hemi Hello

In case we haven’t met before, a very warm welcome. If we have, a very warm welcome back.

I’m a right homonymous hemianopia, inevitably hemi for short. My name means he’s only half his vision, all based on his left side in both half-eyes. That’s along with a tiny bit on my right hemi blank side - I’m not rectangular, invisible as well. “Him” is the poor unfortunate who landed up with me.

To be hemi confusing, although I have half-eyes his short-vision sees not much more than quarter-eyes, often less, his long-vision close to three-quarter-eyes, sometimes even more. Fortunately, the rest of the hemi confusion is in the hemi main story, along with a mass of hemi images, as he’s on the way to the South Pacific.

Oddly given where he’s heading, he didn’t take a camera. Though by now the hemi images would be tired and brown while the “timelessness” he knew was bright and clear. And a camera would have had an interference in a world that had still been hardly disturbed by people like him. So, he’s had to borrow Google’s 50 years later hemi images, some as if still then, others as if somewhere else.

At the moment, I still don’t exist. So I’m handing over till I arrive.

Paradise Lost 1’s Two Worlds

Paradise Lost 1 is about two entirely separate worlds, so separate there’s no point in attempting to compare them. When in one, it was as if the other didn’t exist. And while one had so little it’s easy to remember, the other so much it’s easy to forget. Except here in Paradise Lost 1 he switched instantly from “timelessness” to a hospital ward in “somewhere else” with nothing in between, meaning “timelessness” was full in its own way – as still today – “somewhere else” still empty.   

This hemi story follows three journeys, to Uki in “timelessness” and two major hospitals in “somewhere else”, along with time spent between them. The journeys include 16 mini-stopovers which also contribute. There’s an additional journey that his mind blanked out for a reason fully understandable when he gets there.

Journey 1 - London to Uki

If you’d ever had a chance to go to “timelessness”, the slower the journey the better and increasingly along the way.

London to Nadi in Fiji [image 01]

I followed the sun – New York in mid-afternoon London grey-gloom, San Francisco in its picture postcard golden sunset, midnight in Honolulu with the entire city out on the street, dawn in Nadi with a day and a night of everydayness away from commercial paradise. [image 02]

Fiji to Honiara, Capital of the Solomon Islands

On to Port Vila on Vanuatu [image 03] for another re-fuelling, along the way discarding plastic airline food and cutlery for the local real thing. And discarding a jet with empty windows for a turbo-prop with windows full of the ocean and occasional specks of land.  

Vanuatu at the time was still a mouthful Condominium of New Hebrides, with France and the UK taking their historic engagement to the other end of the world. Probably a 1 – 1 draw as both were playing away.

Back again above the empty ocean and on to Honiara. 

Honiara  [image 04]

Honiara’s on Guadalcanal, the main and most central island of the Solomon Islands. Putting it awkwardly, it’s someway to the right of a line between Papua New Guinea and Australia, with Papua New Guinea the closer of the two.

The Solomons is a nation of islands and atolls, 13 islands inhabited, stretching for nearly 1,000 miles [image 05] and with a population of not much more than 500,000. This vast remoteness is presumably the reason why it has, or had, 71 languages or dialects uneasily held together by pidgin English that’s banned at schools in the interest of English.  

Honiara was more like an extended village than a town - a few shops, two banks covering the vast remoteness, a hotel, a cinema, churches and a Government building completely incongruous against everything else – brick and first floor against single story corrugated iron or traditional thatch. At the time, the U.K. was still responsible for the country in a leisurely way.

All around was piercing light and silence, what sound there was as clear as the light. The heat? Hot, though just about manageable. Traffic? Almost none, with only 30 miles of tarmac.

Sadly, the Solomons then was probably still best known for its significance in the Second World War, reminded more recently by the film the Thin Red Line. Honiara and Henderson Aerodrome in particular were the final obstacles on the way to Australia. [image 06]

Evidence remained of what had happened – the markers along the main street recording battle movements, Lark Sound renamed Iron Bottom Sound with swimming still forbidden, artefacts demonstrating the local expertise in recycling.  

What Was I Up To?

I was waiting for “the Badley” nearly a week away. It was one of the two workhorses – the other “the Selwyn” - of the Melanesian Mission, and I was to be one of its teachers. I’d applied as a volunteer to work anywhere in urban Africa without realising the volunteer agencies of the time had divided the world between themselves in a way that excluded my continent of preference.

Instead, a four line letter informed me I was best suited for the Solomons as a teacher, though I wasn’t one and had asked not to be used that way. No criticism of teachers and teaching implied, rather a questioning of my own suitability.

The various missionary societies on the islands were responsible for providing all the still limited education available on behalf of the Government. That was except for the latter’s own new full level secondary school in Honiara, the first in the islands. I had been allocated to Alangaula Senior Primary School on Uki.

Education, like so often elsewhere, was recognised by parents as the only way ahead for their children, though there was no guarantee of a job at the end or even progress to secondary school. And education wasn’t free, more or less a pittance elsewhere yet not in a country still on the edge of a cash economy.

There was an additional cost to parents. Students at Alangaula would be away from home for three of their teenage years, anything between 10 and 18, meaning they would be unavailable to work in the family gardens, instead responsible for looking after themselves.

Honiara to Uki

Workhorse was a reasonable description for “the Badley” and “the Selwyn” as they carried everyone and everything, could more or less steer themselves across the empty ocean, and their speed not much faster than their solid ground counterparts. Their size? Probably not much larger than some large London tourist launches of today.

Once on board, the vastness of the ocean repeated itself after his experience flying above it. And how slow “the Badley” was as it hugged the shoreline of Makira, the long thin main island of the Eastern Solomons [image 07]

Hour after hour there was nothing to see other than forest down to the shoreline, the forest disappearing into highlands above. Just once a cluster of huts in a tiny break in the shoreline, “the Badley” appearing unable to pass. Why should anyone think of living there in such utter isolation? Or rather, what a ridiculous question. I had a lot to learn.

Dusk arrived with its rapid transition from day to dark, a South Pacific dark that was almost always easily visible. “The Badley” anchored, though it didn’t mean I’d arrived, only to stay the night at the sister school to the one I was heading to – education wasn’t restricted to young men.

The next morning a continuation of the forest shoreline to Kira Kira, the village capital of Makira. Then “the Badley” cut across the - as always - empty ocean to Uki [image 08] a 6 by 2 miles coral extension of Makira, and Alanguala. How long had I spent on “the Badley”? Much the same as I’d spent crossing the rest of the world.

“The Badley” had anchored in a bay that provided a welcoming break in the forest shoreline, the only protection for small boats for goodness knows how far away. I could see a line of students at the shore’s edge waiting. By the time I’d waded ashore a few moments later, those along the forest shoreline appeared to have already disappeared.

Main Stopover 1 – “Timelessness”

“Timelessness”

Looking out at the horizon from what had become my tiny home a stone’s throw from the shore – to the left, a small slice of Makira, sometimes within welcoming reach, others distant and foreboding, leaving Uki out on its own; ahead, a vast swathe of the empty ocean; to the right, the bay and beyond it the headland that formed it. Close up, forest shoreland left and right with the welcoming sandy beach in between.

Turning inland - the school a continuation of the beach and on to some of the students’ “bush set” homes, with forest left and right before winding up to the highlands.

Dominant was silence. The forest helped to muffle the school like it did everything else. The silence was aided by the school having no electricity other than enough to light evening school. Noise was formed only by voices. Not even doors slamming as there were no doors, naturally no windows as well.

A bit risky? There was as good as nothing to lose. A very light jacket was shared around as normal practice, leaving me wondering who would be wearing it next. My only warning of anything in advance had been not to express too much interest in anything for fear of being given it. Refusal would be disturbing. 

Sound of transport? An occasional islander silently walking along the forest track, islanders silently fishing in their canoes, [image 09] sometimes nothing more for a month or so till “the Badley” or “the Selwyn” looked in.

Animals and birds? Almost no evidence. Geckoes croaking at night [image 10]. Megapode eggs as well, hatched by the heat of the sand [image 11]. Plenty of flies.

The lack of sound and movement created a sensation of its own. The ocean itself hardly lapping at the shoreline, appearing to be as good as motionless further out [image 12].

The exception was the gentle breeze that drifted in just as the heat was becoming unbearable. It was completely reliable other than during the hurricane season. Breeze, never wind, and it always disappeared at dusk with its day’s work done.

The silence of the forest and the ocean blended with the sun, the moon and the stars, the latter two now close enough to become good friends, instinctive to look up at night. The world had become vertical, or rather circular, a globe of its own. There was a completeness, my respect for “timelessness” perhaps not unlike that of the islanders who’d never known anything else.

Uki  

After its first recorded sighting, Uki’s islanders were left alone for several hundred years. Apparently, the islanders of the time had made it clear visitors weren’t welcome.

The terrain must have helped, as was still the case then. So small, yet a heavy journey across, let alone along. Just the schools – a two years secondary school half an hour or so away from Alangaula – had been added.

The island population was said to be about 200 islanders living in four scattered villages, though the village close to Alangaula, like the one I passed on Makira, was smaller. Villagers eked out a subsistence living from gardens scratched out of the highlands’ coral. Taro, cassava [image 13], perhaps more recently sweet potato. Crops grew fast, so did weeds, and before a crop was harvested another garden had to be prepared, most likely some distance away.

 The school had its own gardens, pau-pau, breadfruit and limes as well, plus a very small supply of a green vegetable locally called Chinese cabbage. Only in abundance were coconuts [image 14] and fish caught using a spear along the shoreline at night, using a canoe during the day.

There seemed only one form of economic activity besides teaching – all the other six teachers at Alangaula were islanders, one from Uki itself - and occasionally a Chinese boat serving as a corner store. From time to time one of the workhorses would turn up to take a group of men to Pio, an uninhabited 2 miles by 1 island extension of Uki, to smelt copra, a by-product of the island’s never-ending coconut supply [image 15].

 Alanguala

The school might have been parachuted in and kept ready to be parachuted away if required, or more likely disappeared under the foliage if for some reason abandoned. It was self-contained except for some basic supplies delivered by the workhorses.

There were 120 students, two classes each for levels 5 to 7, six wooden classrooms, the head teacher’s house, a chapel, a general hall or dining room, a kind of kitchen, six tiny homes for the teachers and the “bush-sets” where the students lived and cared for themselves arranged in their island groupings.

That was except during weekdays in term time when the students ate together, a homemade bread for breakfast and alternatively rice or sweet potato with coconut milk and Chinese cabbage at midday. The school uniform was light brown shorts and shirts that blended perfectly with the surroundings.

There was morning and evening school. Part of the afternoon was spent by the students on the school’s gardens, or on general maintenance which included keeping the weeds at bay. The school was kept meticulously clean and tidy like everything else, not that there was any problem with litter as there was nothing to cause it.

Teaching facilities were the absolute minimum, here a chart of the body, there a history of the islands in 40 short pages. Despite, students learned and the school regularly came top among the senior primary schools across the islands sitting the Cambridge Overseas Certificate.

The school appeared to have no disciplinary problems despite traditional inter-island disputes. This must have been aided by the status of the headteacher, the first islander headteacher. He then went on to become the first islander Archbishop of the South Pacific.

It was a hard life for students, though nothing new to them. Yet there was always enough energy left for football. The lead goalkeeper had a polio leg as well as being one of the school’s best swimmers. Disability discrimination hadn’t arrived. Hopefully, it still hasn’t.

Very Beginning of the End

Only fate knows why I got my brain abscess. It happened, so there was no point in trying to find out. Though perhaps my lifestyle had played a part, the hurricane as well [image 16].

I was conscious of my diet. I was never hungry, yet what was immediately available was highly restricted. No fridge or freezer, only a very limited supply of anything fresh. I shopped by sending an order via one of the workhorses to a store in Honiara and waited for my order to be delivered the same way. I shared the midday meal with the students.

I’d always been physically fit. It was assumed I’d rest from the sun in the early afternoon like the other teachers. Instead, I joined the students I’d come for and was the regular football referee. Hard, yet nothing unreasonable. The sun? Hot, yet the breeze was at work as well. 

Then the small boil in my left armpit. I’d never had a boil before. It was worrying in a hot and sweaty setting. My medical supplies from “somewhere else” were paracetamol and antiseptic cream. Plenty of the latter and the boil amazingly disappeared. An immense relief, yet so sudden? It seemed odd, something that couldn’t be forgotten.

The Hurricane

Apparently, the hurricane was the most powerful on record for that part of the South Pacific. It behaved as expected, the wind howling in one direction, having a rest, then howling back again with trees horizontal each way. I sat in my home as it performed. Then at half time a student ran past telling me to leave as the tree close by might fall on it. It was nearly dark by then as I joined students and other teachers with their families in one of the classrooms beyond the reach of any immediate danger.

Then a message came through that there was some form of difficulty at the village not far away - I passed it daily on my way to the freshest of fresh waterfall showers that could ever be imagined. No one moved, though I’d assumed no one would expect the outsider to get involved.

It was exhilarating running through the forest with a small group of students following. The forest was never dense, and darkness in “timelessness” was never pitch even during a hurricane. A vast tree had already fallen across the track and there were fallen branches everywhere. I was reassured by the story that no one had ever been killed by a flying coconut.

We came to the stream I crossed on my way to the waterfall. It wasn’t just the plank bridge that had gone. It was the stream as well. In its place a furious torrent. It was lucky I knew how to canoe. Throw myself in and swim frantically directly across would have swept me to the ocean. Throw myself in and swim frantically upstream with a slight twitch to the opposite bank and I might make it.

I never discovered what the difficulty had been at the village. The villagers had already gone. I found some of them in the classroom on our return. They’d used another track, the one we’d just used as well. The islanders’ faces showed the immense respect they gave to the elements that controlled their lives just like their forebears, the students too.

Dawn was arriving as the wind eased. The roof of one of the classrooms was down, there was debris everywhere, yet no harm had been done to anyone. Priority? Clearing the football pitch.

Life continued as usual, though there was extra work to be done by way of clearing and replanting. The debris to be cleared included the paw paw [image 17] and breadfruit [image 18] trees. A sudden glut, then none for several months till new ones had had a chance to grow.

My Friendly Headache

It was two or three weeks after the hurricane that my friendly headache arrived. It was waiting for me first thing one morning, as gentle as the breeze.

Something odd to be found in “timelessness” where tension was unknown. Except my friendly headache wasn’t like the headaches of “somewhere else”. It hardly hurt. And it was so considerate – sometimes just above my eyes, then at the back of my head, occasionally on top.

So helpful it made me feel guilty dismissing the friendly headache with two paracetamols that shouldn’t have been allowed. I was letting “timelessness” down. Yet my friendly headache never took offence. It returned in the evening, again in the morning, again and again.

My friendly headache wasn’t alarming. Strange it had come, stranger it kept returning, yet nothing more. It was doing no harm. And like the antiseptic cream, I had a good paracetamol supply. I hadn’t had to use it before. Anyway, the headache would soon be gone like the boil.

Except it didn’t. Two weeks or so later my friendly headache started to change, increasingly disturbed. It was a Friday. I’d planned to cross the island next morning and had to think again. Never mind. Instead, I spend the time with the students of one of the “bush-sets”, the one closest to my home.

Things were worse on Monday morning. I felt cold. It was like after it rained, except it hadn’t. I even found the clothes I’d worn on my journey, a bit warmer than the others.

By then, my friendly headache wasn’t friendly at all. Indeed, I didn’t feel well, hot and cold. Though most likely that was good news. At last, whatever was going on inside was coming to a head. Sweat it out overnight and that would be that.

Paradise Blown

Except it didn’t. Instead, his brain blew – and most likely blew me in at the same time so I’m taking over.

He’d been asleep as intended. It was 9.50pm on Monday 10th February 1969. And already he was out of bed, out of his home, running in the forest, running in a frenzied attempt to get ahead of the pain even if only for the tiniest fraction of a moment.

Inevitably, he failed. Yet he kept on trying, kept on running. There was no alternative. He’d nothing else to try.

The pain was brutally overwhelming, his fingers screaming at his head. He’d never imagined pain like it before. It wouldn’t let go, trying to break into his skull. So, he kept running, running ridiculously. Though the thought of being so ridiculous just perhaps lessened the pain even if only for the tiniest fraction of a moment.                                                                                                                                                                                         

He was back at his home with his paracetamols. How many pills could he take each day, eight or 16, the pain was already bending his mind? Then on top of it he remembered the frantic gap when he wouldn’t be allowed any more till the following day.

Not that it mattered. His two paracetamols returned even faster than he’d swallowed them down, now coated in lime tasted vomit – by then limes were the only fresh fruit available. He tried again with the same result. Water on its own performed the same way. There was no point in trying again. The vomiting continued till his supply ran out.

The pain made him think of earthquakes. His headache exceeded the 10 points maximum on the Richter earthquake scale. And thinking the thought also eased the pain even if only for another tiniest fraction of a moment.

Then he remembered the expression “not giving something even to his worst enemy”. He didn’t have any worst enemies, yet again thinking the thought gave him the same tiniest fraction of relief. Except he’d already run out of pain restricting expressions. Best go back to earthquakes and try to remember as many of them as he could. 

He went back to bed and hid his head under the bedclothes, or rather single sheet, the pillow on top. It made no difference, or rather worse. Except somehow he’d got his feet higher than his head as he struggled with the mosquito net, and the pain eased just a tiny bit more than previously and for longer, perhaps even as much as 20 minutes before he was back in the forest running. The mosquito net was now meaningless. His pain was so bad some mosquito bites couldn’t add anything more.

By then he was exhausted. His running had been absurd. So, what to do?

Perhaps call someone? Yet who and where and how? There was no phone, only a radio link at 4.00pm every afternoon from the secondary school to the mainland wherever that might be. Call someone here at the school? That would wake everyone else up. Go and find someone? Yet who and why? It was now 1.00 am, halfway through the “timelessness” night. And what could anyone do?

It was ridiculous again. He’d come all this way to try to be useful, only to end up running around in the middle of the night looking for sympathy for himself – and due to nothing more than a bad headache. Watch out. He was massively exaggerating, perhaps exaggerating as he was so far away?

The question was dangerous. It helped him to pull himself together. Face reality. There was nothing he or anyone else could do till morning and by then his headache would have gone. Imagine his embarrassment, his shame, if he kept on making such a fuss?

Pain v. Refrain

Except the pain, unlike the hurricane, kept howling, with sleep out of the question. Also out of the question was trying to teach in the morning. For a moment his failure added to the pain, though only for a moment. The pain was too intense to think anything beyond.

Then a thought was beginning to form itself, not completely unlike the breeze. The breeze could never assuage the heat, yet it could hold it back just enough to make things manageable. Now a kind of pain refrain, though in no way effective unlike the breeze, not at all. However, by continually working on it he had something else for his mind to think about besides the pain itself.  

The pain refrain was in three parts. The first two arrived almost together, the third a little later when the other two started to struggle. And as his inability to sleep continued for five days and nights, he had to keep working at it all the time.

First, however painful the pain might be, he couldn’t be ill. A bad headache yes, even in “timelessness”, though nothing more. He went through his childhood illnesses and   inoculations. Then non-smoker, only an occasional drink, canoeing champion, just about as good a specimen of healthiness as to be found[mjm1] .

And sick of what? He was aware that cancer could strike the young as well as later and there were some ghastly illnesses and disabilities reserved for children. Though that was absurd in “timelessness” and he withdrew the thought.

The refrain moved on and said it all – Uki, “timelessness”, it was where he was, where he wanted to be, by then there was nothing else, he belonged in a “sort-of” way. Lying in his bed he could see the forest, the ocean, the sky day and night, both in his mind and for real. There was nothing or nowhere else.

Finally, what began to take over as the pain refused to go, not even ease. What if it kept on and on? He had no sense of what might happen next. Manyana. What would be would be, and without any expectation of anything like the islanders. Just once he imagined an ambulance, then immediately it disappeared, not even a thought of a hospital.

The impossibility was his having to leave. Imagine the shame and utter failure. Would they ever let him back when he recovered a few days later, perhaps even by the time he got to wherever they might send him? What made things even worse if that was possible, he remembered he was being paid, him a volunteer. The Solomons still had no university graduates of its own, and he was told he would be debasing the graduate currency if he refused. “Volunteer” meant nothing. And look at him now?

The refrain had a performance of its own. It had to be followed in order. A long pause always required a return to the beginning. Which was a kind-of relief, the beginning less disturbing than the end.   

He hid in his home during the day, too ashamed to be seen. Night-time was easier, the forest again. A student who’d followed him into the forest in the hurricane insisted staying with him for his protection, sleeping the sleep of the just on the floor of his other room. He had to take immense care to avoid the student when he went in and out of his home, not even realising that I’d arrived.

The Headteacher and the Stranger

Next afternoon the headteacher of the secondary school came to see him. Clearly, someone had followed the forest track to report something had happened.  

The visit would have been to assess whether his condition required a report over the radio link to the mainland later on. At the same time, the headteacher came equipped to give him a painkilling injection from the family’s medical supply. The injection made no difference, not that it seemed to bother him. It was as if pain was a natural part of “timelessness”, whereas an injection with the equipment required didn’t belong.

Though the headteacher did him another immense favour, somehow taking away a cat that looked in from time to time to have its next round of kittens in his tin cupboard.

It was the following afternoon that the stranger arrived. Where the stranger came from he never knew, yet the two of them had one of those conversations when words would have blurred the clarity of what was being exchanged.

Indeed, they appeared to have no language in common, yet that made the experience even more complete. It became one of those moments when he could take part and observe at the same time.

The stranger, an islander though not from Uki, most likely would be called a paramedic today, though nothing was done to suggest it was the case. Not that it had mattered. The stranger’s eyes said it all. They were confirming that the white man lying on the bed claiming ill health was doing so as an excuse to get away from the “timelessness” that he couldn’t cope with.

In reply, what had just become his half-eyes were pleading that it wasn’t the case. They knew exactly what the stranger was thinking and they would have thought precisely the same if they’d been in the stranger’s place. Yet on this occasion the stranger was wrong. He was the exception that proved the rule. He was desperate to stay.

The silent conversation didn’t last long and the stranger had gone. No examination, no medication, no taking him away, nothing. Yet as he was still in “timelessness”, again it gave him no greater concern.

Journey 2 – Alangaula to Brisbane

Whatever the stranger’s eyes had seen in his own half-eyes, they led to the first of his two lifesaving journeys, this one 13 days 10 hours and 2,400 miles as against 75 minutes and 35 miles 10 weeks later, both unique. 

Alanguala to the “Local Hospital”

They took him away the following day. He was on a stretcher as for most of the journey. The students carrying him were also members of the hurricane team a few weeks ago. All around him were abject failure, humiliation, misery, despair, a world fallen apart.

“Local Hospital”

They carried him along the forest track for the final time and on to the “local hospital” close to the secondary school. The “local hospital”? The “local hospital” was fully entitled to an apology and an explanation as to why he’d claimed there’d been no medical facilities on Uki.

Inside was a small hospital ward, meticulously clean with two of the four beds already occupied. However, there appeared nothing by way of medication or treatment, certainly nothing for him. He sensed one of the New Zealand teachers at the secondary school had some nurse training. Though there seemed nothing more.

One of his two fellow patients was an islander with his wife beside him. In the evening they slipped away as silently as by then he’d learned to assume. The other patient was also a New Zealand teacher, this one with a pain that was highly vocal unlike his own. He felt sorry for the teacher and ashamed of himself. Till the following afternoon, the Friday after his brain blew, when the teacher left noisily in time for the weekend.

That night he was asking himself why was everyone asleep, while he, despite being in such pain, had learned to do without it? Think of all the time everyone else was wasting.

Soon after he finally fell asleep and wasn’t aware of anything for a day and a half. The refrain had done a remarkable job keeping him going. The remain of this journey’s a series of clips, sometimes nothing more than a single image, even only a blur, or more likely a brief scene. 

Headmaster’s Home

The headteacher, generous once again and presumably fully aware of the limitations of the “local hospital”, had had him moved to the family home. The clip is midday Sunday, a luxurious bed, a delicious plate of scrambled eggs from the secondary school’s tiny farmyard, then him returning it as fast as his paracetamols six days earlier. Unfortunately, there’s no clip of him apologising and helping to clear up. He's no idea when he started eating and drinking again.

Wading Away from “Timelessness”

The greatest misery of all was next morning. They took him away from “timelessness”. It was a grey day, at least a grey day in his mind. There was no welcoming bay at the secondary school. The clip shows him wading to a dingy to be rowed to a boat much larger and faster than the workhorses.

Almost the Worst

Shortly after he sees himself on that boat heading for Kira Kira. He’s taking a final glance of Uki, this time from its other side, the one away from Alanguala. He quickly turns away due to his distress. He’s standing and therefore checking his pain. Is it still here or gone already? What if it already has? He’s relieved, it still is. Yet how ridiculous, instantly shifting from being desperate to stay to being keen to be gone.

Kira Kira Airstrip

The next clip’s him sitting beside the pilot of a light plane with two other passengers behind him waiting to take off. He senses their annoyance, probably having had to wait a long time for him to arrive. Something’s certainly wrong with him as there’s no clip of his flying over the ocean at a low altitude.

Honiara Hospital [image 19]

Next, he’s walking into Honiara Hospital, small, meticulously clean, a single room, someone visiting he’d met when waiting for “the Badley”.

Him Meet Me

Now the big moment, how he formally met me. It stands out like his meeting with the stranger in his old home in Alangaula when nothing was said yet everything understood.

He’s walking along a veranda corridor in the hospital. It has a slight alcove on what’s now become my right hemi blank side so he can’t see it. There’re some chairs neatly stacked in it, though protruding just a little. Unfortunately, he knocks over the stack.  Which disturbs him. Though not at first due to what he’s just done. Rather, it’s the chairs. They’re the type found anywhere in “somewhere else”, schools, church halls and just about anywhere else except for “timelessness”. He feels he’s already being pulled away.

He finds himself cupping his hands to his left side, then my right hemi blank side-eyes. Repeat. Satisfied, he returns to staring at the chairs.

Though only for a moment. First the realisation, next the shock, now the horror. There’s no need for a second opinion. He can see only on his left side, nothing on mine.

What does it mean? Why? How long will it last? What if it won’t go? What if it’s only the start of something more?

Then almost a smile. If he’s just lost some of his sight, it must mean something’s seriously wrong with him besides a bad headache. And immediately his shame disappears. The pain hasn’t gone, yet it’s easier to manage, as if his pain and I have become good friends, me rescuing him – and leaving him to instantly forget about me.  

It’s the reason why for years he referred to me as “no big deal” for the favour I’d done him. That was till I caused him to catch hemi computer phobia 30 years later and things began to fall apart (see Paradise Lost 2).

Start of His Medical Lifesaving

Two more clips of his time in Honiara Hospital, little more than blurs though critical. The first is his being prepared for a lumbar puncture [image 20]. By performing it, a doctor diagnoses a brain abscess or tumour. So, he needs a hospital with a neurology department.

The other clip is him meeting a young islander heading to Sydney to be trained as a nurse, here acting as his escort. He feels proud to be flying with the nurse, the first islander to be fully trained.

Henderson Airport

Back to clearer clips. It’s Saturday morning, already well into the 12th day since his brain blew. He’s at Henderson Airport, perhaps not much different from when it was Henderson Aerodrome during the Second World War. Except then it would have been extremely busy, whereas now extremely quiet.

Though on this occasion there’re two planes on the tarmac, both heading to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea - there were no direct flights to Australia then. The planes are turbo-props, like the one that brought him to Honiara. It means he’ll be able to see the ocean and Bougainville [image 21] on the way. Or at least in his mind. In reality, he’ll be on a stretcher in the second plane’s hold. The clip sees him talking to a stranger trying him to reassure him he’ll soon be back.

Changing Worlds

It’s now the moment when his mind has to formally switch worlds, from “timelessness” to “somewhere else”. After his meeting with the stranger on Uki and his first formal meeting with me in Honiara Hospital, this clip, more like a thought bubble than a clip, sees him taking part and observing at the same time.

Besides changing worlds, the thought bubble’s preparing him for posterity, though for himself alone as no one else will ever be aware of the full significance of the moment for him. It’s so simple as is the case with so many profound thoughts, the profundity inspired by his pain and lack of food and drink.

He accepts his leaving from one world to the other, though uneasily as he’s doing what so many can’t, most especially the islanders whose “timelessness” he’s been allowed to share. Except it isn’t his responsibility just now. Instead, as he’s had the privilege of experiencing both worlds and being allowed to decide for himself which to return to after his pain has gone, his decision’s now being formally tabled - returning to “timelessness”.

He keeps repeating his decision to help make certain it comes true.

His Last Moment

He’s now watching the other passengers of his plane walking across the tarmac of Rabaul Airport as he lies in the hold, the airport later destroyed by a volcano [image 22]. Apparently, the airport is the plane’s home base and flying rules require operators to give their planes a health check as soon as possible after flying close to a hurricane.

Rabaul tarmac’s special in an unexpected way, like the day before going back to school. Something heavy’s about to happen. Make the best of whatever remains.

Return to Apartheid

The stopover at Rabaul means he’s missed his Brisbane connection. The clip is of a ward in the Port Moresby Hospital where he’s having to be “hosteled” for the night [image 23]. He may have still been in Papua New Guinea, though the ward suggests it isn’t the case. All the staff and patients are white except for his own nurse. Are islanders ever allowed to be ill? It reminds him of apartheid South Africa. Where will his nurse spend the night?

First Taste of “Somewhere Else”

His change of worlds is symbolised by his change of plane-type – turbo-prop in the hold to three seats removed for him to lie across the seating of a jet [image 24].

Anywhere in “Somewhere Else”

Almost here. He’s in a taxi along any slip road from almost any airport to almost any major city in “somewhere else” – with apologies to Brisbane that welcomed him without question even though he was a foreigner.

Princess Alexandra Hospital

It’s now Sunday evening, 13 days since his brain blew. The clip sees him walking to his bed in a ward which seems vast. Finally, he’s feeling uneasy, ill, unlike in “timelessness” that’s already disappeared as if it never existed.

Princess Alexandra Hospital to the Royal Brisbane Hospital

Apparently, every patient from “the islands” is first taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital regardless of what is to happen to them next. His operation is to be the following morning at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, though he has no awareness of how he’s getting there.

Main Stopover 2 - Royal Brisbane Hospital

He’d thought of not continuing with this hemi story. Nothing could ever compare. Except, as with all the hemi stories, once started fate couldn’t stop. So, on we go.

Ice Sponge Torture Training

He only vaguely remembers being told he’d an abscess along with me. And as far as I was concerned, that had been that. What he can most certainly remember, however, is his first lesson in neurology nursing, keeping a patient’s temperature at normal at any cost.

After each of his three operations in the Royal Brisbane, he spent two days in intensive care. On each occasion, one of the other patients was lying unconscious on an icepack to keep his temperature down, and always supported by the patient’s sad elderly mother with her elderly eye-shades.

Abscess or Tumour?

Back in the general ward he learned the distinction between a brain abscess and a brain tumour. He understood he’d been lucky. All the other patients had come in to have a tumour removed, and while the operation to remove an abscess was more complex than a tumour, once fully drained it would never return whereas a tumour might. And he was already doing exercises on the ward floor.

Pain Comparison

That was till the pain returned about 10 days later. It was horrendous, or was it? It was an entirely different pain from the one in “timelessness”, a pain shrieking for attention whereas the “timelessness” pain had had complete control. This one didn’t cause him to rush out of the ward or vomit, nor think of earthquakes or worst enemies. It even accepted a painkiller, even if only a couple of paracetamols, definitely eight of them in a day and not 16.

However, although his two paracetamols stayed down and did their job, it was only for 130 minutes, meaning he had to cope entirely on his own for a further 110. The pain was extreme again though vulnerable, knowing it couldn’t win all the time. Try a refrain during the pain time? Except there was nothing to see or even imagine other than the ward clock, and, unlike in “timelessness”, it appeared to have stopped. Then even more disturbing, how to cope when he ran out of his daily paracetamol supply?

It happened twice and on both occasions fate came to his rescue, or rather the hospital, with operations 2 and 3. Though his confidence was waning without any explanation as to why the pain kept returning, while other patients were coming and going. So, fate came up with yet another pain, this one designed to be helpful after operation 3. It was as painful as the other Australian pain yet different, a standard bladder pain.

However much water he drank, the pain and his temperature wouldn’t go away. Which was the point. Pain enough for him to more or less forget about the Australian abscess pain, would it return or not? In the end, he was given a special operation of its own and this time the pain returned even before they’d wheeled him out of the operating theatre, though it disappeared shortly after.

Job Done?

So, fate had done its job, the abscess pain hadn’t returned other than for a slight tension above his half-eyes. It was all good news. Though he still felt woozy, at the same time angry at being told he’d always have to wear glasses. Except he shouldn’t be thinking that way. Plenty of mentions of recouperation to complete sorting him out. Most of all, he’d been very lucky.

Admittedly, he did feel a bit uneasy about his x-rays. He’d had two between operations 2 and 3, yet couldn’t remember any after operation 3, just some head checking before he left the ward directly onto a plane. Not that it was anything to do with him. Once again, he’d been very lucky.

Which End of “Somewhere Else’s” World?

Now the moment he’d been trying not to think about, concentrating on his abscess in hospital, nothing beyond. Though from time to time he imagined crewing a catamaran back to Honiara, pure light again against his previous gloom.

The first person he’d seen on regaining consciousness after operation 1 had been his mother waiting for him in intensive care. She’d come like the elderly mother in intensive care to be with her son, though his mother had had to come from the other end of the world, somewhere he’d never have imagined.

He loved his mother and hated fate more than ever for arranging things this way. One of his reasons for going away had been to start a life of his own, while the only person who could bring him back was here.

Even now there’s a part of him that wishes she hadn’t come, though almost certainly he’d have died a short time later. Death’s different when young, a challenge rather than an automatic defeat – says he who hasn’t yet experienced either despite Paradise Lost 2.

Journey 3 – Brisbane to London

Which is why there isn’t a Journey 3.

Journey 4 – Outside Guildford to East London

He was back and hating it, taking himself away on long walks to get himself going again physically and to protect everyone from himself. He’d never imagined hearing the word “fury” being used for himself.

Medically, he had alternative good days and bad days. 26th April was a bad one, a Sunday, 11 weeks and 6 days since his brain blew, the evening damp and gloomy. It deserved nothing more than a hot bath and early bed, the bath hotter than usual, perhaps responsible for triggering what followed.

He had soap in his right hand ready to be transferred to his left hand to continue the washing procedure as always. Except his right hand refused to cooperate. Odd, it’d never done so before. Try again, and with the same result. Now a bit annoyed he tried yet again, and again with the same result. Finally, fourth time lucky.

The washing almost over, something happened that reminded him of the crucifixion story – that’s if he can put it this way. Blood and a clearish liquid oozing from the left side of his head, in fact from the bone-flap they’d formed to drain his abscess and always put back. No fear, just surprise. The bleeding and oozing over, he completed his bath and almost made it to his bed before he had his first fit.

The first thing he remembered when he regained consciousness was someone talking on the phone downstairs – male, middle aged, authoritative. The call seemed to be going on and on. He assumed the voice belonged to a doctor given what seemed to have happened.

It must have been about 7.30pm, though he had no idea for how long he’d been unconscious. The doctor was unlikely to have lived locally and must have looked in at him before starting to phone. And his mother would have had to do a fair amount of explaining before any phoning would begin.

By then, fate had turned up to win him his three jackpots. Critically, the year was 1969. G.Ps. were still responsible for their own “out of hours” calls and the G.P. on call that gloomy night was the practice’s senior partner. Very properly, an “out of hours” contract doctor would have arranged for him to be sent to the nearest hospital with an A & E department. That one also had a neurology department.

Except, given the year, his mother would have told the G.P. that his consultant in Brisbane had been aware of another Australian consultant who’d recently been headhunted by the renowned Royal London Hospital [image 25]. No emails or internets, yet by the time the G.P. was off the phone his first operation at “the London” had been agreed for first thing next morning and an ambulance was on its way.

The ambulance seemed a bit disappointing, elderly and without flashing lights. Until he decided that was good news, a precautionary journey, nothing to be worried about. Though before long he was wondering where he was heading. The local hospital had been more or less straight ahead, whereas he sensed he was going in a different direction as by now he should have been there.

By then his mind must have taken over unless ambulances had windows at the time - driving through a suburban shopping street, passed another hospital, then the driver stopping at yet another for directions.

Main Stopover 3 - “The London”

Of all the drama he experienced in Paradise Lost 1, the most dramatic of all he’d missed - operation 1 at “the London” as he was quietly asleep. While after winning for him the triple jackpot, fate was back to its conventional destructive practices.

He had six operations at “the London”. Operation 1 was the “life or death” one – give him half an hour more, then call it a day. Then “routine” operations 2 and 3, operation 4 that reconfigured his communication capacity, ending with “routine” operations 5 and 6. With a fresh x-ray every other day, he was indeed made to feel it was all routine. He even found himself feeling proud of his abscess as apparently it wasn’t routine.

So, fate had to come up with some fresh entertainment.

Talking Rubbish

When he regained consciousness after operation 1, he found he’d lost the ability to communicate. He understood as in the past, yet whatever he wanted to say came out as rubbish. He gave up trying after watching people craning their heads to suggest they understood what he was saying, which he knew they couldn’t just like him. His mind was functioning as usual, the printer in it wasn’t.

At least his silence protected everyone from his fury, while he was soon challenging himself with new forms of communication. Fortunately, operation 1 had already cleared him of ever needing glasses due to me, and two months later operation 4 saved him from Jack and Jill Book 2 – he was never given Book 1 – to try to get him going again mechanically. Very gently though with complete certainty, his communication – 98% of the past in 21 months.

Friendly Connection

At least his fury was asswaged for a time every day by his friendly connection. Soon after operation 1, when he woke first thing in the morning and in the afternoon if he’d been asleep, he could express three syllables as if still in “timelessness”. 

He could repeat the syllables four times, though only with care. Repeat them too quickly and his friendly connection would immediately be lost as if in anger. Equally if he added something or tried something entirely different. Say the syllables too slowly and this time his friendly connection would quietly disappear in the same way as with his correctly performed four repeats. It was as if his friendly connection was saying “goodbye” and “see you again”.

His friendly connection seemed to continue for a long time on every occasion, though probably for nothing more than 10 minutes, initially some exploration and mistakes, then quietly enjoying the friendship. Only three syllables, yet quite enough for him to feel he was still engaged.

Except on one day, both first thing in the morning and again in the afternoon. It was a very bad day. He hadn’t realised how important his friendly connection had become. Now he’d lost it, completely out on his own. He thought of the people who appear to be brain dead, yet fully connected without anyone realising. It was frightening. Except his friendly connection was back again next morning as if nothing had happened.

His friendly connection was as if powered by an elderly battery. Fully charged overnight and the connection was strong, try again in the afternoon when there’d been less recharge time available and it was poor. He’d wanted to share his excitement, in part for confirmation, except he couldn’t. He didn’t have any other syllables to explain.

He was sad not to have had a chance to say “goodbye” and “thank you” to his friendly connection after operation 4. He’d still like to known what happened to it.

Epilepsy  [image 26]

If it was possible, his fit made his fury even worse. He knew that the world had moved on from the time when epileptic fits were attributed to madness, now a condition that could be managed. He’d also learned there were two types, one more worrying than the other, and his was the latter.

He’d always felt sympathy for anyone with it, except for himself. Surely his fit had been a “one off” caused by his brain blowing again, though he knew enough it was unlikely. It left him feeling he’d lost control, someone or something had taken over, he was no longer the person he’d been.

Fate’s Final Straw

It was as good as over. Operations 5 and 6 had been doing the clearing up. It was almost time for him and me to go, with fate’s destruction in “somewhere else” very poor. Until shortly after breakfast one morning, his temperature suddenly shot up.

Immediately he remembered the unconscious patient in intensive care in the Royal Brisbane lying unconscious on his icepack to keep his temperature down. Now up, his own was refusing to go down [image 27].

What followed was inevitable given his neurology nurse training. The pain was completely different from the others, mental joining in, perhaps even worse as it was being forced on him. An iced sponge in a hot day causes screams of delight. With the heat being caused within and the ice imposed on him… once again he remembered the unconscious patient. When would it be his turn?

Which also reminded him of images of people being burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages, with the caption “for their own good”. Though he shouldn’t have put it quite that way. It must have been almost as uncomfortable for the nurses as for him, setting things up and checking his performance while no one knew why it was happening.

Then suddenly his temperature slid down in time for tea, as fast as it had shot up. Immense relief all round. Whatever the reason, it had gone. Though it took him quite a time to settle down.

Or rather it wasn’t over. A day off, then the torture returned, every alternative day. Except his day off wasn’t a day of rest. Just preparing for the next and wondering how much longer could he endure it? And if his temperature had gone up, why bother for it to come down?

He was now weak, tired, wanting to roll up in a ball and go to sleep. It was now five months since his brain blew. Everyone had done everything for him. Now it didn’t matter anymore.

It was the 10th day, an “off day”, when another stranger arrived. His imagination saw the stranger walking passed his window and leaving soon after. Except his ward was on the second floor and he couldn’t see any entrance.

The stranger had come from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases [image 28]. He was told he had malaria [image 29]. The traditional way to cope without any treatment was to leave him alone to sweat it out in the way his mind had wanted. Except here he was surrounded by treatment.

And almost nothing needed. A tiny pill for 10 days, the same size as the one that had been protecting him till he forgot in “timelessness”.

Even more amazing, he prepared for another torture day, assuming his malaria would gradually wear itself away, except nothing happened at all. What a roller-coasted fate had been playing, and think of all the people still dying from malaria every year, or still struggling to keep going with it? The islanders would have known.

Why malaria? There was malaria in “timelessness”. He’d taken a pill every Friday evening, including four weeks before leaving and four weeks in Brisbane – though he’d been a bit worried there as his own pill had been tiny and the other large. Until he finally remembered, the Friday evening in the “local hospital” when he couldn’t eat or drink and the following Friday in Honiara Hospital of which he had no awareness.

Happy Torture Ending

After its torture trick, fate took a break till Paradise Lost 2. Except even the neurology team came up with a torture trick of their own. Scans still hadn’t been invented. Instead, he was given another Middle Ages torture, “the wheel”, turning him around in 360 degrees. Upside down he vomited again, though no one cared. The torture confirmed his abscess had completely gone.

Which led to his setting off with me on our trial and error hemi journey in the hemi main story to find out what it was like to have a hemi - and with no thought of recuperation or need for trauma relied.

Why Paradise Lost 1? His loss of “timelessness". 

It will hit him most disturbingly of all 42 years on - once again, Paradise Lost 2.