Mocking the Afflicted

Mocking the Afflicted ©

By

Michael Casey

I had to get up early today for a blood test, a fasting one too, which meant I could not eat after 10pm last night. As you can imagine I was starving by the time I got home after the blood test. I had to walk a bit to in the cold which set off my pains. Ok, I won’t bore you with that, the other thing though is that I got a printout of my medical history going back to 1975. So as I had my breakfast and lots to drink, I am a big fluids person after all, I had a look at my medical printout.

Then I swallowed my beta blocker which slows down my heart so it does not explode. My pigs are upstairs having their last lie in of the Christmas holidays while I talk to you all. I was going through the newspapers when I spotted something about a Utuber who was in Japan, it was in the Guardian I think. This person went to a well know suicide spot in a woods and filmed a victim he’d found there. A film star condemned him for such crass behaviour. You can all find it for yourselves and let him know what you think.

Mocking the afflicted is not a sport. In the old days the village idiot was protected by the village, yes they may not treat him perfectly well but he was protected. I was watching Peaky Blinders on Netflix over the holidays, it’s very good by the way. In it there was somebody who suffered from Shell Shock as it would now be called.He was protected by the Brummie gangster who had been a war hero. Yes, the tale did end in tears, but otherwise he was protected.

In my next full length book, Tears for a Butcher, which I may never finish, it’ll take a year of my life, or 3 months if I am lucky enough to be able to borrow a legal secretary I could recite the tale to. In that follow on to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker which is 30 years old this year, yes I cannot believe it either. Well in it you have twin sisters who are the publican’s daughters. They are beautiful beyond compare, but they are also very dangerous, as all girls are.

So who do they fall in love with? They fall in love with the draymen, one of whom has a stutter but can sing, and the other who has a limp. When I write it up it will be both funny and full of pathos. Because the two draymen are mocked by football fans from outside the area. Annie and Betty will not stand for this so they stand by their man. You don’t speak to my bloke like that, leads to Annie and Betty using their martial arts skills to bounce the outsiders out of their home, the pub. Then there is 18 certificate kissing in the bar, they have decided the draymen are theirs and so they put a marker down, or a tongue down throat might be more accurate. Typical writing by me.

The point though is that the twins Annie and Betty want real men, not plastic selfie taking posers. Men who will love them always. Yes one has a limp, but he has personality and great eyes. The other has a stutter but when he sings it disappears and his voice goes straight through her, she’d do anything for him. Tell your own daughters never to be impressed by the superficial. Its depth of character that matters, if he can make you laugh then marry him.

I am also a big believer in the little people, because they always but always surprise us. The least of the brethren are there for a reason. I know some would say I’m on the scrapheap, that I’m useless. So I am reminded of myself when I see people less fortunate than me. That’s why I try in small ways to help others. We all can, it doesn’t have to involve money if you have none to give. You can give a smile, a look, a word, a joke, or just hold open that door for somebody. Or just wave to the bus driver so that he waits for somebody.

All these simple things show our humanity, and it’s how we treat the least of our brethren that shows just who great we are. Annie and Betty in my story see the humanity within and that’s what they find so attractive. Yes life is not perfect, and I certainly am not. But one thing I’d never do is mock and laugh over a body of a stranger in Japan or anywhere else, because he is one of my brethren.