36: Light in the Bloodstream
Hope. Hope is a funny thing. Partly because it’s so hard to define. A lot of people think it’s some ethereal, delicate thing, loosely connected to candle flames, perhaps. For me it’s never been that. For me, hope is an impregnable granite rock in my soul which refuses to collapse even in the most dire of circumstances, and there’s been many of those over the decades. It can actually be irritating on days when I’d like to sink into a nice, restful despair. Hope demands action. Refuses to let adverse circumstances just be.
But hope can be even more than that. It can be found in different forms in many places. One of them is when we piece together the fragments of ourselves after trauma has shattered us. It’s not about trying to unmake traumatic events, it’s in excavating ourselves from the rubble and stitching what once was into what now is. That’s when we begin to live again and that’s what One-Armed Nick is doing in this episode. Enjoy!
A reminder that on the 5th July, an omnibus edition of One-Armed Nick is coming out for all you folks who like to binge read him. Free subscribers, you’ll be able to read more of the epsiodes than you usually can. To get back to the main list of episodes, click here.
Episode 36: Light in the Bloodstream
“Where’ve you been?” Said Danu as a deflated-looking Nick sloped into view.
“Oh leave me alone, not now.” He made it as far as his tree stump by the Windrush and folded down upon it, single arm resting heavily on his thigh, torso bent inwards, staring at the ground. If there’d been a tavern to go to and drown himself in ale, he would have done. If only he could still drink.
