A Good Life

He stands on the corner of East Bank Way and Fabian Way, in the long winter shadow of Swansea Dockers Sports and Social Club, his tragic, asymmetrical body a cautionary tale of what might be.

The traffic is slow. It’s the usual blockage: cars, vans, buses and trucks, turning into Quay Parade, ignoring the yellow cross-hatched box that says to new drivers, “Do not enter unless your exit is clear”, but in the hurried world of nine o’clock deadlines, a warning to be ignored, along with the cheery horns of the oncoming traffic.

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Try and Drink a Little Less

Her body shook, her legs trembled, her nerves were precious plates in unsteady hands about to fall to the floor. She must somehow keep a lid on it all.

            A medic in a white coat came out. The crowd waiting in A & E became alert. ‘Angela Phillips?’ the white coat said. ‘That’s me,’ she mumbled and they all stared at her, a sick, grey-haired woman

            ‘This way,’ she was told. Fifty pairs of eyes followed her out of the cramped room.

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Ruin

I’ve developed a grudging respect for my disease, it’s merely  fighting to survive same as me; both of us were unwitting guinea pigs of doctors  who misdiagnosed us, then prescribed inappropriate treatment, courtesy of the deplorable Sackler family.  It was an osteopath in the end  who felt the adhesions under my skin, with more skill in her fingertips and common sense than the scores of medics who had assessed me before. What precisely are they trained for if they can’t spot a disease as common as diabetes that only occurs in women?

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NO WAY OUT

Native girl in a cave with the body of her chieftan, a flask, and oil lamp on a low table

Aysha had been running and hiding for two days, and still they followed her relentlessly. Now laying under a thorn bush, she was quivering. Her once sleek body was emaciated, a pale grey colour, her eyes seemed to take up her whole face, a beaten look in them.

            The hunters found her the next morning, dragging her out and they set off for the krall. She had to be returned. They placed her in the care of the wise woman who set about treating her wounds, purging her of the parasites that she had swallowed in the river water, feeding her honey water and thin gruel. She slowly  recovered .

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