Robert Rankin - Web Site Story

'Thank you,' said Derek, to no-one in particular. 'This is a poem dedicated to a lady. She's a very special lady. She doesn't know that she's a very special lady, but to me she is.'

'What's her name?' called out Old Pete, lately helped up from the floor.

'That's my secret,' said Derek.

'I'll bet it's this bird here,' said Old Vic, pointing towards Kelly. 'The bird with the nice charlies.'

Kelly glared pointy daggers, Old Vic took to cowering.

'The poem is untitled,' continued Derek.

'So what's it called?' Old Pete called.

'It doesn't have a tide.'

'A poem should have a title,' said Old Vic. 'Or at least a rank. We all had ranks in the prisoner-of-war camp.'

'Yeah,' called a pimply youth. 'You were all a bunch of rankers.'

The barman (who had been conversing in Brentford Auld Speke to a wandering bishop, down from Orton Goldhay for the annual congress of wandering bishops that was held in the function room above the Four Horsemen public house) shouted out, 'Oi! We'll have no trouble here.'

'It should have a title,' said Old Vic. 'It should !'

'All right,' said Derek. 'It's called "Sir Untitled Poem", OK?'

Kelly looked at her watch once more. Perhaps she should just go.

'"Sir Untitled Poem,'" said Derek, launching into 'Sir Untitled Poem'.

As Kelly had feared, 'Sir Untitled Poem' was pants. It was one of those excruciating love sonnets that lonely teenage boys compose when all alone in their bedrooms, and then make the mistake (only once!) of reciting to their very first girlfriend on their very first date.

It would, however, possibly have ranked as just another poem of the evening, had not something occurred during its reciting.

It was something truly dire and it put a right old damper on the evening. So truly dire, in fact, was it, that the wandering bishop, who had been chatting with the barman, found himself very much the man of the moment, several pimply youths found themselves in the loving arms of fat moustachioed poetesses, and Old Vic finally found another subject worthy of a poem.

Not that he would recite it at the Brentford Poets for a while. What with the Arts Centre being closed for extensive refurbishment, what with all the mayhem and destruction and suchlike.

But before this truly dire event occurs, as it most certainly must, it will be necessary for us to take a rather radical step and return to the past, so that the truly dire event might be truly understood.

We must return to the evening before last.

To the cottage hospital and the bed of Big Bob Charker.

The time is eight of the evening clock.

And Big Bob isn't happy.

Big Bob Charker lay upon his bed of pain. Not that he was aware of any pain. He wasn't. Big Bob was not aware that his nose had been broken, nor that he had suffered extensive bruising, a degree of laceration and a fractured left big toe.

He was not alone in his ignorance of the left big toe injury, the doctors at the cottage hospital had missed that one too.

Big Bob Charker was aware of nothing whatever at all.

If he had been capable of any awareness whatsoever he would have been aware that his last moments of awareness were of his awareness vanishing away. Of everyday objects becoming strange and alien. Of colour and sound becoming things of mystery, of speech becoming meaningless. Of everything just going.

But Big Bob was unaware.

Big Bob lay there, eyes wide open, staring at nothing at all. Staring at nothing and knowing nothing. Nothing whatever at all.

Dr Druid stared down at his patient. 'I hate to admit this,' he told a glamorous nurse. 'But this doesn't make any sense to me at all.'

'Could it be conjunctivitis?' asked the nurse, who had recently come across the word in a medical dictionary and had been looking for an opportunity to use it.

'No,' said Dr Druid, sadly shaking his head.

'What about scrapie then?'

'I don't think so,' said the doctor.

'What about thrush?' asked the nurse, who had more words left in her.

'Shut up,' said the doctor.

Pearson Clarke (son of the remarkable Clive and brother to the sweetly smelling Bo-Jangles Clarke, who bathed four times a day and sang country songs about trucks to those prepared to listen) grinned at the nurse and then at Dr Druid. Pearson Clarke was an intern with ideas above his station. His station was South Haling and most of his ideas were well above that. 'You should run a brain scan,' said Pearson Clarke.

'I have run a brain scan,' said Dr Druid. 'It shows that this patient has absolutely no brain activity whatsoever.'

'That's impossible,' said Pearson Clarke. 'Even deep coma patients have brain activity. They dream.'

'This man doesn't dream,' said Dr Druid. 'Nor do the other two patients, the driver and the woman with the unpronounceable name.'

'I can pronounce it,' said Pearson Clarke. 'It's pronounced…'

'Shut up,' said Dr Druid. 'It's as if this man's thoughts, his memories, his personality, everything has been erased. Wiped clean. Gone.'

'That isn't how the brain works,' said Pearson Clarke. 'That can't happen. A patient can lose his memory. But the memory is still there in his head, he simply can't access it. Mostly it's just temporarily impaired. Bits come back, eventually.'

'I'm sure I recall telling you to shut up,' said Dr Druid. 'Although my memory might be temporarily impaired.'

'Impetigo,' said the nurse.

'Shut up, nurse,' said the doctor.

'Joking apart,' said Pearson Clarke. 'The brain-scan machine might be broken. You know that thing people do, photocopying their bottoms? Well, Igor Riley the mortuary attendant

'Son of Blimey and brother to Smiley Riley, who swears he has a genie in a bottle?'

'That's him, well, Igor Riley has been scanning his bottom in the brain-scan machine. He might have, well, farted in it, or something. It's a very delicate machine.'

'I'll have him sacked in the morning then.'

'Rather you than me,' said Pearson Clarke. 'A bloke in a pub once punched Igor Riley in the ear. Igor told his brother and his brother got his genie to turn the bloke into a home-brewing starter pack, or it might have been a…'

'Shut up,' said the doctor. 'Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.'

'Please yourself then,' said Pearson Clarke, grinning at the nurse, who grinned right back at him.

'I think it's Tourette's syndrome,' whispered the nurse.

'I f**king heard that,' said Dr Druid. 'But, as I said, before I was so rudely and irrelevantly interrupted, I am baffled by these patients. We might be witnessing something altogether new here. Something as yet unlisted in the medical dictionary.'

'That's me screwed then,' said the nurse. 'And I thought I was doing so well.'

‘I’ll teach you some more words later,' said the doctor.

‘I’ll just bet you will,' said Pearson Clarke. 'But listen, if this isn't listed, it will need a name. How about Clarke's syndrome? That rolls off the tongue.'

'Yes,' said Dr Druid. 'Druid's syndrome. I like that.'

'Eh?' said Pearson Clarke.

'Oh look,' said the nurse. 'Look at the patient, doctor.'

'Yes,' said Dr Druid. 'I am a very patient doctor.'

'No doctor, the patient. Look at the patient.'

'What?' asked Dr Druid, looking. 'What about the patient, nurse?'

'He's flickering, doctor. Look at him.'

Dr Druid looked and his eyes became truly those of the tawny owl. Big and round, like Polo mints, with black dots in the middle. Possibly liquorice.

'Oh,' went Dr Druid. 'Oh.' And 'Oh dear me.'

For Big Bob Charker was nickering.

Flickering like crazy.

His head was coming and going like the image on a TV screen when a heavy lorry goes by outside, or at least the way they used to do in the old days.