I have Man Flu. But before that I had a stomach bug. I fought the stomach bug with Metronidazole and I was winning the fight, we were really killin those buggers called Giardia lamblia, knocking them over their heads until the Man Flu joined the fight. And it came with an arsenal, a litany of aches and pains. It blocked my nose and it punched me in the already sore gut. You don’t want to fall sick on a mountain.
How I ended up ill in the mountain was that I decided that my life this year wasn’t going according to plan. The ducks aren’t standing in a line. So I went up the mountain, but not like Moses, just like me. To draw a plan. Read a book. Think things over. Be an adult. I went to this log cabin in Mt Kenya called Castle Forest Lodge. Last I was there was 2008. I carried my antibiotics with me, ugly pellets that taste like dying roots. There is an actual castle there which the Queen visited sometime back when she was still a girl. It’s all very simple; cabin, fireplace, a mirror, a bed, bathroom and a door. There are small windows but you never open them because of the cold. Because it’s at the foot of Mt Kenya it’s all very cold. The grass is the kind of green you see in cartoons. Like Teletubbies. It’s all quaint. There are horses on a grassy hill, feeding. In the evenings you will see smoke snaking from a chimney. There is an old and deaf Labrador that constantly basks in the meadow. Well, technically it’s not a meadow but I choose to call it a meadow. The dog looked sad. All his family members are dead. She’s the last one remaining. She made me sad. Whenever I rubbed her neck she’d look up at me with these sad dog eyes. I have been meaning to get a dog. A Golden retriever but Danzo, my dog whisperer, thinks it’s a terrible idea seeing as I live in an apartment. “It will only stress the dog. Plus housebreaking will not take longer than five months.” Well, that’s shelved for now then.
If you want to die, take alcohol with Metronidazole. So I didn’t have any to drink at the mountain. Which was very sad because you need a whisky in that cold and pretend you are in the Baltics. However at night—against my better judgement—I smoked a blunt. When I woke up my throat was rubbish. I gargled salty water, dropped some antihistamine down my throat and waited it out. Now I have a full-blown Man Flu. Of course I’m dying. I’m a man. We all die from Man Flu.
Let me recover [writes this with a whisper]. I shall see you guys next week.
No mischief while I’m gone. Also, no, don’t share another dawa recipe. The world doesn’t need it. What we need is love.
Shalom.
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Meanwhile, you can get a copy of my books DRUNK or THURSDAYS, HERE.