My Secret Fear

Are you afraid of old age?

Ever since I can remember, it was not the thought of death which really terrified me, but of actually growing old. The thought of not having complete control of my body, and not being able to function in a self-sufficient manner, has always been a nightmare. I hate depending on others and being a burden, and the knowledge and certainty that someday, this time will arrive (if I do not die young that is), has always terrified me.

When I was nineteen, my grandfather, who was a writer, a poet, and a very intelligent man and whom I loved very much – had a stroke. He ended up in a wheel-chair, was not able to move the left side of his body at all, suffered from incontinence, and had to be lugged about, washed, cleaned, and taken care of by his two middle aged children and their spouses in order to survive. Day and night. Every day. For years. He begged us to let him end it. Twice, my mother found he had dragged his wheelchair to the window and was trying, ineffectually, to jump. Since assisted suicide is illegal in Malta, and since we didn’t want to let him go, we aborted his attempts. He suffered immensely for two years. And then, he had another stroke. A worse one, which caused him to actually forget who we were. I don’t even want to go into the agony I felt when my grandpa, who had been so independent, witty, and wise, who had survived the war and taught me to love books, reading and knowledge – didn’t even know who I was.

Anyways, after four and a half years of terrible pain, my grandpa died. I know that for him, this was a relief.

My grandma, his wife, is currently over 80 years old. She suffers from severe arthritis, can hardly walk, is almost deaf, and blind from one eye due to a botched cataract operation. She is lonely and misses my grandpa a lot. All she does is cry, swallow her pills (she has many of those), and pray. I love my grandma, but I know she is waiting for death. And that terrifies me.

It terrifies me because when I look at her, I see myself, as I will be, in some fifty or so years. It seems far away now… but time is short and flies quickly… and someday, that part of my life will arrive…

It does not bear thinking about…

 

Movie Review – Birdman – SPOILERS

Personal rating – 1 Star

I was really looking forward to watching this movie, not only because it’s the movie which won the bigger number of Oscars this year (4 in all), but because I like Michael Keaton as an actor, and I simply salivate over Edward Norton’s talent -he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by the way.

So there I was on a Saturday evening, home-made salami and mushroom pizza in one hand, glass of wine in the other, breathlessly waiting for it to start. Then after a while, waiting for it to actually kick in… then after an hour, waiting for SOMETHING to happen, and then after more than an hour and a half, just waiting for it to end. Which it finally did.

Disappointment as a word, barely describes my feelings.

Basically the film recounts the last week in the life of a sixty-year old something actor who had been famous in the 90s for his ‘Birdman’ role as the Superhero du jour… reference to Batman much? Riggan Thomson (aka Keaton) played Birdman in 3 movies and then after turning down Birdman 4, receded into semi-anonymity and cheesy roles, until finally he tried to break out as a success in the theatre instead of the big screen. Keaton, who, like Riggan, last starred in his last Batman movie in 1992 (he had the role for only 2 of the movies), afterwards DID kind of spiral into more mediocre roles. So, one obviously asks, is Birdman the film a parody of Keaton’s life?

Riggan directs and stars in a play in Broadway, apart from his tired and washed up life, we also meet up with the interlocking stories of his co-actors, their problems, their licentious sexual lives, and their general emotional and psychological confusion. Many of the reviews I read lauded Birdman saying that it gave the audience an insight into actors’ actual struggles… so, basically this film won 5 Oscars for showing non-actors that actors were as fucked up and decadent as everybody else? Wow, big deal!

Norton was kind of okayish – given that the part he had to play was totally pointless and colorless, but still almost every movie I’ve watched him in showcased his talent better than this one.

In the end, fed up of hearing the voice of his past superhero alter-ego berating him for being such a looser (and being right) and asking him to leave the theater and invest in a Birdman remake, Riggan tries to commit suicide… during his play’s premier. He botches it, as he botches everything else, and ends up in hospital. Everyone knows it was a suicide attempt, yet they seem to ignore that, leaving Riggan alone in a vast and unsupervised hospital bedroom in a sky-high building. Needless to be said, Riggan, believing himself to be able to fly as Birdman did, opens his enormous hospital window and jumps off. Riggan’s druggie daughter comes into the room, and not finding him, looks out. We are not shown what she sees, however we see her looking up and smiling.

THE END

So, what? Was Riggan really flying?

Wow, we didn’t see that coming at all did we?

And THIS movie won 5 Oscars, while a gem like The Imitation Game won only one?!

Say it with me – W…T….F !!

A Violent Kiss

I wrote this for the esternewtonblog as part of her weekly 70-word challenge.

Eyes blue with sky, hands clasped against the wind, pleated skirts already flying. Waiting for that special second.

Steps crunch hurriedly against the dark rooftop ‘Are you friggin kidding me? You don’t have the balls bitches’ comes the sniggering denial.

We smile, aware of our undisclosed power. Forever secret. Forever ours. Twin-like dribbles of spittle smudge harlot-red lipstick. A little lick and…

JUMP!

The pavement soars in a violent kiss.