May sisters challenge; mayhem

mayhem 1472, from Anglo-Fr. maihem (13c.), from O.Fr. mahaigne "injury," related to mahaignier "to maim". Originally, in law, the crime of maiming a person to make him less able to defend himself or annoy his adversary.

I’m tired and a little irritable. I stand in the doorway of Anniemay’s study;
me: “do you know what ‘mayhem’ actually means? It’s a criminal offence”
her; “I do now”.

I usually have my blip sorted - at least in conception if not in execution - before breakfast. It’s now the middle of the afternoon and my mind is blank.

It’s been a busy day so far. Anniemay went off to the Apple store for a 1-2-1 training session on Aperture first thing this morning, while I did some painting and then we’ve been working in the garden ever since.

There’s a large, heavy pot at the bottom of the garden which needs moving. I try and lift it but can’t even get it off the ground. I can hear my (new) next door neighbour in his garden and decided to call on him for help. He comes round - no shirt on (this will shortly become significant) - ignores my offer of help, picks up the pot and marches off up the garden with it. I follow behind and in so doing, notice his back. Every body tells a story.

There’s a long curved scar that runs under his left shoulder blade. Just like the one on my back. Wow - what are the chances? This sure is one way of getting to know your neighbour. I tell him that I recognise that type of scar. We compare notes. We’re both missing a chunk of left lung. Mine was a bowel cancer secondary; his was a complex and unusual tumour that ended up in his lung.

He’s a young man, with a young family. I’m an old(er) man with an older family. But I’m struck, as we talk, about the chaos that cancer brings to our lives; how out of control life becomes, like the cells themselves as they grow and divide ever more quickly. And suddenly I have my blip.

I’ve blipped these plants before; alpine strawberries. This is the best (i.e., most benign) metaphor for cancer cells that I can come up with. What started as one small plant, has become in just a few years, a rampaging mass of greenery and fruits covering 6 square yards of our front garden. As I write, new runners are about to make an even greater bid for freedom by crossing a concrete path. I can readily believe that, left unchecked, they will eventually take over their host.