G21 EUROPE

London Calling!

Stress

by Felicity Ussher

G21 Europe Staff Writer

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Boxed up, shoulders tense, no chance of a smile. Too blinkered even to ask someone for some perspective. Don't want to have to explain how the situation has escalated because I might lose the focus or, worse, have it explained away pacifyingly. Surely this is vital? Can do nothing except watch raindrops dripping down the window pane in the corner of the pub. Or stare at the carpet, allowing the familiar feel of cotton wool to suffocate my mind. Sitting still stressed. Hanging on, hanging on to this immediacy where everything seems connected in this moment of time. All has been leading up to this point and any future scene is unimaginable.

"What's wrong?"

Nothing. Everything. Me. I don't know. I can't speak.

"You've said nothing all evening."

"No."

"So speak. Say something."

Bite off the universe in the palm of my hand? They were all looking now. Waiting. Four enquiring faces, some half-smiling. I had been rude all evening and given the impression of being bored. It wasn't so hard to speak was it?

TRIO: THOMAS HART talks about "THE POLICE." FLISS USSHER delivers a second Dangerous Vision! LONDON CALLING! "Stress." IRISH EYES: as 9 April approaches, JOE O'NEILL offers a special editorial "DEADLINE FOR PEACE." POWERSBOOKS looks at the Dangerous Visions available from a number of books and "PRIVATE THOUGHTS." VOX POPULI, YOUR E-mail alternative to the Message Board is updated! G21 WORDS DOUBLE FEATURE: POETRY: NATHAN BLACK - "Rationalizations of The Hermit" HYPER-FICTION: ROD AMIS - "Quiet Worlds" BARE KNUCKLES: JEFF WINBUSH kicks off the Dangerous Visions Issue with "REGGIE WHITE GOES DOWN." FLISS USSHER's G21 EUROPE column LONDON CALLING! has a Dangerous Vision of a generation in "PARABLE OF A GENERATION" G21 ASIA RAOUL TESLA reports from Angeles, the Philippines. ANOTHER Great Joke of the Day in THE HOUSE OF CARDS! G21 ASIA has KIM CARTER back talking about another type of foolishness in "CANNIBAL ISLAND." JENNIFER BLUE's PLANETARY MADNESS looks at YOUR influences! Hello! Use The Message Board HOME

My friends looked in and in and in on me. Not through my eyes, which were averted, but through my skull and into my mind, sending adrenaline coursing through my brain. The billions of neurons were transmitting electric impulses across my synapses, linking them up in ways never seen, reacting with enzymes to continue the chain. Perhaps dull cotton wool would have been better than this uncertain ground.

Fragmented and discombobulated, I stared at them in horror.

"Jesus, Fliss, what's your problem?"

The synapses kept transmitting as my sweat poured. Electric impulses sent at random, looking for a solution. Billions of neurons like billions of people. Triggered, jostling, making connections and trying to create a pattern, a way to escape. Identifying symbols and positing explanations.

What was my problem? That just summed up what they thought of me. Their domineering attitude, the way they laughed at me, and their constant disrespect for my opinions and my state of mind. I had never been accepted there.

Nor at work, nor at my homeless abode.

"Look, you reactionary, egotistical, secluded child of loving parents. Get a fucking grip!"

What? Would that be the reaction if I shared my thoughts? What if it was? Imagine not. It helps. Like the lucid nightmares, where you know you are dreaming and the only way to make your terror subside is to look it in the face and see it shrivel into an innocuous little man who turns away.

I hadn't said anything but even so, she wasn't smiling any more. She was frustrated by me. Impatient and getting bored. My nervous response system, however, was gathering speed.

I felt a tremendous urgency. The time had come to sort out and conclude these issues, to move forward into new ground. Here was an opportunity for me at last to trust to my instincts. To voice the real me. So much in life was compromise, superficial, just so people could get along. I would channel all this intensity into something positive and say something real. Just like artists, whose truths come when they are deep in concentration. Ready to bite off the universe and march alone.

I am different. I am different. I am different.

But they had all realised that long ago. Or had They? Was it they? Or was it Mit and Milla and Char and friends who all had their separate aspirations and failings and nuggets of gold? Not against me or for me but with me and like me. I mused, and gradually the thoughts came back. Gentle thoughts, that progressed but did not scare me.

So I would be positive. See each thing for itself and not as part of some master plan. Fill life with the small details that constitute meaning, whichever way you look at them.

"I think I will start yoga next week, to give me more mental space and I will take up life classes to get back in touch with the human body, my body, and how it works. I shall read good literature and keep up to date with what is going on in the world. When others need me to care for them, I shall do this. And with a happy heart, what's more. I shall love and maybe through this, one day, I shall be loved."

"Hey Fliss, just chill out will you, you silly, sweet thing. Relax will you, and let me get you another pint?"

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