Monthly Archives: June 2014

Mit Reklaw’s Raw

Wasn’t long ago I considered myself clinically depressed. I then realised that for a twenty-something-year-old recovering-head-injury-patient to feel this way, was a glaring fucking cliché. It was primarily for that reason that I stopped…

Considering myself depressed.

Most probably I still was, I just refused to see myself as a sad statistic. In fact, most probably I still am; I just don’t allow myself to see this life for the shit-heap that it is.

Thing is, from all those years ago until now, I wonder what the hell has even changed. I mean, I’m still a recovering head injury patient – much as I detest thinking of myself in that way, truth is, my brain is and will always be a damaged. Yeah. So what else do I reckon has change since I was forced out of my dream carer on account of a piece of shit, infuriatingly fickle and indeed, rather fucking bothersome Post Traumatic, Rubral Tremor?

Well, I am doing more now than I ever have done, so I guess that’s something. Still, I do wonder how much of what I could actually be seen as meaningful – how much of what I do at the moment would pose a deficit if the man behind the face yet above the shoes, was no longer in existence?

To all those people with happy little intact brains, the majority of my daily chores would no doubt be perceived as ‘pointless busywork’ – that or just ‘fucking around’.

Yes. Clever cunt. I concur. You see, in order to tackle the big projects one requires wherewithal; in order to possess wherewithal one generally requires a job; in order to hold down a job, well, one requires some sort of current skill set…

You are currently looking at my current skill set.

I’ve been draining the NZ Government for over  ten years now – that said, I don’t suppose they’d even notice if my less-than-minimum-wage weekly compensation was stopped.

Ha. Who am I kidding? Someone fucks up my pay almost every three months and no one ever seems to notice; it’s up to me to find the reason that once again, my medical certificate has not gone through. Given my monetary constraints, including a mortgage and other obligatory costs, this minor fuck-up causes me major distress.

I have extreme fucking difficulty dealing with any kind of stress.

Thing is, my nerves are shot to shit. An affliction not aided by the ostensible fucking incompetence of those people in the nation’s more high-fucking-ranking, important positions. The same ones ironically, who earn the massive fucking salaries and by all rights, should be less likely to fuck things up.

This is but a sample of the shit that plagues my world.

Recently I signed up for a proofreading cum editing correspondence course. It was to be a computer course, thus not requiring pen to paper. Such a potential breakthrough exited me. I have developed a technique which enables me to operate the aforementioned piece of equipment with relative ease – work on a computer is rather more efficient than the Bic inspired alternative.

Well. The course package turned up the other day.  This parcel comprised a lot of paper, a few pens, along with instructions on how and where I should write my answers.

I almost fucking cried.

In hindsight, I should have realised that something was up on the walk back from my Post Box: the beat that I was happily tapping out on the side of the package sounded suspiciously akin to the same beat I had played earlier, on a copy of Jeffrey Archer’s False Impression – wads of paper have difficulty disguising themselves under a drum-beat.

Shitty circumstances notwithstanding I still intended to complete the course, it was just going to be lot more strenuous than it otherwise would have: I find that if I tense the muscles in my arms, back and shoulders to near tearing point, I can usually manage three or four neatly written words each minute. Oh yeah, everything in my world’s fucking rosy.

The question. What has changed from eight, nine, ten years ago, where I would exert on life around seven times the effort of regular folk for only a fraction of the progress?

Nothing really. Still pushing; still being driven back. Still attempting; still failing. Still fighting; still being defeated. Still facing up; still facing down. Still putting in the effort of a dedicated motherfucker; still being comprehensively fucked over.

Sounds silly, but I have always felt that things go wrong for me great deal more than they do for others.

Silly? It’s fucking outrageous. It’s not the case at all, either. It’s just that when things do go wrong for me it’s a fuck-load more significant, because it turns out I’m pretty much fucking useless, therefore powerless to put them right. See, I used to able to fix things. Now I just flail a lot and tend to break more things. I also used to have money so on the occasion that I couldn’t fix the problem, I could pay someone who could. Dude, tradesmen are as expensive as fuck. Hence my life is currently riddled with broken or malfunctioning objects that I am either too fucking useless to repair myself, too poor to have repaired, or too fucking idiotically proud to ask for assistance to put right.

Back when I still thought I was good, back when I believed I still had the ability to fix things, I pleaded my mother for a $1500 loan to buy a project car. 1978 Holden Kingswood fucking shit-kicking panel van – Lucifer moved into my life on 6/6/6; static from thereafter. My (earned) bicycle needs professional attention. My (gifted) computer died. Then my replacement (gifted) fucking keyboard went bung, too. My (gifted) fucking printer ceased function. My (hard fucking earned) spa pool is on the blink. Fuck’s sake. Then sometime in between all that failure my (late grandfather’s) watch stopped. My cell phone, circa 2008, (paid $100 for that one) is on its last legs also…

A lot of the reason for these failings, I guess, is the fact that I can’t afford to buy replacement objects thus have to draw out the lifespan of my existing objects.

Existing objects. Full circle. Currently, I am an existing object. Somewhat of a fucking travesty, admittedly, but an existing object nonetheless.

My life is tantamount to a festering pile of shit in the back paddock. No one cares that it’s there and whether it remains or if it were gone, makes fuck all difference.

Yet, similar to the days of old where if not for the cliché factor I would have quite happily claimed depression, this life does contain moments of joy.

Thing is about that, any good time is only as good as its most recent occurrence. For example, eight years ago my utmost joyful experience was sitting alone in my conservatory, sun on my face, coffee by my side; cigarette in my mouth. Some would say that’s a pretty fucking lame joyful moment – but it cost next to nothing. Granted, my skin has paid the price for the sun but cheap coffee’s cheap and my tobacco’s always duty free. All in all I paid fuck all for that joyful experience; that’s largely what made it so fucking good.

Now my world has been opened up to a whole fucking range of potential joyful moments and all of a sudden, coffee, sun and cigarette in the conservatory have lost its lustre.

As one goes through life, happiness can be located around many different corners. I didn’t go used to looking for new corners and on account of that, I was pretty fucking happy. Perspective. You can’t fucking yearn for what you don’t fucking know.

I was recently introduced to this newfangled Internet contraption. So essentially the pricks at Telecom charge me another $40 a month on top of my phone rental to look at porn; prior to that my spank-bank was located entirely in my head and totally cost-free. Also I am now attending a multitude of appointments up to 80k away, therefore clocking up hundreds of kilometres every week; in the past I would ride my bicycle wherever I needed to go and scarcely use my car. Whichever way you look at it, doing shit costs money. I am now doing more shit than I ever have done, making no more money and the best bit, I am constantly tired. On top of that, despite this recent excess of shit, I still only defecate once daily.

As if shit just won’t stop happening, I contracted Chlamydia a couple months back too. This came after more than six years of sexual aridity and the biggest fucking piss off, there neither was at the time, nor has there been since, any fucking substantial rainfall in the area. Turns out my undercooked sausage was just caught peering through the doorway of the infected hallway. All it took. On top of that injustice, took the meds, had diarrhoea for a fucking fortnight, then lo and behold, few weeks later testicle swelled into a nutty golf ball; had another check, infection remains. Fuck it.

Suffice to say, diarrhoea’s back and I’m thinking, ‘How the fuck is this fair?’

Oh that’s right, how silly of me. Life is not fucking fair. In saying that, it still seems to be a lot more not fucking fair to some than others. I wouldn’t be so pissed off right now if those fuck-faced pricks controlling the game showed some fucking consistency.

You sadistic fuckers, I see your theme. You let the raping and pillaging shitheads of the world live in incarcerated fucking comfort and of course, ensure there are always pillocks to lobby no their behalf for a higher fucking standard of living. You fucking penalise a decent guy and by fucking Christ, you make fucking sure you strip him of everyfuckingthing that he held dear, e-fucking-specially his quality of life. Penalise him for a simple fucking mistake. For one fucking mistake. The same kind of fucking mistake, that most fucking idiots, in most fucking every fucking part of most every fucking where, make most every fucking weekend. Fuck it.

Fucking nice one. Penalise the poor fucker once for nothing out of the fucking ordinary then continue to penalise the fucking shit out of him for the rest of his God forsaken fucking life.

Do that you fucking fuck-stain, if that’s the way you want to do it. I’ll just stand here and take it up the arse like a subservient fucking douche. You just give me a yell when you’re done butt-fucking me with your fateful fucking fuck tool, rinse and repeating. I really don’t have the energy to argue. I’m tired. Take me, take my life, screw me up, hey, roll me in dog shit if that’s your fuckful inclination; lie me down, allow me to unfurl and watch as I endeavour to rebuild a piece of shit life amid a piece of shit world.

Because that’s what I do. I rebuild destruction.

So. The question. Why the fuck do I bother?

Shit. Thought I had a clever answer for that one. Huh. Turns out I don’t. Fuck it. I’ve had it. I sure as fuck don’t have the energy to persevere. I’ve had it with this piece of shit world. I’ve waited for over ten years for it to start cooperating, for it to start playing the game. If it did, I would participate. Alas, it is not. Therefore, I am not. See the pattern, clever cunt? The game’s fucked, it truly is. Even so there is something holding me here. I’ve made my choice – the same choice in fact, that I made years ago but for the benefit of something or some-fucking-one, did not see through.

Problem is, I understand that there are people who would feel genuinely bereaved if I departed this life; some dick-faced munters will even argue that it’s my duty to prolong my own bloody existence. These are the same bunch of ignorant idealists who like to claim that suicide is selfish. I wholeheartedly disagree. Over the years I’ve know a number of people who have offed themselves. I’ve heard many more bitching about how selfish, or how fucking weak it was.

Understand this. A person’s life is their own. They can fucking do with it as they fucking please. If that life-plan includes self-annihilation, surely, that’s their fucking call.

Despite what I said at the beginning, I don’t believe that I’m depressed – not in the conventional sense anyway. I just don’t value life. Simple as that. I could take it or leave it and right now, I’m strongly favouring the latter.

I’m sure some pillocks would argue that the only reason I have make this, apparently impulsive, assessment is because I am depressed…

Dude, have you fucking seen my life?

Honestly, for people like John Kirwan – perhaps the country’s most famously reformed depressed man – the term ‘mental illness’ is probably quite accurate. Shit man, he had the life of which most people dream.

In everyone’s eyes but his own, John Kirwan had a good life. That statement practically defines depression: in everyone’s eyes but his own…

So take a gander at my life and tell us what you reckon – is it depression or is it just shit?

Some people, for whatever reason, don’t have functional lives. Moreover some people had functional lives but have had that functionality taken from them.

I sustained a bee sting today and found myself praying that I spontaneously developed a mortal allergy towards them. I recall looking down at the bee with his arse stuck in my shoulder, frantically buzzing and flapping in an effort to break away; thinking, ‘Dude, be calm, the instant you leave you arse behind, you’re finished.’

Either this wasn’t one of them telepathic bees or he and I shared a common affinity with death, because he kept struggling. Poor little bugger’s arse just wouldn’t come away. So I flicked him. He didn’t come off. I flicked him again an he tumbled to the ground, dead.

I wonder if a bee knows it will die when it stings a person. If it does, I wonder if it wishes to go on living after it stings.

You can’t fucking yearn for what you don’t fucking know.

So what if you have known it? What if you’ve struggled for more than a decade to have it reinstated, to no avail? What if, like that bee, you’re still struggling and the harder you struggle, the harder life seems to fuck you over?

What if you’re not depressed but death just seems like the easiest escape…

Tim Walker’s Revelation

Recently, I delved into My Documents and had a look through over 12 months’ worth of homemade literature. You’ll never guess what I found.

I currently have four folders set up with around 18 personally written pieces in each. These folders are named, Articles; Newer Articles; Even Newer Articles; Newest Articles. (No idea what I’ll name the next one but.) I opened Newer Articles. Nestled between Mit Reklaw’s Music and Mit Reklaw’s Truth on Antiperspirant – both fine articles of yesteryear – there was one document which caught my eye. It was entitled simply, untitled.

‘Oh, right,’ I thought/mumbled after a brief moment of confusion, ‘that’ll be Mit Reklaw’s Unentitled, from memory, written shortly before Christmas 2013…’

‘But hang on,’ came the immediate response (amazing how fast a conversation can proceed when it’s being held by the head of just one man), ‘why would I not have named Mit Reklaw’s Unentitled, Mit Reklaw’s Unentitled? Why would I have called it just, untitled, thereby avoiding the ostensible spelling mistake that was ultimately the essence of the article?’ (By this time I believe the thought/mumbling process had become rather more ‘thought’ orientated.) ‘More to the point,’ I thought/mumbled with emphasis on the former, ‘how ever could I have committed my very own cardinal sin by Not Capitalising Words of a Title? (Conjunctions and prepositions don’t count.)

Alarming as the whole ‘untitled’ escapade was, more alarming I think is reading back over this as it’s being written and observing just how long it took me to position the bloody cursor on this mystery file and just open the Goddamned thing.

Am I going for suspense, or am I an inherently dilatory person? Funny how I only ever query that kind of thing once the time has already been wasted.

Prior to opening the file I hovered the cursor and saw that it was written in October of 2013. Interesting. At that time my computer literacy was still very much incipient and in fact, as I recall I was receiving professional tutelage on that very thing – in the hope of one day becoming the IT paragon that I’m certain you can all imagine as the author behind this fluently verbose and exquisitely scintillating articulation.

Click-click.

Who wants to wager on what I saw? Odds for a blank page – $1.80:1; something written in my sleep – $16.20:1; a ransom note for someone of whom I’ve yet to notice the absence – $4.25:1; something penned from beyond the grave – $56.90:1; something written by a hapless hacker who wasted his time infiltrating Tim Walker’s My Documents – $8.21:1; an article I wrote then saved without a title then wrote some more then gave a title then saved again therefore inadvertently making another copy so when I deleted Mit Reklaw’s Raw, I actually didn’t delete it at all. At least not the second draft…

I found it heart-warming to peruse two and a half thousand words – a startlingly high percentage of which were profane – written by a version of me not often seen by the world and indeed, not overly conducive to a life of smooth sailing. It was written so long ago that I had forgotten what it’s like to feel so utterly helpless.

Also angry.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by C U Sune

Photography by B A Blast

Tim Walker’s Obsession

Hell. Moments Gone. That was quite something. In light of such an epic personal awakening, I now find myself in a state of reflection. Also perplexity…

Are the majority of people actually as level headed and normal as they make out, or is this apparent normalcy merely a projection intended to perpetuate the stereotypical image of the ‘easy going, calm and collected Kiwi battler’?

In the throes of my comparatively juvenile existence I have encountered plenty of examples leading me to query the authenticity of this portrayed stoicism. I can’t count how many times I’ve met the ‘typical Kiwi bloke’, oozing his seemingly balanced and totally unaffected mindset; yet who is realistically overworked, under-slept, overstressed, teetering on the brink of insanity and who as a result would struggle to subtract 7 from 15 which incidentally equals the total hours sleep he’s allowed himself over the past three nights leaving him in an unstable and somewhat deranged mental state…

I’ve been said to suffer from some curious afflictions in my lifetime: Hyperthyroidism, Hypomania; Hyperactivity, Insomnia; Hypersensitivity, Hypoalgesia; Tobacco Addiction, Asthma;  Rubral Tremor, Fitness Fanaticism – as that last one’s not so much an affliction as it is a life choice, I’d best leave it there. You’ll see the point in a minute.

One supposedly normal woman once noted that I was ‘such an intellect’; then with the next breath conceded that she ‘loved my crazy’..?

For the record, that’s the first time I ever heard ‘crazy’ used as a noun.

Crazed intellectuals notwithstanding, I spent hours in torrid contemplation over that one. Honestly, it worried me a little. Truth is, something as apparently innocuous and indeed vacuous as mixing the terms ‘intellect’ and ‘crazy’, can lose me a great deal of sleep at night. The reason this next affliction of the mind failed to feature in the fourth paragraph is because I don’t consider the terms Obsessive and Compulsive at all curious – at least that’s what my brain told me to say.

Now sling a D word alongside the existing pair and you can abbreviate like a pro – OCD.

Many normal folk will maintain that OCD relates strictly to numbers therefore any other form of obsessive compulsion is not technically OCD, but what can we really expect from under three hours’ sleep a night? Mine relates primarily to words. I do have other hang-ups, such as neatness, correct object placement and replacement, pattern repetition, equal treatment of sides, only stopping on even numbers and other pointless stuff like that but mainly it’s about words, and the composition of words.

Also grammar, punctuation, parts of speech, page styling and formatting; ultimately words.

Dude. Honestly. Who still uses semi colons?

I do, because I refuse to begin a sentence with the word ‘and’.

But Danielle Steel starts paragraphs with ‘and’.

I know, and it makes me sick. On that note, the word ‘but’ as a sentence beginner, is equally as detestable.

But what about when you need to?

You never need to.

But I do. Sometimes.

Alright then, take a look at your last three buts. Now remove them and read the statements. I think the sentences sound better, clearer; more emphatic.

But why does it matter anyway?

It matters because ‘but’ is a conjunction, a joining word; a sentence filler. Similar to ‘and’ and ‘because’, in most cases, it is possible to avoid in sentence beginnings.

But sometimes it’s not.

Not there though, eh.

And what about ‘and’ or ‘because’?

What about them? How are you not getting it?

Because it’s not natural. But it’s easy to start with conjunctions. And that’s all I was meaning. But anyway, your way’s not normal.

Nice one. Normalcy. Full circle. Yes, my perceived level of normalcy is frighteningly low.

So you’re weird then?

By definition, yes. By colloquial interpretation, no. I’m weird because I’m not typical, usual, regular or ordinary; not because I’m mentally unstable or ill – although…

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Timothy Walker Dip.Edit

Photography by Anita Break

Tim Walker’s Moments Gone

You know that feeling you get when your mind falls idle, then suddenly it’s overthrown by an onslaught of frustrating memories that just make you angry and which you have no idea why your brain’s even bothering to retain because they’re so damned pointless and depressing anyway?

No? Just me then..? Right.

Worse still is that the force behind this exodus of pleasant thoughts, followed swiftly by the unsettling influx of longing and regret, sometimes likes to stick around for a bit, making itself comfortable, settling in within the folds of my memory membrane, often digging up other undesirable events in memory form, perhaps in an effort to quell the need for companionship – do memories need other memories to be happy and if so, can an inherently odious memory become a joyful memory simply by reaching out to another memory?

I don’t know and I’m willing to wager, neither do you.

That’s not the point though. The point is, occurring most frequently while chopping vegetables of an evening, my brain, in an act totally out of my conscious control, starts running through every major embarrassment, every significant failure, every shameful rejection and in fact, given time, I’m quite certain that it would recollect for me every bloody negative moment in my life to date.

Couple of reasons I can see for this phenomenon. Firstly, ten or so years ago I made a concerted effort to ensure that my memory returned fully from the brain damage that almost killed it, and perhaps I pushed too hard. Secondly, and let’s be fair, this life, my life, comprises a terrible lot of shitty moments which, as we continue, are only set to become more abundant. Therefore I suppose, when the brain sitting atop the body of the man below has few conscious thoughts to occupy it and with a memory bank brimming with excruciatingly lurid recollections, well, there’ll be no prizes for guessing how that brain chooses to fill its downtime.

From stupid things I’ve said to idiotic actions I’ve taken, from erroneous problem solving to absent minded mistakes, from awkward introductions to heartbreaking farewells, from ill advised endeavours to personally blundered efforts, from regrettable moments to forgettable occasions; from the gorgeous girl who mocked my ingratiation, to every other pretty lady who has ever spurned me…

Believe me, of the latter there is no dearth.

I effectively missed my late teens. Those years where I might have been gallivanting around the countryside, boozed up and without a care in the world, I was immersed in brain damaged solitude and focused only on executing my cognitively adequate return to society. Problem was when that time finally came, it was too late. All the good memories had already been made and generally speaking, I was not a part of them. People had selected their life partners and already made their getaways.

Missed opportunities notwithstanding I dug in and tried going it alone.

This earned me a mere spattering of good times and a veritable buttload of shitty memories.

Few hours down the track, once the vegetables have been chopped, cooked, prepared and eaten, if I’m not careful they’ll get me in bed, too. That’s the worst thing. That’s worse than 108 of the aforementioned rejections – because that’s what it usually is only in this instance I’m not physically present to face up to the situation and the regret evoked by the memory of rejection is actually a lot more painful than the rejection itself. The regret of what I didn’t do, the regret of what I should have done; what I would have done had the universe hence circumstances had not been against me…

You know that feeling?

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Bill Sheet

Photography by Tom Malt