Tick, tick, tick, punch, cry

Yes, for in the wake of Dig's death, I have done form-fillings: legal/medical/registration/cremation/certification. I have called insurance and DWP. I have braved VAT and corporate liabilities. Paid HMRC. Taken thirty-plus bags of recycling to the tip. (This expedites Plan A: rent part of the house to someone who can afford it.) Visited accountant, four times, once with minor breakdown (me, not them). Scoured bank accounts for direct debits, standing orders, subscriptions, annual charges. Dumped phone contracts, decommitted from expenses, rang up people to ask, 'Why am I paying you?'

Yet to do: press destruct on the economic relationship with Arse Hong Kong.

I boasted about my progress on this March of the Dead to the woman at the bank. She looked at me warily and said, 'You have to have time to grieve'. I answered, 'My outgoings are steaming off the racetrack like a Tesla Roadster. My forecasted income is a toddler push-bike with a flat back tyre. Grieving this week equals 1.5K, so let's keep going through the bank account, please.'

It might sound harsh to the sensitive ear, but it is the cold hard edge of a morning in my land, true whether it dents the sensibilities of an Account Advisor or not. Dig lived his life with a casual approach to small items, like a few hundred for hotel, first-class lounge access and airfares - and I question his judgement in later years (I hope no handbags were actually purchased) - but as in so many areas of life, I pick up the result. Just as well I am never going to be defeated and will always stand up fighting.

Which reminds me. I am not sleeping. For two weeks. Three hours worst, six hours best. I am powered by adrenalin, waking at 3am swinging punches like a drunk from a bar, conjuring in the darkness the face of someone I'd like to see bloodied and toothless, before I twist their neck to a satisfying snap. Then I push them down in a sea of mud and set a never-sleeping monster on them to make sure they never emerge to further touch my life. (This could be a metaphor or not and I could be hallucinating again. Not sure.)

But then the day. And I am reminded of the crystal clear sparkling wonderful brightness of people I know; people who leave flowers. People who quietly bring a hamper of loveliness and goodness. People who write a line or a word, people who send blessings in an envelope, who listen to me rave and finger jab, who are there and who care, ready with their loves and loyalties and gentleness, that I cry, touched more by their generosities than for any death or loss, but for kindness. Kindness given to me so readily and freely and with such open-heartedness honesty that I feel strengthened to face the world where I know there is everything I value, ahead.