It’s not a glamorous myth that writers need pain,as Martin Amis claimed. They do need it. It works as a lens and a spur to the author,and readers love it on the page. And I had some. And not just any pain,this stuff was the pain we use as metaphor,as denunciation,the pain summoned conversationally when we’re talking about our kids ... I had a pain in the arse.
So I spent a morning standing in the waiting room of a colorectal surgeon. (There were seats,but I had become giraffishly inexpert at sitting.) He was an associate professor,and thus the abbreviated title,“Ass. Prof.” preceded his name on the surgery door. It sounded superheroic:Spiderman,Wolverine,Thor,Ass. Prof:Protector of Rectums.
Anson Cameron bravely faced a penetrating examination.Eddie Jim
I decided while I was there I’d make a few notes on pain,just to try to wring some value from my looming demise. What better time to observe your fellow humans than when you’re all in the grip of contrition,staring at the last reels of your lives as they play on the waiting room wall,while on the other side of that wall a gloved Ass. Prof is mining for alimentary turpitude? These are the thoughts I scribbled down in that waiting room with my consciousness jacked by fear.
At last I’m summoned from this purgatory by Ass. Prof. I strip and he reconnoiters the scenario,garnishing the experience with a wan species of small talk that isn’t remotely distracting. Eventually,grandly,he pronounces me saved. There’s nothing seriously wrong with me.
Chicken-hearted Anson vanishes – a memory,a rumour. I quip and I opine. On my way home I buy a coat. An olive anorak perfect for a European winter. Germany perhaps. Glühwein in a schloss. I vogue at myself in the shop windows as I walk along,head canted,smiling – immortal again.
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