Fairies In Neath

FAIRIES IN NEATH 1

It was early in the morning and Rob was lying in bed looking at his ceiling. That ceiling had seen some action over the years; its faded whiteness was marked by several black marks which were the only remnants of flies and spiders which he had hit with his flip-flop. It had always been his right flip-flop that he had used for this purpose; probably because he was right-handed but he wasn't completely sure.

Rob was 53 years old and having a mid-life crisis. This was the crisis just after his early-life crisis and just before his older-life crisis. He was bald, overweight and had diabetes. He had also suffered from anxiety and depression for years and was taking enough tablets to sink a battleship. He also suspected that he had Asperger's and a personality disorder although he wasn't quite sure about this. As he often said if he was a horse they would have shot him years ago. Most peoples' worlds were big and imaginative but if you have mental health problems like Rob you made your world small, small enough that you could cope with it. Rob's world was Neath. He read newspapers and watched the TV news but the world events that he read about and saw could have been taking place in Narnia for all he cared. He often found solace in perusing the Argos catalogue and knew some item numbers off by heart, especially ones involving TVs. Having said all of this, Rob wasn't an idiot; he thought himself quite intelligent and liked reading philosophy books - in particular books about philosophy of mind.

It nagged away at him that his life was half-way over and that he hadn't actually done anything of note. There had been billions of years of non-existence before he had suddenly come into existence; he then had about 70 or 80 years to do something worthwhile until there would be non-existence for billions of years again. In the context of the universe, the average span of a human life was equivalent to the lifespan of one of those flies whose name Rob couldn't remember who were born in the morning and died in the evening and lived their lives in between. Most people adjust and get on with their lives the best they can, but others, like Rob, struggle and find life an utter mystery. If Rob was one of those flies, he would have been born, had a short walk around his leaf in the morning and then in the afternoon gone for a long nap just before death in the evening.

He still lived at home with his mother, for whom he was now a carer. Thankfully for his mother and for Rob she didn't have a serious disability which required 24-hour care; Rob just had to do things for her around the house. He knew this was a sad and pathetic situation. Twenty or thirty years ago he had seen other older men in this same situation and sworn to himself that he would never end up like them – he would get married and have children, be happy and healthy. However, with the help of his psychological problems and general shyness, his trajectory through life had been determined as firmly as if he falling through the air and trying to avoid hitting the ground. Was it Sartre who had said that Man was condemned to be free? Rob always laughed at that saying. His self-loathing and self-pitying were endless but somehow he still had his sense of humour; although he had to admit that he didn't find things as funny as he used to.

Later that morning Rob and his mother had breakfast and then he set out to walk into Neath to buy the papers. Rob walked the mean streets of Neath, buying consumer items when he could and dodging pigeon-shit from the skies. This last activity had an urgency in his life that was not to be underestimated. Rob and the pigeons of Neath went back a long way - for a while the top of his head had seemed to be an instant laxative for constipated pigeons - one sight of it and pigeons were squeezing their little bum-cheeks and finding their target with laser-guided accuracy. He wouldn't have said so much if it had made his hair grow back but all it did was spoil his comb-over and make him bitter about the bird kingdom in general. Neath pigeons were also well known for flying low, particularly in Queen Street, and one had once actually hit Rob square between the eyes - resulting in unconsciousness for him and his avian assailant. On regaining consciousness several minutes later, his feelings were further hurt when he realised that more people were anxiously crowded around the pigeon than were around him. Nevertheless, on this particular October morning, Rob looked up into the sunlit blue sky and took a deep breath. Almost simultaneously, a huge amount of pigeon-shit splattered onto the pavement close to his left; he took in the scene and wondered whether it might be his lucky day.

He then proceeded to a nearby charity shop; one which supported the care of elderly bankers and hedge-fund managers who had fallen on hard times. There are quite a lot of charity shops in Neath, far too many, Rob once thought. He still sort of believed this but his views had softened over the years as he realised that charity shops were places of great interest where you never knew what you would find from one day to the next. Indeed, he had got into a routine of following a particular route around Neath that would take in all the charity shops. He particularly liked browsing for cheap books, CDs and DVDs and would nearly always find something that appealed to him.

Rob started browsing the various shelves, automatically ignoring the items that seemed to be common to all charity shops, e.g., books by Katie Price, Tony Blair, etc., CDs by The Corrs, the Vengaboys, etc. and any DVD/video films starring Chuck Norris. He browsed the CD rack and picked up Tin Machine's second album, at least he thought it was the second, the one with the naked figures on the front. This was supposedly Bowie's (God bless him) lowest point artistically but Rob had always quite liked the album – there's no accounting for taste, Rob thought, or at least his taste anyway. He carried on browsing for about 5 minutes but decided that he couldn't see anything that appealed to him and so left the shop. He then bumped into his mate Brian who was also known for perambulating around Neath. They had their usual desultory chat for a couple of minutes where they checked up on each other's ailments and then each wished the other the best and they parted. Rob then went to the newsagents to buy the papers and made his way home.

Some hours later Rob was snoozing on the settee when his mother put her head round the door. 'Rob, remember to take Mr Darcy for a walk before it gets dark,' she said.

'Okay Mam,' he mumbled. He got up and shuffled into the hall to get the lead for the dog. Mr Darcy was a 12 year old Welsh Pembrokeshire corgi who had got his name because Rob's mother was a big fan of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.