Singing the Song of Leaving or Something Like It

I once travelled to the far reaches of Norway, high above the Arctic Circle. A place where reindeer outnumber people 1000 to one. It suited me fine.
One evening, my travelling companion (we’ll call her Debbie since that’s her name), and I paid a visit to a group of people who were native to the area. It was, of course, entirely unavoidable.
We drove for what-felt-like the entire day to get there, mostly listening to some tribal music - the only CD Debbie had in the car. It consisted of various singers wailing and screaming as if they were simultaneously experiencing multiple orgasms whilst having their fingernails ripped out. There was also some drumming. Actually, on about the hundredth listen it sounded slightly less objectionable and I started to wail along with it. The opening track was the best as the screams of pain built into a frenzied cacophony that sounded like a dozen cats being tortured to death. I got quite good at imitating that.
We finally arrived and the evening was…interesting, as we sat in a tent rather than a house. There were quite a few guests and, as the evening wore on, a few decided to leave. I couldn’t blame them.
As they were gathering themselves to go, Debbie – and Lord only knows why – offered to sing them a song of leaving. She turned to me and said ‘We know one, don’t we Mike?’
We do? I couldn’t think of any leaving song we knew. Leaving song?
Actually, Debbie was right. We had been taught a leaving song some time back, which was so pathetically obvious that I had quite forgotten. It comprises singing, in a very soft voice, ‘Away, away, away’, over and over whilst looking sad to see the people depart. The words were fine but I found it difficult to look sad. People leaving is the best part of the evening.
Anyway, I had quite forgotten about the ridiculous leaving song. The obvious thing to do was to say ‘No, I don’t remember the song’ and ask Debbie what she meant. But in the kafuffle of people preparing to go, and being inadvertently put on the spot, that sort of logic completely escapes me. All I could think of was the wailing song from the car. So I sung that.
Debbie began singing her soft ‘aways’ whilst I launched into full-on tortured howling mode. I quickly got into the sound and started waving my arms around as I hollered out the screeching sounds of pain. I then started to sway to the rhythm and, since it seemed appropriate at the time, began to beat the earthen floor to accompany my strangled cries of agony. All the while, Debbie carried on her barely-voiced ‘aways’. Not that anyone could hear her with the racket I was making. I was oblivious.
All too soon, I became aware that everyone was staring at me. ‘Good grief’, I thought, ‘they must think I’m good’. So I gave them a fitting finale, throwing my arms in the air, whilst wailing at the top of my lungs, and bringing the whole thing to a rapturous and ear-splittingly thunderous finish. The least I expected was applause. Heck, a bouquet wouldn’t have been out of the question. Instead, the tent was deathly silent.
The people who wanted to leave sidled out of the door without taking their eyes off me.
The host then lent towards me. ‘Thank you’ he said, ‘thank you…very much’. And, in all honesty, I actually thought he meant it.

Dinner at the Hospital

I was once asked to visit a person in hospital. I wouldn’t normally agree to do such a thing as I am allergic to both people and hospitals but in this case I made an exception. I had three reasons. One, nobody else was going to bother. Two, I worked just around the corner. And three, the person who needed visiting was my father.
I went straight after work one evening.
Hospitals are awful places. For a start there are always a dozen entrances with a multitude of signs, most directing you to places that are identified by completely alien words ending in –ology. I walked up to a likely looking desk and asked where I should go for the eye department, as my father was having an operation on his eye. The receptionist looked at me as if I was mad. I repeated my request slower, pointing at my eye as I did so. She looked oriental so I added a ‘hah’ at the end of my request as I had seen actors do in kung fu movies. It seemed to help. She asked if I meant the ophthalmology ward. Did I?
I was provided with a set of directions that probably exceeded those given to the first Apollo mission to the moon and set off, watching that I didn’t trip over any invalids on the way. It’s odd how they all lurch out of their rooms as I walk past, like extras from One Flew Overt the Cuckoos Nest, with exactly the same vacant expression and drool.
After a dozen rights, half a dozen lefts, a few stairs, and a walk down a corridor that had more than its fair share of the clinically deranged, I made it to the opthy-whatever-it-was ward.
There was a desk with a lit lamp, an open book, and nobody sitting behind it. Great. What was I supposed to do now? I made another kung fu sound to attract attention but it just echoed away into the distance.
I thought of looking in the book. It was a list of patients. I found my father’s name and his room number and then looked for it on the doors. Unfortunately, these all had names…of the consulting doctor. Great help. I decided to work my way down the corridor and to peek into every room until I found the right one. That was interesting.
Eventually, I found my father and went in. The only chair was tucked into the corner, behind the door. I sat there and tried to make the sort of conversation you make with a hospital patient. I checked my watch to see if I had stayed a reasonable period of time and could now leave but, unfortunately, only three and a half minutes had elapsed. Best stay a bit longer.
Just then, the door was flung open, which almost knocked me off my chair and into the stand holding the drip. As I picked myself up, the nurse who had entered said in a big cheery voice that all nurses get taught a nursing school: ‘Have you eaten yet? Do you want any dinner?’
For the life of me, I thought she was speaking to me. It never crossed my mind that it might have been my father she was addressing.
So I answered. ‘No thanks, but I’d love a coffee’.
The room went silent and the nurse let out a strained noise; the sort she probably reserved for the loonies I had passed on the way up. She then looked at my father who said that he hadn’t much appetite but a sandwich would be nice.
The nurse sidled out the door without straightening up the stand for the drip.
It was a few minutes later that she returned with a plate of sandwiches and – this reinforces everything you have ever read about the saintliness of nurses – a coffee for me. Outstanding. And, in my gratitude, I didn’t even point out that I usually have it without milk.