Not Dead Yet

25

He sat in semi-darkness, in his cramped seat in coach, with the constant faint thrashing roar of air in his ears, feeling the occasional judder as the plane bumped through a patch of turbulence. Most people were asleep. Like the shithead beside him who’d drunk four disgusting Coke and whisky mixes and now had fits of snoring loudly every few minutes.

People shouldn’t snore on planes. It was like people who let babies cry on planes. Those babies should be flushed down the toilets. He was tempted, very tempted, to pull a plastic bag down over the man’s head. No one would see in the darkness.

But he had to control his anger.

Which was why he had the book open on his lap. It was titled Managing Your Inner Anger.

The problem was that just reading the book was making him angry. It was written by some fuckwit psychologist. What did any psychologist know about anything? They were all nuts themselves.

Chapter 5. Develop your personal Action Plan (Devised by Lorraine Bell)

Develop your own personalized plan for managing and reducing anger, and carry it around with you, he read.

Right, carry it around with me. In what? A carrier bag? A suitcase? A bowl on my head? An appendage to my scrotum?

Write down the times you are likely to get angry, such as after a stressful day at work, or an alcoholic drink.

Or after life craps on you yet again, from a great height?

He felt his rage building again now. The man beside him was snoring again, as loud as a chainsaw. The noise was so damned deafening he could not think. He jabbed him hard, really hard, in the ribs and turned to him, glowering. ‘Shut the fuck up, you hear me?’

The man blinked at him, dazed and bewildered.

He curled his finger and thumb in front of the man’s face. ‘Snore again one more time, and I’m going to pull your tongue right out.’

The man stared at him for a moment, was about to say something, then seemed to think better of it. He looked nervous now, as if he could sense it wasn’t an idle threat. After some moments of hesitation, he unbuckled his seat belt, stood up, and walked away down the aisle.

He returned to his book.

I know when I’m getting angry because of the following early warning signs. Such as feeling shaky, clenching my fists.

He was feeling shaky now, and he was clenching his fists. The thing was, he knew, he would actually have liked to pull that snoring man’s tongue out, the way they did in olden days, with red-hot tongs. He deserved it. People had no right to snore like that.

When I’m angry I have the following thoughts, or say to myself:

There was a blank space for him to fill in. But he didn’t need to fill anything in. He knew what thoughts he had when he was angry.

The reasons I would like to change are:

· The consequences of losing my temper?

· Because I feel bad after?

· Because I am unwell and my anger is not helping my recovery?

He slammed the book shut, feeling the anger inside him. Once the anger was out there was nothing he could do until it settled again. It was like snakes, hundreds of dormant venomous snakes inside him that had woken, were uncoiling, flicking their tongues, waiting to strike.

The thing was, he liked that feeling.

His anger liberated him. It gave him power.

Too many people listened to the words of that idiot Matthew in the Bible. Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

That wasn’t the way, that was just a bully’s charter. He didn’t have any truck with all that namby-pamby New Age New Testament liberalism. He believed in the Old Testament. That was The Word.

And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

No messing about.

He’d promised to read the book and to fill in the questions. That was one of the suggestions his doctor had made. Try to refocus his anger into something positive. Ha! What was the point? He’d done bad things in the past, he knew that, but he couldn’t help it, that was the snakes. It wasn’t his fault if people woke the snakes.

And they had been awake for several days now.