She was mad, the doctor next door.
We knew she was mad because she had the ‘Surgery’ sign outside her house but nobody ever came to get well. She had the black sign, the white writing, and even when the young man was run down by a car outside they didn’t go into her. Instead they chose the acoholic further up the road.
We knew she was mad when the first time the ball went over into her back garden and one of us clambered over to get it we discovered she’d concreted over the lawn. Why didn’t she have some grass like everyone else? If you called to the door you had to sit in the front room, statues of St Anthony and pictures of the blessed virgin on the wall, and she’d talk to you.
And talk. And talk. And because you were young and didn’t want to be rude you listened and then, after ages, you were so uncomfortable you said you had to go and she’d ask why you came and you’d stammer and say the ball, the back garden, and she’d go out, all 5’1 of her and give it back to you. Sometimes anyway. Other times she’d just burst it.
One night she came hammering on the door, screeching about something. I don’t know what. I was small. It was scary. She just needed the hat and the broom to be the witch. She had the wart. She only went when threats to call the police were issued.
Then you got a bit older and realised she wasn’t that scary. She was just small. Her husband had died. Both the signs were gone. The garden was still concrete and she was an old woman, suffering the effects of age. A mind deteriorating, stricken with loneliness and dementia.
When the man across the road went missing they all worried because his family told everyone he had the alzheimer’s and had wandered off. We helped look for him. When nobody saw the doctor next door for ages nobody worried. There was nobody to tell us she’d fallen down the stairs, nobody to tell us she’d been there weeks at the bottom, her head turned the wrong way around, alone in her house without her husband, with only her statues and her pictures.
And my burst ball in the back garden.
She sounds like Paul McShane
I prefer mad women posts with pics – especially bosomy pics.
At Hallowe’en she gave me 50p, the rest of the lads got lumps of coal. Mad bitch.
Her house smelled of stale.
People who live alone shouldn’t have stairs or showers.
was she really a doctor?
“People who live alone shouldn’t have stairs or showers”
That’s a fact HM.
Did she have cats?
Yes, she was really a doctor. She had no pets at all.
Oh, that’s sad. Oldness… terrifying.
At least the accident was definitive. Not much anyone could have done.
It would have been worse if she’d only been hurt and had to lie there conscious and helpless for days until she died. It happens. Frail old folk who live alone should always carry bleepers, mobile phones, whistles, fog horns whatever.
Yes even the mad ones even though they might only use them for fun.
Lots of Doctors are mental.
“her house smelled of stale”
ha!
I bet she kept everything either in jars or some sort of biscuit tins too.
maybe she was a witch doctor ?
No sooner had her body been removed, I imagine Gluey went and put an offer in for the house TO ADD TO HIS PORTFOLIO OF PROPERTIES SPREAD AROUND THE WORLD NOT LIKE YOU BACKWARD CABBAGES GETTIN’ THE DOLE AND LISTENIN’ TO HORSELIPS
Cracking post.
that was a bit harsh twenty. There was no need to push her down the stairs even if she did burst your ball
Is this why there are no cigarillos ?
Well thats me good and sombre…
Yesterday I read about a female doctor in California that tried to climb down the chimney of a house that belonged to some guy she was obsessed with – got stuck and was found dead a few days later.
Birds are always getting stuck in chimneys.
Betchya she had one of them dolls that hides the toilet roll.
heh, nice one hm
She should have gone to Mindsavers.
Im glad my parents arent on their own at home..
If I ever find myself old and alone I’m definitely going to get a load of cats. I’d rather be masticated than cremated.
20 years passes and a Dubliner fondly remembers chatting with Twenty and explaining how fast he could cycle to the kindly old man who was one of the first Irish Blog Award Winners …
“I’m still fast, Twenty,” he’ll implant on his 3DLOG in 2030 … “Not as fast as I was back then but .. still fast.”
And the sons put a ‘for sale’ sign up, and never spoke of her again.