Pokhara

I find myself at something of a stressful period in my life, so I’ve decided to write a few pages
about my situation, which, may or may not take the edge off of things, as my current situation,
as much as just a general listlessness towards my current lot in life is making me consider, to
whatever degree of certainty, taking my own life, once the final run of editing on my last two
novels is thru.
I’m living in Pokhara, Nepal, at the moment, I’m 28 years old and my hair has begun to recede a
little at the temples, making me feel less attractive to the young women I am constantly
coveting, and to myself, if that is indeed of much consequence.
I feel as if I lack confidence around women at the best of times, and due to a relatively recent
bout of Hepatitis A, that I suppose I contracted from eating some soiled street food, or another,
some 3 to 4 odd months back in New Delhi, where I was shacked up, working on my novels,
before here, I’ve been told to stay off of alcohol for a while, and I feel as if women don’t usually
much go in for the nice, courteous, tentative and civil type, and more so prefer the blithe,
brazen and daring bad boy, an attitude that I do not feel at all comfortable to try and adopt
without a drink in my hand.
Both of these problems, I felt I could handle however; I was only told to lay off of the alcohol
for 6 months since my discharge from the hospital in Delhi and it’s already been about three, if
not four, since then, and my receeding hairline doesn’t look all that obvious if I mess my rather
thick fringe up a bit, and I feel as if, I can live without the affections of a woman, and with the
world thinking me an inconsequential person, so long as I have my work, my painting and
writing, to occupy my time, however one straw of late, seems to have broken the camel’s back,
and lent a certain conviction to my plans of taking my own life, once the editing is thru.
To explain the problem fully I will need to go back a bit; when I was a boy, of perhaps around
11, 12 or 13 or so— I cannot say the age for certain, as it was so long ago now— I had a rather
serious bicycle accident; I had been on the bike track behind our old house, and I’d had the
handle of our dog at the time, Jessie’s, lead slipped thru one of the handlebars of my bike, so
that I could walk her as I rode my bike at once, tho after riding for a bit, she suddenly shot off
after something or another in the distance, causing my front wheel to sharply turn; my bike
then suddenly tipped forward and as I landed one of my bikes handlebars struck me in the
groin.
Soon after this I was having trouble being able to urinate, and when I eventually managed to go
it burnt awfully.
I did not tell my mother about this for quite awhile however, as I was rather preoccupied by
some other personal problems; I thought I’d been sexually abused when I was younger— it
turned out that what had happened had rather just been some rather harmless and innocent
sexual play with another boy from my neighbourhood— but at the time, perhaps due to the
stresses of being bullied rather severly at my school, and of dealing with my father’s death from
cancer, I grew delusional, and somehow convinced myself that what had happened with this
other boy had been some horrendous awful thing, which had ruined me as a person and
transformed me into some form of pervert myself, and also in time I had a lesson on the AIDS
virus in high school, and I felt convinced that I had contract the virus, from sleeping with this

other boy as a child, and that that was in fact the reason why I was having such trouble being
able to urinate.
And I remember lying beneath a tree at the bottom of the hill down from my old highschool,
one afternoon, and weeping from the stress of this all as I waited for my mother to pick me up
after school, and plotting rather seriously to take my own life.
Somehow, I worked up the courage to tell my mother about what I thought had happened one
evening, and it was soon discovered that I did not infact have any sort of sexual virus, and infact
the reason I was finding it hard to urinate was most likely due to the aforementioned bicycle
accident, and then over the next however many years ensued a series of operations, which
worked to various degrees, for various amounts of time, and also over those years various
neuroses and suicidal ideations kept up, and they only really settled down, I guess at sometime
or another in my early twenties, when I saw a psychiatrist, who I spoke to about things, and
found to be rather helpful.
The latest operation on my urethra, five or so years back, involved a section of tissue that was
taken from my cheek, being used to reconstruct the damaged section of urethra, which I
suppose speaks volumes of man’s endeavour and the capacities of modern medicine and the
like, and although I can still urinate now, I’ve been feeling the urge to visit the toilet rather
frequently, perhaps once ever two hours or so, if not less, and I’ll usually need to get up about
three or four times in the night to go to the toilet.
And so yesterday evening I sent an email to my urologist, Dr. Hill, back in Australia who
performed my last few operations, and informed him of this problem. I also asked him if he
could tell me what might be causing it, and if it would ever get better or go away, so that I could
get my uninterrupted sleep back.
And this morning when I picked my phone up off my bedside table and clicked it on to check
the time, I noticed that I had an email back from Dr. Hill in my inbox, I opened it up, and read
from it, ‘Max, it is possible that the urethral repair can re-scar, maybe 10% chance after 10 yrs,
or 1% per annum. If that’s the case your urinary flow rate will drop precipitously and the flow
pressure will drop. If your flow is however well maintained it could be something else? Bladder
instability or UTI? What do you think?’
I paused for a moment then wrote him in response, ‘Thanks for the info. The pressure doesn’t
seem to be that low, more so I just need to urinate really often in small chunks of like, half a
cupfull of urine or so, but I guess it varies and I’m not an expert so I can’t really say, I suppose. It
doesn’t burn at all when I urinate though.
I had Hepatitis A about three or four months ago from some food poisoning which my liver is
apparently still recovering from, so I don’t suppose that that might have anything to do with it?
I suppose I’ll just hope for the best and if it gets particularly difficult to urinate, I suppose I’ll just
come home and see about treatment options. I must say having a tube coming out of me seems
rather daunting but that’s life, right?
Anyway thanks again for the advice, take care,
Max’

Shortly after sending the email I thought to myself, ‘christ, that bit at the end’s a bit much isn’t
it? ‘I must say having a tube coming out of me seems rather daunting, but that’s life, right?’
It’s too personal, it not as, as, objective, as frank and business-like as he’s probably used to…’ I
mulled over this for a shortwhile then thought to myself, ‘Ah well, the hell with it…’

Awhile later this morning whilst I was getting my breakfast in my regular café across the road
from the hotel I’m staying in there were clouds over Fewa lake, which is clearly visible from the
back patio of the café slash restaurant. And the clouds were obscuring the distant dark green
mountains beyond the lake, and also partially, the small white domed pagoda at the top of one
of these mountains.
And I soon learned from Bipin, the handsome young Nepali waiter at the place, of how his 16
year old bride has grown sick, and he has hired some sort of holyman called a maffi, if I heard
him correctly, to attempt to heal her.
This fellow’s English is rather basic and that was all I could really gather of what he was trying to
tell me in his basic command of the language.
And a shortwhile later over my regular breakfast of a cappucino and fruit, museli, curd, honey, I
got to talking to two pretty young Australian girls who’d also came into the back patio of the
place, and I soon told them of the email I’d received this morning, and of how I felt a little
distressed about it, and at the idea of having a tube coming out of me indefinitely again, and
while polite about things, the pair didn’t seem to be particularly concerned and I did not much
wish to impose myself on them or disrupt their morning, by looking too eagerly for sympathy
where it did not much exist, and so soon after I’d finished my breakfast I politely excused
myself from the pair, and wished them a good day.
I am now back in my small fifth story hotel room as I write this. Life goes on. I still have 150 odd
pages left of my novel Lucy to go, and then my novel Max to read thru which is 2300 odd pages
long, and I pray does not need much editing. And I also have about a dozen pre-sketched
canvas boards, that I would like to finish painting.
And I think my various stresses, my loneliness and inaptitude at wooing a lady and accordingly
having softness and affection in my life bleed rather a lot into my work, but that is the way it is I
suppose, and one doesn’t feel much to write happily when he is not in that mood. And also I
believe that the only way to write well, with any sort of conviction is by letting your moods
affect those of your characters. And as such, Lucy, the protagonist of my current novel, is very
much an extension of me, and her moods are near always a reflection of my own, at the time of
writing or re-writing whatever scene she is existing in.
And meanwhile, jealousy seems to be a lot on my mind; I feel rather jealous of the attractive
young women about town when I go for walks on my lunch breaks or after work, and I rarely
seem to see any of them walking without a friend, or friends or a lover in their stride.
And I too feel jealous of a former travelling companion who I was on rather close terms with for
a spell, not to suggest that this fellow and I ever had a romance, but more so, that I suppose,
for a spell we were close friends.
And now, I read his blog and over his old emails; and often contemplate his ostensibly rather

pleasant romantic life in NYC, where he lives as he is a US national, as his parents birthed him
there, though he grew up between London and Amsterdam, and where he now works as a
singer songwriter. And in the blogs and emails I read of his dalliances, and encounters with
eccentrics, like one heavily tattooed Russian boxer, who told him and a friend one evening of a
fight he once fought, which if he lost, he would have to allow the other boxer’s pet monkey to
strike him in the testicles, or something to this effect, and I read of the rainbow pills and the
love making, and the daily fan mail he received thru his instagram account, last summer, when
he played guitar thru an amplifier in Washington Square, and I think of how I have never
climaxed whilst making love to a woman, nor made a lady climax, and of how my longest
relationship with a lady has probably spanned about a week, before I suppose she much came
to her senses and the alcohol wore off.
And I know also of the roadtrip that Liam, my aforementioned former travelling companion,
plans to take with Ariel, to my understanding a lover of his, from NYC to Colarado, for her
birthday on the 10 th of Feburary, and how I’d tried to weasle my way into an invitation, before
all of this medical hullabaloo came up.
And so feeling that I may never have a chance to make love to a woman again, before a tube is
inserted once more into my body for an indefinite period, and feeling too that, if this is to be
the case, I may then just take my life, in some relatively painless fashion, once the editing is all
complete, say perhaps, once back in Australia, by driving my mother’s car to a park somewhere,
parking it, then getting drunk and running a hose pipe back into it, I’ve decided to hire a
prositute, and to be rather gentle and loving with her, if she will let me, and to do this thing,
that this whole rather sad existence seems to be centered around, properly once.
And I know from Bipin, that I can hire a girl for the night, for 8000 rupees, the equivalent of 80
usd, and I also know of a prostitute that I met thru a dating program on my phone, that I can
hire for 15 dollars an hour, though this lady is a transexual, and still has the male sex organ, and
whilst this does have a certain queer novelty to it, I do not feel particularly all that drawn to
having such an experience anymore, and I feel as if I would rather make love with a naturally
born woman, for what indeed may prove my last time.
And so I have worked on my novel and my paintings for 3 days this week, so I suppose perhaps
I’ll undertake a full day of work today, then another full day tomorrow, then maybe see about
organizing such an endeavour in the evening, though, then again, perhaps not; I don’t feel
much up to making love to anyone in my current state of mind, if I’m being entirely honest with
myself.
~~~
Well several days have passed since I started this little recount, and my urologist has not
written me back in all that time, though I looked up the meaning of precipitous on my phone
and my flow of urine does not seem to have fallen in such a fashion, so it seems as if the last
operation is still working fine, and as for my increased need to use the bathroom, I cannot say,
but when I go, the scar in my urethra doesn’t seem to have tightened as it all comes out ok, it
just, seems that I need to do so more often, for whatever reason, I cannot say. Oh well.
Also, I don’t think I feel to spend 80 dollars on hiring a prostitute for the night.
And I look at photos on my phone of Anthony Kiedis, walking arm in arm, with lithe beautiful

teenage girls, and I look at the paint speckles on my faded black jeans, and where the thread is
coming lose on the interior patch on the left knee, and at the large hole in the heel of one of
the socks I have on, and I think of Liam’s anecdotes, of softly caressing a young lady who was
just in a flanellette plaid shirt of his one evening, as she stirred some beans at his stove, and
that of his friend Ed, hypontizing a young lady at a party, and and I think of the advice that I’ve
been given by who I cannot say, of how it is a waste of time to look for love when one does not
feels it for himself. And I suppose this short piece, whatever it is, I will wrap up here, five days
short of Christmas, which I’ll most likely pass on my own, as I did the morning of my 28 th
birthday 6 odd months back, in Delhi, before I fell asleep at sometime around 10, having stayed
up for two odd days prior working on some modafinil.