On my birthday, I decided to treat myself to a glass of the best Cabernet Sauvignon from Bordeaux. I know it to be the a wine that ages well. This is important to me as I have collected a wide variety of wines, many well over a century old, and it seems fitting that I should drink a wine on my birthday that accepts the burden of years with grace. After several glasses, my mind has a tendency to both rest and wander. The wine has an added benefit in that it deadens the ache in my ankle.
I sprained the ankle this afternoon when I fell from a ladder I had climbed to clean out my gutters of leaves. I live on the edge of a forest and autumn is beautiful here. The trees try to pick a color and stay with it, but they obviously fail. The leaves on one branch turn red, another yellow, and still another improbable purple. It is a rebellion of color here in the forest before the winter arrives. I’m forever raking up leaves and digging them out from the gutters that line my roof. I’m lucky not to have a broken leg, but the enduring ache has me concerned. I wonder if I should go see a doctor about it.
I do not welcome guests to celebrate my birthday. I haven’t for many years. Almost every single person I’ve know is gone now, buried, most all forgotten except a special few. Parties are such a bore and this isn’t a modern development. I have no nostalgia for soirees of the past. Those were equally a bore. For example, Madame Geoffrin was a loathsome host as was Arnobius of Sicca. I just refuse to party now. It all seems hopelessly redundant.
Caligula’s parties of course were renowned for their expense and the spectacle, but I missed out on those, being in Ethiopia at the time. Moreover, I heard they were considerably overrated. Gossip has a way of amplifying spectacle into something completely opposite of what it is in fact, and I think of Caligula’s parties in such light. There was as much quality celebration in those marble halls as there is now in my glass of red wine, and the effect on my bank accounts is considerably more muted, even counting for inflation, in the fermented grape.
The ankle has me worried though. The wound is six hours old now and the swelling remains. At first it turned red, but is now a sickly bluish. I imagine tomorrow all might become black. The ankle rests, elevated, on two pillows stacked on my ottoman. May I add that’s a completely ridiculous name for a piece of furniture? In all my travels through that empire, I have never seen any prince make use of such a piece of furniture.
I had thought to use ice to bring down the swelling, but ever since my beloved Christine died of freezing in the little ice age, I recoil from the touch of ice. I do not even use it in my drinks like moderns are accustomed. So it will have to be alcohol tonight to take off the edge.
The wine numbs me but I feel I cannot yet sleep. My mind is still too restless. Out of a complete lack of necessity, I’ve never had to visit a doctor in all my life. I’m not familiar about how to go about it. Well, there was that case of that physician attempting to dress my wounds at the Battle of Trafalgar. I amazed him when I rose from the deck, bleeding out from a nasty piece of cannon shrapnel in my gut, and dove into the sea, swimming from my ship, Leviathan, to Admiral Nelson’s ship, the HMS Victory. I was assumed drowned by the crew of my old ship, and something of a half-fish-half-man to those aboard the Victory. I suppose you had to be there.
I imagine doctors these days don’t accept payment in gold, so I’ll have to exchange my last Confederate gold ingot. They’ve so far kept me afloat in the world, helped pay off the adjustable rate mortgage and keep the lights on. I’ve used the stuff judiciously, making sure not to appear with so much of it in hand as to attract suspicion. I wonder, now that I’m fresh out, if I must find employment and whether such a search will require me to update my resume.
