Who do I think I am? Do I think I’ll live forever?

No. I know better. I’m not a child. Children think they’ll live forever. They run around through the world taking risks no sane adult would ever consider. Most children grow up.

I grew up, but only kinda sorta. I still do things without thinking. Of course, I know I’m not the only one.

But the reason I mention it now today is because of what happened, and I’m dictating it because I can’t see.

I was going to help. I was going to do some yard work, prune my beloved rosebush, which by now is really a tree. It’s mine, because I claimed it, and it waits for me to give it the attention it needs and I’m happy to give. It rewards me by blossoming roses.

I was going to prune as needed, which really means I was going to deadhead the roses.

Roses bloomed and died, the petals fell, the stem turned brown, brittle, and dry, down to the first joint.

I break off the denuded blossomless pod, like a nascent fruit that will grow larger with seeds, but keeping it on the stem which I think somehow interferes with the internal mechanism of the plant. The plant feels it has done its job, produced the flower that shelters the growing seed to become another plant. If I remove that pod, the plant feels it is derelict in its duty and has to try again, producing another flower with another seed.

I know this must be true because in high school I read the play Cyrano de Bergerac (I saw the movie too, with what’s his name (look it up), Jose Ferrer, really good). In the play (and movie) it talks about picking roses – “plucking the flowers keeps the plant in bloom.”

Just as a side note, I’m having trouble remembering things, like names (people and places). I try to find a trigger, something to jog my memory, something connected by association (I think there’s a word for it, but I forget what it is). If I remember correctly, it leads me to the name I’m trying not to forget.

Like Kirk Douglas. I almost met him. And I remember his movies, which eventually let me come up with his name. Like Lust for Life. He plays Vincent Van Gogh, and there’s this scene where he and Gauguin are painting outside in the wind, and he complains that Gauguin’s painted sky looks flat, and Gauguin yells fierce, “That’s the way I see it! FLAT!” Gauguin’s performance was easy to remember, hard to forget, and the actor was…what’s his name (look it up), of course, Zorba, Anthony Quinn, Tony Quinn, how could I forget? And he was a local boy, East Los Angeles. He didn’t mind being called Tony. Unlike that other actor who starred with Kirk Douglas in The Vikings, what was his name? I would never call him Anthony, it was always Tony…oh, yeah, Tony Curtis. You would never say Anthony Curtis.

And that was a good movie too, except for the round cardboard shields the Vikings had on their long boats and carried into battle, but they looked really cheap, flimsy, and made you think less of the battles, a real mistake on the part of the costume designer or the armorer or whoever is in charge of shields.

And speaking of actors you would never… Ernest Borgnine played Ragnar as a rough and tumble Viking you would never suspect was also Marty who didn’t have a clue until he did.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, the rosebush, a tree really, and what happened today. Sorry for getting off the topic, but once you get me started…

Anyway, I was going out to help with the yardwork and prune the rosebush/tree, and deadhead the roses.

So I got my leather gloves (a tight fit), (I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt because of the thorns), my two little pruning nippers, and the step-stool ladder from the kitchen that has two steps and I can carry it.

I set up the step-stool by the trunk near the roots and just out of reach of the branches with thorns, because the thorns hate me and are always after me.

I started to break off the dead heads of the former flowers that I could reach from standing on the ground. I tried to be very careful of the thorns, but they went right through my long sleeves and did a number on my arms, even drawing blood.

I also broke off dead branches. I convinced myself that the more dead branches I could remove, the more room the bush/tree would have to make more roses, and that would give me more room to get closer to the bush/tree and break the dead rose heads off the branches. Makes perfect sense to me.

The dead heads fell to the ground, I’d reached all I could, bending down some branches temporarily, and then I moved the kitchen step-ladder stool in closer so I could climb up and get the upper branches just out of reach.

I stood on the bottom step. The ground was uneven and the stepstool wobbled. I stood very still, keeping my balance, then climbed back down (it was just one step), moved the ladder stool a bit, moved it back and forth to level the ground so it wouldn’t wobble, and climbed back up.

I had done all I could from the first step, and put my foot on the next step to go up one more so I could get to the higher branches, lots of dead roses.

I don’t generally suffer from the fear of heights – what do they call it? monophobia, agoraphobia, necrophilia, whatever (look it up) – acrophobia, 3% to 6% suffer from it, the fear of heights, and I felt it.

I put my foot back down on the first step, tried to calm my heart rate to stop feeling incipiently dizzy, then said to myself, “What the hell?” and stepped up on the second step.

Immediately my head started spinning (not literally, that’s a different movie), light-headed, and I fell head first into the rosebush.

The thorns grabbed me and did their worst. My flesh was tearing under my clothes, and my clothes were tearing over my flesh.

My face was slashed, bleeding. One thorn stuck my left eye, two got my right eye (which used to be my good eye). I pulled back, and part of my eyes stayed behind.

All kinds of colors flashed and then it went dark and I fell on the ground.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground and couldn’t see. I passed out.

The next thing I knew, I was lying in my bed, on my back. Everything was dark like I had gone blind, which apparently is what happened. My right hand was still it its leather glove, holding a little pruner nipper. My left hand was bare. I felt around in the dark and there was my other glove lying on my stomach. I closed my eyes but that didn’t help.

The next thing I knew, my Daughter was saying, “Dad! Dad! Can you see anything at all?”

I said, “No.”

The next thing I knew, I was asking, “Is my life over?”

My Daughter’s voice said, “We’ll take care of you.”

Food came to my mouth in a spoon. A sponge washed my body. I slept.

I woke up, and the voice said, “You still have lots to do with your life. I’ll be your eyes. You can keep writing. Dictate, and I’ll write it down. We’ll make another book. I’ll lead you outside and you can sit in the sun.”

I slept.

I woke up. I was outside. I was sitting on the top step of the kitchen ladder stood. The sun was very bright and hurt my eyes. The plants were green.

I looked around. It had never happened. I dreamed or imagined it.

My shirt, my arms, were intact.

I said to myself, “Why are these nightmares following me? It can’t just be the movies on television. It can’t just be the news, which admittedly is getting worse. It can’t just be the world, which is out of control.”

I had no answers, but at least I was intact and could see.

Upwellings from the subconscious were trying to tell me something. I was alive, which was almost the most I could hope for.

I could resume my campaign to save the world. My Daughter will help me put together another book. I can keep writing blogs to let the world know.

I wanted to shout and sing, but I just sat quietly in the sun.