BMDs

His chair is worn out, its spine moulded to his, the seat cracked
around his buttocks, wheels driven into the parquetry.

A rut, the maintenance men told him, but what else did they expect
after twenty-five years on the cycle of life?

Births. Marriages. And Deaths.

Not Births, Deaths and Marriages.

Never Marriages, Deaths, and Births.

The same three little words time and time and time again.

The same lines too, the same words - healthy, blushing, beloved.
Different names, different dates, some with a cross or a start or a
photo, but all the same meaning.

The others complain about change.
They complained when they smelted the letters, the kernings and the
leadings.
Said it would never be the same without the sweaty setting room and the
tap, tap of the columns going down, but of course it was.

When they brought in the computers and the words became patterns of
light, they said that wasn't the same either. How could that be the
same when everything you wrote was air? But it was the same.
Now you could text in your condolences, or record an answer message of
good wishes for the bride, and probably, if you had the wherewithal,
e-mail an ultrasound of fish-baby turning into lizard.
Did that change a thing? He leaned back in his old friend and raised
his hands above his head. No, it did not.
The moaners were still mumbling in the corner, but he never had joined
them and he did not intend to now. The point was he welcomed change.
Would welcome change - anything to break to the monotony that he could
not edit out of his pages.

He wished that one day there would be not a single death. Even if the
hospital pumped the weakest full of methadone and barbiturates. Even if
the doctors waited for the stroke of midnight before calling it in.
Even if they stopped the cars and trains, and put away sharp
instruments and grounded the aircraft and? That wasn't asking too much
was it?

It would be easier to arrange a dearth of births. A 28-day curfew ten
months before should sort it out, a blockade of condoms, pills and
coils, and rolling Barry White on the radio, live shows on the
television. That should exhaust the nation's lust. True, there would be
a tidal wave that would quite overwhelm the National Health Service,
but, on the tail end of the bell curve, there would surely be a single
day where the maternity wards would fall silent.

The marriage drought would be easiest of all. Over the years he had
concocted: a strike of priests and registrars; a national day of
morning for a favourite corgi; Robbie Williams sings the interval of
the Cup Final.

And if by some biorhythmic chance these three events could all collide,
and the total of B+M+D was zero, he could pick up his pen and doodle in
the white page left behind.