Grab the nettle

Today I defeated my nemesis.

Every story since the beginning of time has a negative force at play. We are hard wired to expect trouble from some corner or another, think of all the stories that you have heard throughout your life and imagine them without the antagonism.

From our earliest days listening to nursery rhymes where Jack requires Jill to administer first aid or Humpty dumpty being irretrievably broken into pieces we are told to prepare for the worst.

Take your jacket, just in case, don’t climb that or you may just fall, and so it goes on and on until we are insured up to our necks for every eventuality. Our movie makers and news hounds scour the world for stories of threat and potential danger in order to introduce us to the latest hero or potential war.

Having lived through the dismantling of the Berlin Wall it was a strange experience to watch it being built in Tom Hanks latest movie. We quickly forget our past foes when the latest enemy is named, who even  remembers which side we helped in Sarajevo or Chekeslovakia? Those who amplified the Mujahadin or Al-quaida when they were the rat on board have quickly moved on to the latest bogey man with the attention span of a child in a toy shop.

Joe public just follows on in their wake, we trust the talking heads and so called experts as they pontificate about the immediacy of the danger. Choosing to live in fear of the few deranged souls rather than live our lives alongside the many decent of every religion and colour who simply want to get with their own lives on like we do.

Twelve years ago when we moved into our house our back door was boxed in on the inside and overgrown on the outside. It took some weeks to uncover the outside from under the thorns, trees and bushes. Inside, the framing and panelling was soon dismantled and a beautiful oak staircase was discovered.

Running from the ceiling along the wall and down underneath the stairs was an electrical conduit, I eventually traced it to an old shutter door at the far end of the building which no longer operated. I decided that it was best left alone as it was no longer in operation. However, at various points throughout the last dozen years it would remind me that it was receiving a supply from somewhere as it left me with a minor tingle.

Today I decided that it was time for it to leave.

It’s too late to ask J.M. Barrie why it was inevitable that Captain Hook was going to be eaten by the crocodile, why didn’t he just face the fear? Why didn’t he just work out a way to defeat the beast? I have never thought of that before, but after lifting floorboards and tracing the wires, cutting conduit and ripping it out amidst a satisfying cloud of dust I wondered why, like the old captain, we let those who refuse to grow up mentally, or spiritually define us and decide upon our ultimate fate?

No longer will I gently dread going under the stairs for fear of a tingling hand, the threat is gone and it only took an afternoon.  Our wall will be smooth and have no unsightly black pipe.

All that took was a bit of determination.