Mental Pollution

A lot is said about dumping waste in the environment. Not enough is said about dumping rubbish in the mind.

Seeing a close relative in a coma and dying brought this home to me. You might think that in a coma a person is a complete vegetable. Wrong. There is a coma scale and unless you really are at the absolute bottom there is still activity. You move. Your nose itches, you scratch it. The higher functions of the mind are obviously shot to pieces: no reaction to words and if the eyes are open, no recognition of anything familiar, but the brain is obviously still ticking over. Things are going on in there – just the simplest, most deeply rooted things – the last things to go before THE END.

That was when I had a horrible thought about opal fruits (a square sweet popular – once popular – in the UK). I never liked opal fruits but that didn't stop their advertising jingle getting right into the fibres of my being. "Opal fruits: made to make your mouth water." It's a jingle that not infrequently floats up into my consciousness and then insists on going round and round for too long before sinking back down again.

So my nightmare is that I might be on death's door, about to breathe my last, or at the end of a protracted decline brought on by Alzheimer's and instead of a rousing symphony that might give me a foretaste of the enduring strength of the human soul or a profound thought from one of the great minds of the Western canon, all I hear is: "Opal fruits: made to make your mouth water. Opal fruits: made to make your mouth water. Opal fruits: made to make your mouth water. Opal fruits: made to make your mouth water."