The Man with an Upside-Down Nose

Once upon a time there was a man with an upside-down nose. He was born that way. As a child, he was bullied, of course. They would throw little balls of scrunched up paper at him, bouncing them off his forehead like a basketball backboard. If they went in, he'd huff them out in a puff of air and his classmates would shake with cruel laughter on the coarse classroom carpet. Once a boy punched him, and the blood welled up and over his nostrils like a sink overflowing, like placid volcanoes, errupting, calmly. The nurse tipped his head back gently over a white basin and the blood flowed over his closed eyelids and his furrowed brow and into his hair. The nurse washed it away under the tap and the water, like dilute orange juice, gurgled away down the plug hole.

Colds were a nightmare, and he wore a baseball cap to stop raindrops going down his nose, for he grew tired of carrying an umbrella all year round, just in case.

Life was hard for him, you'd imagine, considering that when he sneezed he was blinded and when he cried he drowned. He wore goggles to prevent these things, although sometimes he would take them off, climb a tree and, hooking his legs over a bough, hang upside-down like a bat and quietly weep, weep, weep for humanity.

The Tragic Death of a Small Green Kettle (as witnessed by a grubby little teaspoon)

The User got in this morning and threw her things on the Carpet and the Little White Coffee Table and plonked herself down on one of the Turquoise Chair brothers, who grunted under her weight. She opened Little White Laptop and tickled his belly, and he sang some music for her. Then she came over to the Kitchenette (that's where I live usually, although sooometimes she puts me back in the cupboard but it's dark there and I don't like it.) At the moment I'm upside-down in a Used Yoghurt Pot, a rather friendly fellow, if a little fragile (he's made of glass). It's quite cushy because I'm in here with a Soggy Teabag, and I don't mind being upside-down - it gives life a new angle, which is always nice.

Anyway, the User picked up our new friend Small Green Kettle, who is a friendly chap, although his face is a little melancholic. I don't have a face. Must be nice. She filled him with water from the Stainy Steel Tap and water went all over the Dirty Dishes and they giggled. Then she turned on one of the Hot Plate twins and left Small Green Kettle to boil water for her tea. That's good, I thought. I might get a new Soggy Teabag friend. I do hope it will be Earl Grey this time! English Breakfast's getting quite dull recently.

Then the User went into the Other room (the splishy-splashy one not the rustly-snorey one) and turned on the Shower. The Small Green Kettle started to make bubbly noises, he seemed quite happy. Soon he'd be whistling to say he was ready, and I'd get to have a little swim in an obliging Tea Cup.

Then The User left. I don't know where she went but she might have been with the Little Brown User or maybe the Tall Skinny User. But she didn't come back.

Then Small Green Kettle started to whistle. I'm ready! He whistled. I'm ready! But the User didn't come back. He kept whistling and whistling, and steam came from his little spout. I'm ready! I'm ready! But the User didn't come back. The Dirty Dishes murmured uncomfortably. The Little Window went all cloudy. Scratchy Frying Pan started getting a bit hot under the collar - he was quite close to the Hot Plate. The Small Green Kettle's whistles became more frantic, more desperate, until he sounded like he was screaming. The Hot Plate beneath him was getting redder and redder - soon it was as red as Glass Ketchup Bottle. Then it was orange like the Clementine Peelings on the Scarred Old Chopping Board beside me. The Small Green Kettle screamed and screamed, exasperated screams like his breath was running out. He was starting to burn, and he was turning red, too, beneath his lovely paintwork. But the User still didn't come. Do something! I tinkled in my Used Yoghurt Pot. But the Cheese Grater just sighed raspily and the Blunt Knife said 'He's done for, forgeddit.' The Small Green Kettle screamed and screamed until he had no more breath, for all the water had boiled away.

Then the User came and said a loud bad word and turned off the Hot Plate and took the Small Green Kettle away from it. But it was too late; his little face had chipped away with the heat and lay in sad green flakes on the counter. She said more loud bad words and ran him under the Stained Steel Tap to cool down. Where his eyes once were, black patches of metal showed through like cavernous sockets and the water flowed down them like bitter tears.

All the Utensils mourned quietly except the Blunt Knife who said 'I fakkin told ya' and the Old White Electric Kettle in the corner who, previously embittered by her recent replacement, now flicked her switch on and off joyously, chuckling with delicious shaudenfreude.

Oxford-Hachette

You're my dictionary,

I said.

Un dictionnaire vivant,

he said.

My living dictionary,

I said.

I'd be your dictionary, too, if only you would open me,

I said.

N'est pas que je veux pas t'ouvrir,

he said,

C'est juste que je préfére les pages francaises,

he said.

That is not what I meant at all.

I,qgine zqking up qnd every thing you tried to do zith your body zouldnùt zork the zqy you zqnted it to:
I,qgine if your ,uscles zoundnùt do zhqt your ,ind decreed; i,qgine if zords zouldnùt co,e out of your ,outh the zqy you intended the, to sound:
I,qinge; if you zill; thqt youùre lying in bed qnd every order your brqin sends teqring dozn your nerves; seqring through your synqpses; is being lost in trqnslqtion:

like zhen you zqke fro, q dreq, qnd cqnùt clench yoru fists
like zhen you co,e bqck fro, the dentists qnd cqnùt feel your cheeks
like throzing q feqther zith qll your ,ight
like screq,ing underzqter;

like touch typing on q french keyboqrd;

thqt is hoz i feel todqy:
thqt is hoz i feel every ti,e i open ,y ,outh;
phrqses elqborqtely coined in ,y conscience fqll by the zqyside qnd
nothing; nothing the zqy i ,eqnt:

nothing the zqy i intended; nothing the zqy it zqs intended:
in the zords of Qlfred J: Prufrock;
thqt is not zhqt i ,eqnt qt qll,
thqt is not it; qt qll:

The Twelve Dinner Guests of Shengxiao - Part Three

Tuzi was alone on a rooftop, smoking. Behind him, the sun was setting; at his feet, a battered radio blared a trebly melody. The golden light set his ears burning at their pointed tips; they glowed like traffic lights. The music stopped. A muffled, fuzzy voice recounted its message. His nose twitched. He licked his lips. He flicked his cigarette off the roof’s edge and leapt after it, his body cutting a lean silhouette against the orange sky. He landed softly on the adjacent rooftop, as nonchalantly as one might step over a crack in the pavement. He broke into a loping run, leaping from one rooftop to the next. Soon he was little more than a small black shape against the skyline, hopping like a flea on a rabbit’s back.

Pang Zhu wiped his chubby fingers on his apron. His puffy cheeks glistened greasily and were flushed red with heat and shame. He ‘worked’ in the kitchen of his father’s restaurant (‘slaved’ would be a more appropriate term), and for the umpteenth time he had caught him eating on the job and had whipped him with a wet dishcloth.  Embarrassment had become an almost permanent psychological state; it enveloped him to such an extent that on some days, he felt like he had become its human embodiment. Obese since childhood, due in part to his overindulgent (now deceased) mother, he was full to the brim with blinding hatred, furiously directed both outwards at his father and inwards at his own pathetic state. His father had a strict ‘no eating’ policy; this was due, in part, to the fact that it was bad for business, but as far as Pang Zhu was concerned, it was a personal form of subjugation, designed specifically to deprive him, demean him, humiliate him for his failure as a son. Hot tears formed on his face; he felt he could faint with hunger and he was tired, burnt out, from constant deprivation and hard physical labour.

Then the kitchen radio spoke its blessed gospel, words from the lips of the gods themselves. Pang tore off his apron, threw his dishcloth to the ground, blundered through the back door and out into the cold air, grunting defiantly.

Rat

At night I skulk the city, climbing into bins.

Headfirst, legs scrape the brim and I fall

Right in.

The lid shuts above me and I’m encased in its

Womb-like darkness, a dirty foetus in its

Putrid mother’s carcass.

A squalid monk, in his unholy chapel,

I nestle in between a nappy

And a rotten apple.

My eyes see naught but shadows, visual static, hence,

I leave them both to starve, and with my nose

I feast on scents.

A tapestry of odours drapes around me like a blanket;

 A filthy prince of darkness at a

Fetid nasal banquet.

Fag butts, sodden teabags, curdled milk and onion peelings,

Week-old salmon! Oh! You send my

Nostrils reeling!

In every dustbin there exists an olfactory tale;

I’ll decipher, from its contents, if the owner

Is a male,

The scents create a picture of the lives behind closed

Doors – are they single? Old or youthful? Are they rich or

Are they poor?

The butcher’s bin is gory, if the meat’s been there for

Hours, but the bins behind the hospital

Smell of life, and death, and 

Flowers.

The Twelve Dinner Guests of Shengxiao - Part Two

One amongst them would be Mr. Shu, a con artist and criminal. Shrewd, meticulous and very charming, he rubbed shoulders with the powerful and wrapped the rich around his little finger. He wore a rather shabby brown suit and had a thin face adorned with a rather pathetic set of whiskers; only his sparkling eyes redeemed him. They made him, in fact. Those and his nimble fingers. But at the time of the radio announcement, these had been rendered a little redundant, for his hands were behind his back, handcuffed at the wrists. Police officer Niu had happened upon Mr. Shu selling counterfeit Rolexes down an alleyway, and in doing so, had finally (unwittingly) caught one of the city’s most notorious crooks.

Officer Niu bundled Shu into the back of his police car and, installing himself in the driver’s seat, blew a great puff of air out through his nostrils. Whilst his boulder-like physique was certainly intimidating, he had a kind, bovine face, and a nature to match. Though he was an earnest, hard-working man, his placidity often lead to him being taken advantage of. Mr Shu knew this all too well. The advantage, he thought, was his for the taking. And it was at that moment that the Jade Emperor’s broadcast began to blare out from the car radio. Both men heard it. Neither could ignore it. The invitation seemed to have spoken to them individually, personally, so great was their desire, at that moment in time, to join the Jade Emperor for dinner, though for very different reasons. “Did…. Did you hear that?” ventured Niu, slightly apprehensively, as though wishing not to display any interest. “Hear what? The radio? Wasn’t listening,” responded Mr Shu, slyly. Officer Niu said nothing. He just quietly flicked a switch and accelerated wildly into the middle of the street, lights flashing, sirens blaring. Shu’s head was slammed into his headrest by the sudden burst of speed. He grimaced, but only to hide his smile. Two men, one hungry for power and the other for dinner, were soon to have their hunger sated.

When Master Hu heard the broadcast, he was running along the riverbank, sweat dripping from every pore. He was a former Kung Fu champion, retired now, but still as strong as he had ever been in his prime. Swift as a tiger, he padded deftly over cracked pavements and dodged street hawkers. His niece had recently purchased him a small radio-walkman, and he liked to catch up on the daily news as he took his evening jog. He heard the announcement and smiled. He knew exactly where ‘The Jade Emperor’ lived; he used to teach him Kung Fu every Thursday morning. As the sun set over Shengxiao, he picked up his pace a little and veered off his path. He would pay his old student a visit, he thought, and he crossed the road, narrowly avoiding a speeding police car.

Les Pigeons de la Rue des Petits Gras

The end of my street bleeds into another one, a quiet perpendicular passage that runs down from the cathedral to the tramlines below. Today I was climbing home along this street. I reached the toy shop on the corner and went to take a left towards my apartment, but something in front of my caught my eye and held it. Though my body turned it left my head behind, transfixed.

A narrow yellow shop that I had previously taken little notice of, though it was technically in my line of sight almost daily. A sign saying Fermé and no lights on but the door was ajar, and on the doorstep, and on the pavement outside it, pigeons. At least two dozen pigeons, flocking around this tiny shop, bustling into the threshold and then flapping out again. Feet universally that raw, chapped pink, marching their unsynchronised goosestep, heads bobbing to some secret music, silent to all but their secret ears. Real city pigeons , these; posh, plump, pure-bred wood pigeons they were not. These were mottled, grubby, an assortment of colours. Were they human, I imagined, the wood pigeon would be an aristocrat with a paunch and gout; these would be a mixed race street gang - unloved underdogs, scourge of the streets, raw beauty in their faces. But someone loved them, these rats of the skies; inside the tiny shop, obscured in the half light, sat an old couple. I saw only their side profile, her head covered in a scarf, his nearly invisible in the shadow but for the dark frames of his spectacles. Seeds fell periodically from an unseen hand and scattered onto the flagstones where they were pecked up in a flurry of feathers. Dark slate grey, warm sepia; some speckled with white like mountain peaks at winter’s start; others white, flecked with grey like snow at winter’s end. Flushed faintly, at the throats, with sea green and amethyst, a subtle iridescence which quietly outshone the rainbow plumage of parrots and other such gaudy birds of paradise purely in its unexpectedness.

The old woman noticed my presence; I pictured myself as she saw me, a dark blonde girl in a man’s navy duffel coat, a trace of a smile on her pale face, glazed eyes following  pigeons gliding gracelessly from the rooftops. I nodded at her and turned away, with a little reluctance. As I walked away the sound of wings beating against soft bodies, of feathers striking the nothingness of air, brief, quiet rustlings, lingered in my ears. A celestial sound. Like angels in flight, I thought, and smiled at the irony. Dirty angels who eat cold chips from yellow Styrofoam and shit on monuments, but angels, nonetheless.

The Twelve Dinner Guests of Shengxiao

Once upon a time somewhere in China, there was a city called Shengxiao. In that city there lived a very rich and powerful man. He was known by every man, woman and child in the city, but his true name was known by precious few. Instead, the people knew him only by his moniker - the Jade Emperor. Money, they say, corrupts, but the Jade Emperor was a rare gemstone in a filthy sea of greed and fraud and extortion. He was known to be a dignified man, uncorrupted by his boundless wealth, respected for his generosity and graceful, tasteful grandeur. These fine qualities were complimented by his discretion, for people knew very little about his private life and thus he was shrouded in an air of mystery. Though many dreamed of the luxurious lifestyle he must lead, people often wondered who this strange man really was, and who his friends were, if, indeed, he had any at all.

One cold January morning, the Jade Emperor awoke with a strange sense of loneliness, so acute that ritual small talk with his housekeeper could not hope to assuage it. The gossip of the people, it turns out, held some truth: the man they called Emperor did not possess a single friend in the world. Fine tailored suits and exquisite silk shirts may caress my skin, he thought, but they could never replace a friendly hand placed on my shoulder. Russian caviar may fill my belly, washed down by French Champagne, but my heart remains empty. What good, he wondered, is a glass table under which rare Koi swim if I have no friends to join me for supper?

Later that day a special announcement was made on the city radio. Its simple message commanded sudden silence; the ears of ten thousand citizens pricked up.

“The Jade Emperor would like to announce that a banquet is to be held tonight at his private residence. The first twelve people to arrive will be admitted as guests of honour; all others will be turned away.”

Now, as you can imagine, this caused quite a stir in the city. Everybody wanted to meet this mysterious multi-millionaire; everyone yearned to have a taste of such wealth, such grandeur. But the minds of us humans, as you are well aware, work in self-defeating ways. I’d never make it there in time, some said. I don’t know where he lives. I don’t have any clean clothes I could wear. I don’t have any clothes I could wear. I don’t think my table manners are quite up to scratch. I promised my girlfriend I’d take her to dinner. One by one, the citizens quietly counted themselves out, knowing in their heart of hearts that, were they to actually get up and rush to his door, they would surely be turned away.

Of course, there were those who lacked any such modesty, and leapt into their cars hastily to race to this free dinner to beat all free dinners that had ever been eaten in the history of free dinners. This was the chance of a life time. This was not to be missed. And within 15 minutes, every road in the city was rammed tight with vehicles, all furiously spewing exhaust fumes and honking cacophonously. No one was going anywhere.

But the Jade Emperor had invited twelve to his table, and twelve at his table there would be...

To be continued.

The Retina is a Camera

A tall skinny boy in a burgundy shirt and brown trousers is crouching over a dusty bicycle with a deep red frame and chrome handlebars, his fingers blackened with grease, tendons shifting beneath sun-kissed forearms as he eases the back wheel from its frame with a wrench. His vertebrae protrude slightly, small hills swelling up and down again along the curvature of his back. I’m steadying the bike with one hand; the metal is cold and there is a thin silhouette of mist on its surface, condensation from my sticky palm. I watch him but he is oblivious to my presence, hair falling over his eyes in which are reflected, I imagine, rusty spokes, gleaming dully. His fingers tremble with concentration as they prise the tyre away from the rim. I feel strangely voyeuristic; as though in watching him I am intruding on some private, intimate ceremony between man and bicycle. He peels back the cracked Michelin tyre to reveal the inner tube, soft and prone like a slug suddenly exposed beneath a lifted stone. I avert my eyes, gazing out the window instead; dove-grey clouds against blinding white. 

Pavandanisa

Pav Jasinski  and Anisa Ahmed were seven-years-old and six-and-a-half respectively. They were next-door-neighbours. They were also the-best-of-friends. The hyphens are used here to amalgamate words which are so frequently used together that they have become conglomerate phrases. The two children, likewise, were so frequently seen together that they , too, were hyphenated. Pav-Jasinki-and-Anisa-Ahmed. Pav-and-Anisa. Anisa-and-Pav. Sometimes, even the hyphens themselves were omitted. They became one word on their parents’ lips at dinner time: “Pavandanisaaaa!!”  and one word when their other friends came to play: “Excuuse me Mrs Ahmed, are Pavandanisa at your house?” And in a blur of brown and pink and black and blonde the two would come tumbling through the door like conjoined twins or some mythical creature, the lesser spotted pavandanisa.

They played in each other’s gardens, ate at each other’s tables, lived in each-others pockets. A broad-faced Polish boy and a scrawny Pakistani girl, poster children for Multiculturalbritain, another conglomerate beast whose hyphens had long since fallen by the wayside. Their parents smiled and treated both children as their own, supressing secret fears about the future and when-will-Pav-start-taking-his-Polish-classes-seriously and what-would-happen-when-they-wanted-Anisa-to-marry-a-nice-Muslim-boy. These were things they didn’t want to worry about now, for they could see how happy and innocently their offspring played together in the garden, catching frogs and putting worms in buckets, pudgy white fingers brushing against delicate brown ones in the sandpit.

But how long can anything stay inseparable? Rifts will always form, cultural or otherwise. One day, Mrs Jasinski went into the garden and called, “Pav!” and Mr Ahmed called “Anisa!” and that was where the rift started.

The children were somewhat unused to hear their names called in isolation, from separate sides of the garden fence. It took a few seconds before they seemed to catch on that today they would not be eating together. They were to return to their separate houses, separately separated. Saddened, they slunk indoors, Anisa taking her shoes off at the door and Pav trudging mud into the hallway.

Minutes later, a howl rose up from one house and a wail from the other. Their parents, it seemed, had announced the news. The Ahmeds were moving house so that they would be closer to their mosque and to the single-sex secondary school in the city. Two bedroom doors were heard slamming, one in each house, not quite in unison but in close succession, one loud then one quiet. One quiet then one loud.

The next day, Anisa told Pav she’d come up with a plan that would keep them together forever. She whispered it in his ear and he nodded solemnly, big blue eyes wide open. He waited as she dashed into her house and came back minutes later holding a little box. From the box she took a needle and thread. She had watched her mother thread a needle many times, but her little fingers fumbled with the fraying thread to no avail. Eventually she managed. “This way we’ll be together forever, Pav.” She took his hand in hers and, tongue protruding from her thin lips, started to push the silver needle into the skin on her friend’s hand. He squealed and flinched; a bright spot of blood appeared and his eyes grew even wider. “Don’t be a baby,” Anisa said, trying to sound tough, though her voice betrayed her.

Hours later, having seen neither hide nor hair of the fabled Pavandanisa for a considerable length of time, Mrs Ahmed came out on to the patio to look for them. She immediately shrieked and dropped her cup of tea.  Mr Ahmed rushed out to see what had made his wife emit such a noise, and saw Pav and Anisa lying in a crumpled heap on the grass, covered in red. Pushing past Mrs Ahmed he saw that their hands, her left and his right, entwined in thread and dripping with blood. “ANISA!” he bellowed, dropping to his knees to shake his daughter gently with both hands.

Anisa pursed her lips as tight as she could. Pav wrinkled his nose. They were both doing that thing they’d discovered, where you pretend to close your eyes but you’re looking through your eyelashes. They were both trying not to make a sound. Through his fair lashes, Pav could see the bottle of ketchup lying in the bush behind Anisa, and he let out a brief snigger. She squeezed his hand. The smell, more vinegar than tomatoes, was rising in her nostrils and making them tickle. She snorted slightly, and soon they could no longer conceal their childish mirth; they rolled away from each other, let go of each other’s hands, and ran through the hole in the fence.

Mr Ahmed was left with hands covered in sticky red stuff, which certainly didn’t look like blood. He licked his finger and fought back a smile. “Pavandanisa,” he said, shaking his head. “Pavandanisa.” 

Bad Seeds.

I’ve seen Inception and it’s true. Not the part where Leonardo Di Caprio enters people’s dreams and larks about with Marion Cotillard jumping out of windows and playing chicken with freight trains; just the concept that a simple idea can be planted into the subconscious where it will take root and, nourished by the spongy, metaphorically-mineral-rich brain tissue, rapidly grow into something more sinister. Innocent, innocuous phrases can germinate in the recesses of the mind like cress on damp Bounty until they become all-consuming obsessions. And there is nothing more fertile than a mind that is already rich in doubt. A doubtful mind, if I am to milk this metaphor properly as I intend to, is more conducive to the growth of such ‘bad seeds’ than a bag of B&Q compost. Careless assertions like “There is no God” or “They’re taking our Jobs”; self-reached conclusions like “The world would be better off without me”; well-intentioned platitudes like “You deserve better”. Each one a mere sentence, yet each one possessing the power to infiltrate and infect the minds of the individual or of society, for better or worse. Revolution or annihilation.

And in this modern age, conversation has been reduced to faceless voices microwaved through thin air and pixelated letters on screens. We are a generation of lost souls adrift in a sea of social networking. Such ideas have become viral; transmitted with debilitating frequency to fill the minds of the masses.

I like to think I am a person of moderate sanity and intelligence, although I imagine this is something which could be said of the majority of the populous and which, in reality, has little reflection on the truth. 

Nonetheless, I pride myself on being sound of mind. And yet I am by no means immune to these corrupting little seedlings. This very morning, I am sorry to admit, I succumbed to such an idea and it spread through me like poison.

I’d like to say it took the form of some sort of cleverly engineered propaganda but this would be a fallacious invention. It was a text message. (Oh, text-speak! Foul scourge of the nation, befouling our rich literary heritage!) And it wasn’t even what it said. It was what it didn’t say. How fraught, you say, to fall victim of such irrationality! But the seed was planted, and as left my dingy bedsit, laundry in hand, and bustled down  to the street, I was already seething with its venom, for the toxic idea had pushed its tap roots into my very soul. In the spitting rain I dodged through black volcanic streets, fuming as I skirted round an old woman with a violet scarf and an indigo coat and narrowly avoided piles of dog shit. It had taken over, this idea, and my emotions were now at its mercy. When I reached the laverie the plant’s shoots had pushed through my skull and dribbles of brain fluid were seeping down my brow (though it could have been sweat). I was soaked with a quiet rage which culminated into an explosive zenith when I realised that, having taking my one Euro (foul, useless currency!) the machine was now refusing to cough up any washing powder.

I kicked the washing machine in its smug stainless steel face. 

Alfred's Nightmare (Part 3)

“I really don’t know what’s gotten into him, Mrs Peterson. He’s never hit anybody before. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, our Alfred.” Mrs Hutchins ruffled her son’s hair nervously; Alfred stared at his knees. “Well with all due respect, Mrs Hutchins, that’s neither here nor there. Alfred punched Eric Mansfield with quite some force. His nose bled all over the playground steps! He’s in Matron’s office now, where I believe it’s still bleeding!” She shot a cross teacherly gaze in Alfred’s direction, but, seeing how frightened he was, how sheepishly he held himself, she softened slightly and put on her most soothing tone (the voice she liked to call the ‘Parent-pleaser’). “Look. I understand that Eric Mansfield is what some might call a bully” (this she whispered, as though she was frightened Eric would somehow hear her - which, in truth, she was) “Now, there is no excuse for violence of any sort in this establishment. I am disappointed in Alfred, but, in truth, I feel that young Eric may have gotten what was coming to him, so to speak. With this in mind, Alfred, you will be spending the rest of the week in lunch time detention, but we will pursue this matter no further.”

Alfred didn’t mind spending lunch times in detention. It meant he wouldn’t have to see Eric, and it also meant he could help Miss O’Grady pour paint into pots for the Year One art class, and Miss O’Grady was very beautiful. In the car on the way home, his mum fretted on about where he’d learnt such awful behaviour from – “it’s those video games your father bought you for Christmas! I know it!” – but he wasn’t listening. He was staring down at the knuckles on his right hand – they were red, a little fat, and slightly scuffed like his black Clarks shoes with the orthopaedic insoles. They hurt, but not much. It didn’t bother him; he was just replaying the punch in his mind, slowly, over and over. Hey Eric! he had shouted. Eric had turned and he had punched him with as much force as he could muster, with all his might. Though his arms were puny, this force turned out to be enough to knock his astonished adversary to the painted tarmac. The bright red of the blood, which appeared so suddenly, was seared into mind. It had been redder, even, than Eric’s big fat face. There was nothing wrong, it seemed, with Alfred’s punching prowess.

This left him feeling rather strange, slightly conflicted. On the one hand, perhaps, if his nightmare were to recur, he might be able to beat that horrid old woman (who, now that he thought of it, had had more than a passing resemblance to Mrs Peterson). On the other hand, if he could punch in real life, but not in the dream, maybe it was the dream that had done it, that was all. (Well done Alfred! You’re catching on!) But there was still the issue of the swimming on his mind. Why hadn’t he been able to swim? Could he swim in real life? Walking up the gravel path to his front door, he eyed the garden pond. Nope – he didn’t fancy trying his luck. His experiments had gotten him into enough trouble for one day, and besides, the pond smelt of dead rats and frog faeces.

That night, Mr and Mrs Hutchins tucked their son in as usual. He spent around 15 minutes reading The Beano Annual 1997, then switched off his light and closed his eyes. He lay awake for what seemed like a very long time, but eventually he must have fallen asleep, because he began to dream.

Alfred dreamed that he was in the woods with his friend Ben Edwards. He was wearing red shoes that were much too big for him, and there were lime green piglets running about the place. They were trying to catch them with big butterfly nets. Then Miss O’Grady appeared and gave him a sticker that said Good Job but the sticker turned into a cheese’n’onion crisp and it broke in his hand. Then his mother appeared and started shaking him, gently, and he realised that he was awake, and that he was safe, and that it didn’t matter if he couldn’t punch or swim in his dreams because they weren’t real anyway.

But that day, after his lunch time detention, Miss O’Grady gave him a Good Job sticker. And then he wasn’t so sure….

Alfred's Nightmare (Part 2)

At 7 am the next day, his mother found him, Beano in hand, lamp still on, its feeble light overridden by the sun’s morning rays, fast asleep. She woke him with difficulty, shaking him a little as she normally had to. He seemed a little taken aback at being woken, but again, this was very normal for a schoolboy on a weekday morning. But Alfred’s morning was far from normal; he was still very much perturbed by his nightmare, and all throughout the day, he felt slightly uneasy. It was ‘plaguing’ him – a phrase which he liked because he’d recently learnt about the Black Death in history class. He could be chatting with his friends between lessons, or running about the playground chasing a tatty football, when suddenly it would hit him again – a sinking remembrance of the indescribable fear he had felt. Each time he remembered, he had a funny, queasy sensation in his tummy. 

In science, he put his hand up and asked Mr Geoffries a question. “Sir,” he postulated, rather timorously, “Sir, is it possible to swim in oil?” Mr Geoffries, who was trying to teach them how magnets worked, looked a little stumped. As is the case with many primary school teachers, he had, in fact, done a degree in English Literature, and had not counted on five long years spent teaching 10 year olds how to make circuits and why they had shadows on top of times tables and Biff-Chip-and-Kipper. But the job demanded it, and besides, it paid well enough and he like the holidays. It meant he could spend time focussing on his many projects, which currently included playing bass in a Led Zeppelin tribute band and collecting Star Wars memorabilia. “Well,” he attempted, “I suppose you could, although I don’t think you’d float half as well as you did in water. Your body’s made of mostly water and that sinks in oil, so I think you’d sink. Yes, you’d sink.” Pleased with himself, he turned back to the board, and, seeing once more his feeble chalk drawing at a horseshoe-magnet, felt all his new-found self-satisfaction fizzle out.

Alfred, too, felt far from satisfied with the response. If it hadn’t been oil that he was swimming in, in that dream, then it must of (must have, Alfred, must have! Does Mr Geoffries teach you nothing? No, I imagine not) it must have been water. And if he wasn’t swimming properly in water, albeit dream water, he have forgotten how to swim. Maybe he should start having lessons again, so next time he can escape that horrid old woman?

Then there was the matter of the weak punches which did no more damage than had he been battering her with a dandelion. He must be a real weakling, he thought with dismay, if he can’t even hit an old lady.

No, Alfred, this is not, in fact, how dreams work, my poor misguided darling. But there’s no telling him, especially if you’re just a lowly omniscient narrator like myself. I just tell the story. Anyway, whilst I was digressing, I neglected to mention that Alfred is currently walking up to Eric Mansfield, a 7 stone, 5 foot tall 11 year old, with a clenched fist. I think he’s going to punch him. Oh, mercy, he did. Silly Alfred. Silly, silly Alfred. 

To be continued.

Alfred's Nightmare (Part 1)

Alfred awoke with a forceful jolt. Often we are woken from dreams by such jolts. We dream we are falling, or have slipped, or tripped, and when we hit the dream ground, we wake to find we have landed not on concrete but on soft mattress springs. When we get older, of course, we realise that there was in fact no fall; just a violent muscular twitch, enough to stir the conscious back to sudden life. Alfred was past the age at which he wet the bed; past the age at which he could legitimately run to his parent’s bedroom and slither in beside his mother. But he had not quite reached that age in which we can fully separate dreams from reality. This age, in truth, varies from person to person, and one may ask if any of us ever really reach it. But it matters not; what is trying to be shown here is that Alfred Hutchins, age 10, was lying wide awake in bed, eyes frantically scanning his shadowy bedroom to check that this was now real life, that his dream was really over.  The fear which had gripped him during his sleep had yet to relinquish its hold; try as he might, he could not squirm of it. He grappled for the switch to his bedside lamp. In its yellow light, he felt better, however its glow was small consolation alone, and how would he sleep once it was turned off again? Being dragged back into that feverish dream world was a fearsome concept.  Under his bed was a pile of Beano annuals. Without looking (fearing what he might see there, though he knew in his heart that there was nothing) he clumsily snatched one up and settled down to read its colourful pages.

In his dream, Alfred Hutchins had been chased by an ugly woman who, though old and wizened, was extremely fast and strong. He didn’t know why she was chasing him; he did not stop to think about it, nor did he think about the fact that his ‘house’ was suddenly a huge purple mansion with a lake in the garden. She chased him from room to room, eventually finding him behind a sofa where he had been trying to hide. Pulling back his arm like he’d seen on T.V. he’d punched her repeatedly, or tried to. His fists moved through the air slowly, as though underwater; when his knuckles made contact with her wizened face they had no effect, for his arms were suddenly weaker than a new-born kitten’s. He tried again and again to hit her but each punch took all of his strength but had the same feeble effect, his limp fingers just brushed against her rubbery skin.

All of a sudden, dream Alfred was sprinting towards the lake, his haggard pursuer snapping at his heels with her vile toothless maw. When he reached the water, he dived in, and it happened again – his arms were once again enfeebled, powerless. In slow-motion he flailed in the water as if it were thick oil, moving nowhere. Once again the old woman was upon him and this was when he woke up with the aforementioned jolt, reeling with terror, alone and safe in the dark, though he did not feel it.

To be continued

La Colline de Chevalard.

Yesterday we left the city in an Opel the colour of cornflowers. Ten minutes later we found ourselves on a sun-bleached hillside, overlooking faraway rooftops, half-visible under a wintry haze. The white horizon blended up into cyan and, high above, that pure, clear blue an English winter clouds from memory. In the yellowed field before us were two horses, coats grown long like lambs’ fleeces. The sun set them alight from behind, so they were lined with an aura of bright white, their breath misting out periodically, glowing and fading. To our backs were higher fields and trees the sun had not yet reached; they were glazed in frost and bathed in deep blue shade. Every tree, every leaf, every blade of grass was crystallised, brittle in their icy coats. I bent down and picked a hemlock stem. Every crystal was visible, jutting outwards like jagged shards of glass lining city garden walls. The sunlight made them gleam.

We walked down the path, the four of us. Three strolling, leather boots clopping like hooves against the rocky ground, one lingering behind to look under logs and kick bottles, then running frantically to catch up. Sparkling frost gently flaked from leaves and telephone wires above us, like beautiful dandruff.  We descended to a small farm, hesitating in the sun-bright courtyard as a large dog whooped at us from the doorway.  “Est-ce que vous avez du chévre à vendre aujourdhui?” we asked the woman who came out. Non, she replied, no goat’s cheese at the moment. Disappointed, we left, carrying on down the hillside. In the distance was a village, tiny terracotta roofs and a church spire and a football pitch. We could see the teams playing, red ants versus yellow ants. Like on a T.V. screen, I said.

We climbed back up the hill and the little one slipped through rusty barbed wire to pick winter flowers for his grandmère. Très jolie, she smiled. We headed onwards; later he rushed back to us proffering more flowers – desiccated heads of hemlock, covered with ice crystals whose every facet caught the sun. More beautiful than any flower summer had to offer. Later he ran back again and crushed them with his fist.

When we reached the top of the hill again, I stopped and closed my eyes. “What are you doing?” I was feeling the sun’s warmth on my face, letting orange wash through my closed eyelids. My feet were incredibly cold; my toes felt like bruisy frozen raspberries. My hands too, were bitterly numb. But with my eyes closed, feeling that faint warmth kiss my pale skin back to life, on top of La Colline de Chevalard, I ceased to care. “I’m pretending,” I said. “I’m pretending that I’m in up to my shoulders in the cold sea, with the Mediterranean sun on my face.” She joined in, and we pretended together, the icy sea of a French January ebbing around our bodies.

Feather for Fingers or Tinfoil Teeth?

So my brother and I are sitting on a bus, on a journey, a long one. To anywhere, it doesn’t matter. It could have been anywhere in the world. The conversation would have been the same, I’m sure, if we were on a coach from Dublin to Athlone or a dolmus from Antalia to Akbuk. I’m on the aisle seat, say, and he’s by the window, looking out at whatever landscape it is we’re passing. I’m watching his blue-grey eyes flash from side to side, following objects rushing past, jerking back to focus on the next, wondering if my eyes are doing the same thing whilst watching his, making tiny flickers, over and over. Maybe we’d be sharing a bag of crisps or dried fruit. Apricots. No. Mango, definitely mango. And I’d say,

“What would you rather,” and he’d look down, the corners of his mouth tweaking outwards, a small smile in anticipation of the game that I’d begun. My Dad would turn and roll his eyes. Not that game again, his eyes would say.

“What would you rather,” another pause, to build suspense. “Drink a whole bottle of oil or a whole bottle of vinegar.”

“Vinegar.” Smiling tentatively, sure of his decision yet awaiting my approval.

“Me too. What wouuuld youuu raaaather….” And that’s how it would begin, that game that we played to pass the time, to make each other laugh, or squirm. The possibilities were infinite. Even a small sub-category (What would you rather eat?) ranged in scale from mundanely off-putting (a jar of horseradish or a jar of mustard, a spoon of Tabasco or of wasabi, a bottle of ketchup or of mayonnaise, raw onion or garlic, custard powder or cornflour) to utterly vile and infantile (poo or wee? Horse testicles or Bull penis?). Better still were the implausible little conundrums we fashioned, often meticulously thought out but more frequently just bizarre, nonsensical scenarios that would never, or could never, take place in the real world. These surreal situations were more difficult; the wacky foodstuffs round was usually just a warm up. What would you rather? What would you raaaaaaather?

“Grass for hair or a carrot for a nose?”

 “X-ray vision or mind reading?”

“Three arms and one leg or three legs and one arm?”

“Blue skin or green skin?”

“Your hands can shoot fire or your hands can shoot water?”
“Vaginaforamouth or mouthforavagina?”

“Cut off your own finger, or someone else’s?”

“Go to school naked for one day or wear school uniform every day for the rest of your life?”

“A plate which refills itself or a bag that never gets full?”

“Have sex with your sibling and no one knows or have sex with your cousin and everyone knows?”

“Wheelchair or Down’s Syndrome?”

“No hair anywhere or loads of hair everywhere?”

“Snakes for arms or trout for feet?”

“Wake up one morning and your whole garden is full of fat people with no arms and no legs, or DIE?’

“Now that’s just ludicrous!” Dad would usually have been listening the whole time, a mask of cynicism veiling, perhaps, quiet amusement.

We’d end up crippled with laughter on an otherwise quiet bus; the illicit laughter of children in assembly and bored businessmen in boring board meetings. Our game would always descend into that same nonsensical depravity; it was a given. By the end, my brother would finish anything with “or DIE”, his voice comically grave. Lick a tramp’s armpit or DIE. Jump off a cliff or DIE. Get stung by a wasp or DIE. Eat an ice cream or DIE. The options were always latent with irony, or invalidity, or incongruity, or inanity. Never, ever, did death seem like the better option. We always chose the former, never the latter. It seemed to be an unspoken rule. You would never choose death in the game.

At the time it was always aimed to make the patience-trying journeys of our adolescence pass less painfully. Now, decades later, I look back - my eyes glazed over, flicking back and forth as though watching scenery fly past dusty bus windows. I wonder why those vacuous pastimes gave us such joy. What strange thrills had we gained from them? I begin to think maybe they were not so pointless, so vapid. I think it’s possible that we learnt from them. We learnt, perhaps, about ourselves. About our characters, our preferences. How to make decisions. Is it right to retrospectively adhere such values to the actions of our youth? My brother, certainly, would have been disgusted at the thought we were playing anything psychoanalytical, or philosophical. Perhaps I’m just playing that adult game we so detested in school literature classes – reading meaning into things which were best left unanalysed, just as they were. A thing unto themselves. Lying here all these years later I realise we never asked anything serious. What would you rather, world peace or an end to poverty. Israel or Palestine. Labour or Lib Dem. Die young or die old. Be an old, sick woman in a hospital bed, dying, or DIE. We never used to choose ‘DIE’. Always the former, never the latter. Option A, not option B. But then again, we never asked those questions.

Lying here now, immobile under plastic tubes and scratchy boiled-white sheets, every breath an exertion, there is no question I can contemplate to which I would not choose the latter.

Sir Phileas Bobbington's Big Adventure

It was a cold winter’s night. The hedgerow’s frost-tipped leaves were set to gleaming by the Moon’s icy beams; the Sun had long retired to bed behind the barren fields. Soon the hedges were full of whispering, for it was that hour of night when all the animals, safe from human eyes and ears, could leave their hiding places in safety to rejoice and play. Pheasants hopped down from their roosts, calling rather noisily to each other -‘Percy my dear boy! How the ruddy hell are you old bean?’ Bryony and Phyllis the old hedgehogs pottered out for a gossip with their friend Jacinta, the muntjack deer. Young field mice dashed from their burrows, tittering with joy whilst their mothers, fearful of the lecherous owl Mr Barnaby Glydown, called after them, urging them to stay in sight.

Sir Phileas Bobbington, hearing the commotion, popped his head out of his warren to see what the devil all that racket was for! The old rabbit was a fine fellow, well respected in the neighbourhood and throughout the surrounding fields. He wore a fine purple waistcoat with gold buttons, and a monocle over his left eye. Seeing that night had fallen, he mellowed – it was high time he got up and about! Taking with him his brown clay pipe, he bounded out from his burrow, brushing the mud from his little waistcoat. Seeing Ambrose Finnegan the badger in the hedge opposite, he called out to his friend and began hopping over to him.

‘Ambrose! Beautiful ni- SLAM!!!!

An instant of blinding light, a sickening thump and Sir Phileas Bobbington was no more than a smear of blood and fur and bones - and purple silk - ground into the icy tarmac. The taillights, red fireflies, trailed off into the night; fleeting vigil candles at his gruesome wake.

The next day flies feasted whilst his monocle, shattered now, glinted in the winter sun.

Nothing in Moderation.

For dinner tonight I had a ham and onion omelette. It was mediocre because the onions weren’t quite cooked enough, which was my fault, and the eggs were spread too thinly to fold it properly, which was the fault of the overly large pan. The pan also has a raised centre, so the middle was especially flimsy. Small things which many wouldn’t give too much thought, perhaps. But I have always invested rather too much emotion into food. There are times I have gone into deep mourning when, having poured my cereal expectantly into the bowl, I discover that the fridge is utterly milkless. I’ve cursed over burnt toast, cried over cakes left too long in the oven. Errant eggshells floating in the albumen are wholly traumatising.

Happily tonight there were no eggshells in my omelette. I cracked the eggs with relative ease, without having to think about it, to worry about applying too much force or too little. It led me to wonder, at what point did cracking eggs become a prowess of mine, that I no longer had to fear or fret when breaking into them. How many eggs had I cracked in my lifetime? And with that one simple question, my eyes glazed over as my mind drifted off into the infinity of abstract thought.

Just imagine, I thought. Imagine if I could see, in a pile, every egg I’d ever cracked. Every egg I’d ever eaten. Or oranges. Apples. Bananas. Lychees, even, in a pile no higher than my shin. What if I could see, in some vast warehouse, some big white room, pile after pile, in vary sizes, of all the foodstuffs I’d ingested since birth. The pile of pasta, or of bread, or rice, or potatoes, for example, would be huge. I could jump into them, climb to the top and slide down again. Piles of fish and meat, carcasses divided into species, would sicken me. Perhaps they could be presented as living animals, in pens or in tanks. 89 salmon, 78 tuna, 240 sardines, 403 mussels, 3 lobsters. How many cows? How many chickens? Triple figures, at least. Closer to 1000 than to 100. Perhaps that would be more sickening altogether. And what of the piles of salt and sugar, the mountains of butter and cheese. Like some messed up TV show where some scrawny Scottish woman grabs you by the hair and rubs your face in your own gluttony. The dark bodies of starving children, stomachs distended, flies crawling on their yellowed eyes would rise up from the depths of my mind, where advertisements and fliers and news reports had so firmly buried them, making me sick with guilt for all my piles of excess.

What if, in another room, were buckets full of how much shampoo or conditioner I’d ever used. Toothpaste, shower gel, soap and moisturiser, in big glass cylinders, all the different brands mixing to form cosmetic swirls in clinical pastel colours. The smell of a bathroom cabinet. And in another corner, all the pills I’ve ever taken would be lined up in neat rows.

Perhaps in another room there would be, horror of horrors, vast golden tanks of urine. Dark fishbowls of all the blood I’d ever shed, and vases full of tears. A tiny pile of all the teeth the fairies took, and every scab I ever took the pleasure in lazily picking off with one fingernail. A golden pile of hair, simultaneously beautiful and utterly, retchingly repulsive.

And in another room still, darkened this time, would be big white screens, onto which would be projected films of my daily life in all its mundanity. Grainy, like the films on repeat in those awkward quasi-cinemas in modern art galleries. One film would just show every time I tied my shoelaces, another would be all 120,000 minutes of brushing my teeth. Different clothes, different hair, every now and then a different bathroom and every few months a different coloured toothbrush.

Imagine if that was how we lived our lives. Not in the normal order, but if it was all properly collated, ordered by category, by activity, so that we would do everything all at once. You’d spend a good six months struggling to get out of bed in the morning. Then another 8 months in the shower and 9 more in the bath, hands wizened and prunish, feet warm but knees and shoulders getting cold. A year eating breakfast, another just sitting in a car, a train, a bus, a boat, a plane. Imagine the hours and hours you’d sit in class, writing exams, doing homework. Then the 6 weeks of blissful playtime. All your holidays at once. Every visit to the dentist conglomerated into a week or so of agony. How many months on the toilet? And how many just staring at the mirror, watching your face slowly age as you put on mascara over and over, squeezed a thousand spots, then plucked your eyebrows for a day or two before switching to lipstick. How your muscles would ache from pouting. How your muscles would ache, too, when it came the time for your 3 weeks solid of running followed by a week of swimming and 4 more at the gym. How dreary it would be to stand in a queue for 5 months of agonising patience. How relaxing, then to collapse onto a sofa for a year watching TV. Every film you’ve ever seen in your life, all in one sitting. No going to the bathroom, you’ve done that already. And you’ve already eaten all your food at once, all your mountains of popcorn and gallons of name-brand sucrose saturated soft drinks.Picture the bitter hours wasted on Facebook. Picture the days and days of holding hands, followed by months of kissing, weeks of having sex. And picture the days on end you’d spend crying, alone.

And after your long, long day was over you’d lay down, wearied from the ennui of your reconfigured life. You’d lay down, close your eyes, and, after 237 hours of tossing and turning, days of counting several million sheep, you’d finally drift off into 40 years of sleep. 

The Secret Basement.

I live in an old building in a small side street lined with a few bars and restaurants, a book shop, a toy shop and several other boutiques. There’s some graffiti on the walls, nothing spectacular, just quick tags spritzed up by faceless boys at night, marking their territory like alley cats. At one end, there’s a fountain - a couple of tarnished lion’s faces spewing eau potable into a deep stone trough. Sometimes, alone under the dimly burning street lights, I dabble my fingertips across its icy surface; it leaves my fingers tingling in the night air as I meander back to my doorstep. An old shop front with dirty windows, screened with yellowing paper. No sign, no opening times. A metal and glass door that needs a key to open it from both sides, so when guests want to leave I have to let them out, casting them out like cats into a night garden. The door locked behind me, I’m in a corridor lined by mirrors on one side and glass on the other. Through the glass is a large room, an old shop, I imagined at first. If I pass it and continue through a second door I reach some stairs and after the stairs is a large, airy courtyard with a high glass ceiling and plants growing up the walls. My apartment is a small studio with a window facing into the courtyard. Nice enough, though the carpet is filthy. Under the window is a skylight which lets light down into the empty shop below. When I look down, I can see a white gate and beyond the gate is a flight of stairs that leads down into fathomless darkness. Sometimes I would lie awake at night and wonder where they would take me, those stairs, if I were to unlock that gate and follow them into that darkness.

I don’t remember when I first opened the gate. It was never locked, as I’d fancied it would be. I flicked a light switch beside it but the darkness remained. I flipped open my mobile and, guided by its feeble bluish light, edged down the staircase into that mysterious basement. The first thing I noticed was the floor; covered in rubble and debris like a building site or mountainside. I noticed because I was only wearing socks; I could feel the stones jagging into my soles like errant Lego on a midnight trip to the bathroom. Treading gingerly I looked up at my surroundings, lit faintly with my phone’s ghostly glow. I was in a long room with a low ceiling. The walls appeared to be decorated with some sort of mural; moving closer with my faint modern lantern to see more clearly,  I saw that the designs were Italian-looking chefs cooking pizza, boldly stylised in bright spray paint, accompanied by PIZZA in graffitied letters which put to shame the scrappy tags on the street.  I explored further, looking for more evidence left behind from that old restaurant, but there was nothing but a blackened pizza oven and rubble and exposed wires. I became uneasy, down there in that abandoned eatery, and, treading carefully yet hastily, climbed back up the stairs into the dim shop front where I collected my thoughts. Why did it close? Or did it ever open?

When I lie in bed, 10, 15 feet above it, I think about the pizza I’ll never eat from that restaurant I’ll never see open. I think about how secret it is, how I was one of few, perhaps, who knew about it. And I wonder. I wonder, how many more places are there like that, abandoned, lost to public knowledge, under my very street? Under the city? Under all the cities of this world? And I feel an infinite to go down into them all, holding out my mobile phone to light my way into the darkness, tentatively treading out a small adventure with my bare feet.

The Best Circus in the World

In some corner of some field somewhere in England, a tent is being slowly erected. A big tent. A big top, in fact. The old-fashioned kind with red and white stripes, the kind whose garish presents screams THE CIRCUS IS HERE! COME! COME TO THE CIRCUS! The circus troupe are working like busy ants, pulling on ropes and bringing down heavy mallets onto wooden stakes, driving them into the fallow British soil like cocktail sticks into soft cheddar. As this is happening, performers juggle swords and breathe fire and pace to and fro on their hands. A young girl is swerving through village streets on her rusty bicycle, letting bright A5 sheets fly from her fingers and flutter down onto doorsteps and into gutters. The smell of the circus begins to waft over the hedges: popcorn and sawdust, tarpaulin and candyfloss. Tongues wag with excitement. Local boys shyly invite young paramores; every child is begging for permission, for an advance in pocket money, cross-their-hearts-hope-to-die that they’ll behave for the next thousand years if only they can go. The lads from down the factory spend their lager money on tickets. Housewives feign disinterest but whisper about it excitedly and in secret. Old pensioners tut and shake their heads. ‘We don’t want none of their kind in OUR town.’ But they’ll buy tickets, sure enough,  ‘to see what all the fuss is about.’ For this, my friends, was to be no ordinary circus. No sir-ee! This circus, in this field, in this village, on this small island, was the finest circus in the world.

Strong arms heaved ropes, hauling large plastic letters into position above the entrance. A switch is flicked and suddenly three hundred neon bulbs exclaim their purpose! ‘THE NUMBER ONE WORLD FAMOUS LESBIAN CIRCUS!’ they squeal, brighter than suns, casting their pinkish light on the grass.

Opening night! Women paint their faces, slither into leotards, stick sequins on the corners of their eyes. Women fasten the backs of each other’s costumes, whisper into the ears of horses and polish daggers. Women put on blue wigs and red noses and novelty shoes. Women shave their legs,  their armpits, but not their beards. Beautiful women, fearless women, women stronger than any man.

The whole village is out in force to see this troupe of wondrous women of whom they are in awe. They take their seats and sit in hushed reverence, waiting for the show to commence.

The ring leader steps out and their hush becomes absolute silence. Absolute rapture. Her short stature belies her power but no-one is fooled. Her short dark hair lacquered into glossy waves beneath her top hat. Big milky blue eyes, a face that would be like a porcelain doll if a porcelain doll wasn’t so lifeless. She grins at the expectant faces in the dark, obscured by the spotlight she’s bathed in. Her smile is infectious, devious. Full of the promise of wild spectacles never-before-seen. She says nothing. She just cracks her whip and the crowd roars into applause; the ring is suddenly filled with acrobats and the ring-leader is whisked up into the air by a red ribbon no-one had seen fall. Let the spectacle begin!

For the next two hours the crowd is wowed by the lesbian troupe. The sinewy bodies of contortionists make shapes that they never thought possible, spelling words, entwining endlessly. The clownesses create havoc and tomfoolery the likes of which had never exisited. Stella the strongwoman lifted five times her weight. Bernice the bearded lady was furnished with facial hair that no man on earth could possess; for how could a man ever hope to keep up as dedicated a care routine as she did? Her chinny tresses were silkier, more lustrous than the hair on any woman’s head. Fenella the female fire breather sent flames flying, making the crowd gasp, whilst Sandra the sword swallower made them gulp. Horseback riders rode in such beautiful union it brought tears to the eyes of grown men.

And when they thought the show was over, the crowd were left baying and begging for more like hounds at the dinner table. Suddenly, when all was dark and quiet once more, the ringleader, now hatless, from high in the air, slid down on a crimson ribbon at such speed they thought she would surely plummet to her death. But inches from the ground, she stopped, legs wound in the heavenly ribbon which surely saved her life. She shimmied her way up it, dancing, spinning, somersaulting in mid-air, her beautiful eyes flashing, her pale body glowing under the single beacon of white light. No one dared breathe. And when she finally slid to the ground and bowed, beaming, the crowd went wild, clapping like mad seals, screaming for more, more! For this, The Number One World Famous Lesbian Circus, was surely the best circus in the world.

Untitled.

One day I woke up and nothing was the same. The sheets felt coarser against my skin, the duvet felt strangely hollow.  I opened my eyes and the light coming through the window was different, too. Different how? Thicker, colder; It filled my room like water filling a basement. When I breathed in there was some strange smell I couldn’t quite fathom. Somewhere between the scent of a river and the smell of burning, though what was burning I couldn’t say. Not paper. Not wood. When I pulled myself out from that cloying duvet, and stood up, my body felt abnormal. It was as though I’d left a nightclub having taken the wrong coat from the cloakroom. It was the same coat, yes. The same size, same style, same colour. But not my coat. The alcohol wearing off in the bitter air of the morning hours, the wrong coat on; my body felt like that, that feeling of malaise, of not being quite right in your own skin, wanting to shuck out of it. Take the coat off, despite the chill. My skin was raw and feverish. In the bathroom the light, again, was strange. It poured through the window filled the bathtub like cold milk. I looked in the mirror. What was different? Everything? Nothing? My eyes were never so green.

No one else was awake as I descended the staircases, slowly, a foal’s first steps on uneven grass. The kitchen was flooded, too, with that strange white light. I put the kettle on to break the silence and its splutter wasn’t quite loud enough to manage. Perhaps my ears were blocked. Was I sick? I sliced some bread for toast, clumsily, bringing the knife down in jagged strokes. My thumb, out of my line of sight, was hiding in the knife’s path. It didn’t hurt. The blood was darker than I’d ever seen; it oozed out, dark as blackberry juice. I looked at it for quite some time before going to the drawer to find a plaster. Bleeding assuaged, I smelt burning again. I looked over to the toaster. I hadn’t even put my toast on. What was it? Not the oven, not the grill. On the cooker the clock said the wrong time. 03.29. Broken. I turned back to put my toast in but the bread wasn’t there anymore. How can bread vanish? I looked up at the clock on the wall. The big hand pointed to the VI and the little hand pointed to the III. I read and re-read it, but I had been right the first time; I’d learnt to read the time from his old Roman face. Perhaps I’d slept through until half three. I walked over to the window to look out and noticed the garden was full of large puddles. The patio was flooded. Then I looked up and saw that the sky was black.

The sky was black and there was a full moon. What strange dream was this? Nausea raced through me and my skin prickled hotly. I turned slowly back to the kitchen. Darkness, darker than I’d ever seen; only the moonlight lay on the ground in pools. Then I noticed the water which covered the floor. It stung my feet. My whole body stung. I flicked on a light switch but nothing happened, and that was when I noticed the staircase, lit dimly by moonlight, was charred completely black. Surely not. I climbed it slowly, running my hand along the banister whose blackened surface dissolved into dust against my sweaty palm. In the lounge all the chairs were broken piles of charcoal, the carpets black, the walls, too, stained with smoke. From the front door glowed lights, red and blue. I  walked out, not daring to look at the bookshelf lest I see one million words destroyed; not daring to look in the hallway mirror lest I see something altogether more terrible.

The front door was already wide open, so I stepped out of it into the street, lit up in sepia by the street lamps, the roofs of houses lit silver by the moon, windows reflecting red and blue, red and blue. The street was full of people and vehicles. Big red trucks. White and green vans. White and blue cars. No one looked at me as I came out, barefoot, in my pyjamas. They looked at big shapes draped in white blankets being lifted into the vans. My heart beat shook me with its fervour as I counted them. By the shapes and sizes I could have named them. But I just counted. One, two, three. Four. No. No, I screamed. No! But no sound came out, my throat was raw and dry. No sound, just silent sobs. And that’s when I saw it. The fifth, a fifth body in a fifth white blanket. Five. And I didn’t need to name that one. The fifth one. I just watched the street get further away as I ascended, saw the rooftops, mine like a blackened ribcage, still smoking. I rose slowly with the smoke, watching the houses get smaller, until the people were no longer visible, and the street was just a thin thread, and the cold air became me and I became it.

Marvin the Crab

Once upon a time there was a crab named Marvin. He was small and orange and invertebrate, with big pincers and little legs. He had really small eyes which he was a bit self-conscious about but no one ever noticed - he usually wore ray-bans because he was cool like that, you know?  And he was a hermit crab, and because he was so cool he customized his shells with bits of coloured glass and plastic, and sometimes he didn’t even wear a shell, he wore a coke can or something funny like that. And he owned an under-the-sea tattoo shop called MARVIN’S TATTOO SHACK which wasn’t actually in a shack, it was in a small sunken fishing boat called ODYSSEUS but he crossed it out and wrote MARVIN’S TATTOO SHACK underneath.
 

All the coolest fish in the sea went to his tattoo shop when they wanted to get some sick ink done.  He was a pretty good tattoo artist, probably the best in the whole ocean but as if anyone could ever know that, the oceans well big and that. He had an assistant called Catfish Von D but no one really liked her ‘cos she was a mardy bint, so he just let her do stuff like tramp stamps and Chinese symbols and crap stuff. Like this one time, this starfish came in and wanted to get a tattoo of a star, and Catfish Von D thought it was like, all cool and metaphysical and ironic, but actually it was just because the starfish was a dumb slut.

When he first opened not really that many fish had tattoos, they were a bit scared of needles and their mummies told them tattoos were trashy. But then Benny the tiger shark got Marvin to do him an anchor on his dorsal fin and it made him look really badass so then everyone wanted one. Gary the Octopus got LOVE and HATE written on his tentacles.  Paul the sea slug got SLUG LYF on his back. One day a shoal of pilchards came in and all got LADS ON TOUR 2K11 on their tails because they were massive lads. Omar the blue whale got a massive heart on his flipper that said I LOVE MUM and no one even laughed at him because he’s the biggest mammal on planet earth even though he only eats krill and dudes named Jonah but that was totally an accident and he said sorry. Gavin the seal got a cross on his forehead because he was a neo-Nazi. Loads of dolphins came in and wanted lame stuff like butterflies and flowers so Marvin made Catfish Von D do it and she got all pissy because Marvin got to do Yakuza body tattoos on scary marlin and she only got to do girly gay stuff.

Anyway, one day these fishermen started noticing that all of the tuna they were catching had tattoos, like one of them had a picture of himself shaggin a sexy dolphin and underneath it said DOLPHIN FRIENDLY. The fishermen were like WTF is going on here man, and they sent a diver to investigate. And the diver found Marvin’s Tattoo Shack and was like NO WAIIIII!!1!  Then they got underwater film crews to come and see what was going on, and they interviewed Marvin and realised how cool he was, then MTV came and were like ‘YO MARVIN, have your own show on MTV!’

So Marvin the crab got his own MTV show called Underwater Ink and it was probably the best MTV show ever made, even better than Cribs. It was so popular that X-hibit saw it and invited Marvin onto Pimp My Ride and pimped his shell, and gave him plasma screens in it and stuff but they just broke when he went underwater so that was dumb.

Catfish Von D stayed on as his assistant but one day she got a bit full of herself and tried to make her own show but it was pretty banal and only starfish watched it because they’re dumb sluts.

Ms Featherington-Smythe Takes a Trip - Part 4

Thirty-three minutes later, Ms Featherington-Smythe had checked in and was in the queue for security checks. Fortunately for her, all of this took place before the days of 150ml-maximum-liquids-in-clear-plastic-bags; unfortunately, as we have already seen, the bizarre array of items she had packed were never going to go unnoticed. If she had been watching, as one sometimes does, the face of the man who scrutinises that little screen behind the x-ray machine, she would have seen his left eyebrow raise about an inch; she would have seen him turn and whisper something to his colleague. However, oblivion being her natural state, she noticed no such thing. She walked on calmly through the body scanner, and when it beeped (of course it beeped) she put on her best ‘old lady puzzled by modernity’ face.

‘Hullo dear!’ She said to the security lady who had taken her aside for a good frisking. ‘I suppose I’m in the dog house, am I? I can never understand all of these machines.’ She whispered the word ‘machines’, as though it was rather a naughty word to say. The security lady, having only found odd metal tidbits such as bottle tops and farthings, gave a weak, piteous smile and said ‘Don’t worry, nothing serious. That’s a … lovely scarf, madam.’

‘Yes, he is rather lovely isn’t he!’ She said, giving the sleeping ferret a little stroke.

‘Is he real?’

‘Well yes, I should think so!’

‘Riight. Could you come with me for a moment madam?’

And she brought Ms Featherington-Smythe over to the bottom of the conveyor belt, where a security officer was waiting with her valise.

‘Would you mind opening this for me, madam?

‘Why certainly!’ She complied.

‘Some… strange things to bring on holiday, wouldn’t you agree?’ He said, picking up the gas mask whilst his colleague rummaged further, eyeing Mr Biscuits’ shoebox rather suspiciously. ‘Would you mind showing me what’s in the box, madam? It appears to be lined with foil, so we were unable to see the contents on the x-ray.’

‘Of course, dear. I’m going to see my sister, you see. These are some gifts I’m bringing her - she likes antiques. This is my parrot, Mr Biscuits.’ She opened the box to reveal the poor dead bird, ‘dignified’ in death, glued to a gnarly wooden perch, his eyes replaced with beads. The man looked thoroughly disgusted, which he masked very badly. Suddenly, her old camera flashed – it must have been set off with all the rummaging – and he was blinded. Rubbing his eyes and sighing, he shooed away her old fogey apologies and let her off. Blasted old crone.

Ms Featherington-Smythe made her way through to Duty Free, where she enjoyed a carrot juice from a shop with shiny tables and a fancy French name. She then paid a visit to the toilets, which shan’t be described (one has to show respect for the elderly), and headed for her gate.

Once aboard the plane, Ms Feathington-Smythe needed a little help getting her case into the overhead storage, but she soon settled in to her seat on the aisle. Good fortune had it that no one was sitting close enough to her to enjoy her pungent vicinity. There was, in fact, no one else in her whole row. Others in her line of sight occupied themselves with reading, sleeping, or shushing small children.

However, if anyone had been paying attention, they would have seen her begin to behave very strangely. Very strangely indeed! Once the plane had taken off, the old biddy removed a small jar from her pocket. She opened the lid, and stuck a finger inside. Every time a hostess passed, Ms Featherington-Smythe would wipe this finger on the hem of their skirt, leaving a little pinkish smear. No one noticed, of course.

After half an hour or so, she stood up and started trying to get her case down from over her head. This is when things began to get queer; however, the events which next took place happened in such quick succession that even if someone were paying her any attention (which they weren’t) they would have had trouble recounting what had occurred. But an omniscient narrator always knows. This is what happened.

As she reached up to pull down her suitcase, the old woman’s scarf, a rather ghastly ferret-skin, suddenly came to life. It jumped down from her neck and ran up a nearby hostess’s legs; she screamed and fell to the ground. The ferret scurried across rows and down aisles, terrorising each stewardess, tearing ladders in their nylon stockings, running up their skirts. The entire plane was in a state of hysteria; poor Hermes only wanted to chase the rabbit whose smell, he was certain, was coming from these high-heeled, bun-haired women’s smart blue skirts.

Meanwhile, Ms Featherington-Smythe took no notice. She pulled on her suitcase, and, in coming down, it fell open. The contents toppled to the ground. Let us watch in slow motion. The first to land was a large, pale, round, object, like a giant egg. When it hit the ground, it burst open like a solid balloon, and a large cloud of white powder rose up, smelling like babies and old people’s bathrooms, obscuring everything from sight. Next was a small bag, from which marbles exploded onto the navy carpet and scuttled down the aisles, under seats. Passengers who had begun to stand, to escape the choking powder were soon floored with great force as their feet slipped from underneath them. In the meantime, a third bomb had fallen; this time, a glass perfume bottle. Eau de Chévrefeuille. Not empty but filled with some kind of liquid. As it shattered, slowly, shards of glass rising from the ground in suspended time, the liquid quickly became gas which rose and was breathed in by 73 pairs of lungs. And if anything was visible, which it wasn’t, and if anyone now was still awake to see, which they weren’t, they would have seen an elderly woman wearing an old gas mask, taking an ivory letter-opener and splitting open the belly of a stuffed parrot. They would have seen her pull out a small pistol, a Derringer perhaps, and walk calmly towards the cockpit. The shuffling gait of someone avoiding standing on marbles, or maybe just the shuffling gait of old age.  They would have seen the pilot, wearing a mask of his own, hands raised as a harmless old dear held him at gunpoint. They would have seen her sit him back down at the front of the plane and whisper quietly in his ear. And then they would see the last thing they would ever see. They would see, obscured by thinning clouds of talc, buildings rearing up in front of the windscreen like great beasts from the deep, so sudden, even in slow motion. Then they would see metal and concrete and fire. And then nothing.

But no one saw anything. No one saw that old woman pour her talcum powder into an ostrich egg, in that toilet cubicle. No one saw her put rabbit paté in her pockets to later wipe on the skirts of unsuspecting stewardesses. No one saw her pour strange chemicals masquerading as sun cream and insect repellent into her Eau de Chévrefeuille. No one saw Mr Fishwick stuff a small grey parrot with a small grey gun. No one, for that matter, saw that her scarf was in fact a living ferret. And no one saw it coming.

 But perhaps they should have. For you see, Ms Phyllis Featherington-Smythe was quite, quite, mad.

Ms Featherington-Smythe Takes a Trip - Part 3

Ms Featherington-Smythe bent down laboriously, causing Hermes to slither backwards and land on the soiled rug with a flump, and picked up the letter with her pruney fingers. She ripped it open rather unceremoniously and sat down in an unpleasant old armchair to read it.

            My Dearest Phyllis,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to you to apologise; though I fear it is rather too late in the day. My lack of contact has been inexcusable, dear sister. It is with the utmost regret that I think back on our falling out; I can only conclude that it was I who was at fault. Though ten years have passed (so quickly, no?) since we last spoke, I could no longer bear the thought of leaving this world without making repairing our bond and embracing you once more. Please accept my most humble plea for forgiveness.

As a token of my wish to repair our broken bond, I have enclosed a return plane ticket to visit me at my home in –

Ms Featherington-Smythe put the letter down, seemingly disinterested, and looked into the envelope. There, sure enough, were the plane tickets. She looked at the dates. The flight departed tomorrow morning. She didn’t bother reading the rest of the letter. It remains a mystery what effect the letter had - such queer indifference she displayed! She revealed no emotion, no intention of any desire to know more. It remains unclear, perhaps even to her, which estranged human being sent these tickets and to which mysterious destination they lead. She heaved herself out of her chair and went upstairs to her bedroom, and, fatigued from her day of doing relatively little, she retired to bed. This was strange even on her part, for it was only thirty eight minutes past five.

She awoke early the next morning and though her elderly mind was quite befuddled as we know, she had made a decision. She peered into the abyss beneath her creaky four-poster, where she found an old leather suitcase, small enough to be taken as hand luggage but more than large enough for her needs. For the next few minutes, she bustled around the house, picking up various items which, separately considered, were rather odd, but when placed together formed an utterly ridiculous collection to bring on holiday. An ornamental ostrich egg, hollowed out and decorated with gaudy flowers. A small jar of rabbit paté. A WW2 gas mask. A bag of marbles. A letter-opener. A bottle of talc. Eau de Chevrefeuille. Included, too of course, were holiday staples. An old camera with a large flash attachment. Insect repellent. Sun cream. Some assorted clothing, none of which would make any sort of socially acceptable outfit, but which at least served as padding for the rest of the contents, which were rather breakable. Next, she went downstairs to give old Hermes his breakfast of tinned mussels, into which she sprinkled some suspicious powder from a brown capsule. As he ate, she dressed, closed the suitcase and brought it downstairs where she put on her filthy old coat, placing the plane tickets and a pristine passport into the only pocket which did not contain smushed Quality Street. She popped her had on her head, wrapped a rather sluggish Hermes round her neck, and, picking up her suitcase, headed out of the door. The suitcase, though padded, rattled; after all, she had left substantial space for a stuffed parrot.

Soon she arrived at Mr Fishwicks. The sign said ‘CLOSED’ but he had been expecting her, though it was still but thirteen minutes past seven.

‘Hullo Ms Featherington-Smythe. Mr Biscuits is ready for you. I hope you’ll be pleased with what I’ve done.’ He handed her a shoebox, though not the one she had given him the parrot in originally. She did not open it.

‘I trust he’s… suitably stuffed?’ She asked, opening her suitcase on the shop counter and placing the box carefully inside.

‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘Your taxi is waiting outside, Ms Featherington-Smythe. I wish you the best of luck on your… trip.’ He smiled. The quiet smile of a madman, or perhaps merely that of a taxidermist.

‘Good day, Gideon.’

‘Good bye, Phyllis.’

With that, Ms Featherington-Smythe quitted the emporium and stepped into the waiting taxi. Hermes slept soundly around her shoulders. ‘What an… interesting scarf,’ commented the driver. She smiled and closed her papery eyelids, saying nothing to correct him.

(To be continued...)

Ms Featherington-Smythe Takes a Trip - Part 2

After wrapping Mr Biscuits lovingly in a silk scarf, Ms Featherington-Smythe placed him in an old shoe box; in doing which, she managed to snap his left wing into a rather obtuse angle but she didn’t notice. She put on her lint-covered black velvet coat and placed her smelly old hat on her head, picked up her crocodile handbag (full of melted, hairy Werthers and other such horrors) and, Mr Biscuits in hand and Hermes around neck, opened her front door and left her musty lair. She failed to notice a lone envelope lying on her doormat, but then again she failed to notice a lot of things. Such as the fact that it was a glorious June day and her coat was utterly redundant.

‘Hullo, Ms Featherington-Smythe!’ called her neighbour, Mrs Jenkins. ‘Good day, Mrs Jellycandle!’ replied Ms Featherington-Smythe, tottering off before she could see her Mrs Jenkin’s bemused expression. What a strange old woman, she said to herself, watching Ms Featherington-Smythe’s hunched figure turn the corner. And what a ghastly scarf she was wearing!

The walk was only a short one. Ms Featherington-Smythe had soon reached her destination: G.B.FISHWICK’S TAXIDERMY, a dingy old shop with a dark green façade and peeling lettering on the windowpane. WE ARE OPEN. As she entered, a bell tinkled above the door, presumably to make the proprietor aware of her presence. It had no such effect; she was alone in the dim shop, watched by 47 pairs of glass eyes, unblinking, gleaming ever so slightly under a thin layer of dust. A horrible menagerie surrounded her; animals of all species and sizes, heads mounted on walls, feet nailed to mahogany or glued to branches, fur and feathers dulled by years of stuffy afterlife. The shop front was shaded by a chestnut tree, through whose leaves the sunlight was strained to an eerie green. This dim light gave one the impression that the whole room was submerged under brackish water; a sunken Noah’s ark full of drowned creatures. Suddenly, from behind a zebra, emerged Noah himself. A portly gentleman in his late sixties with grizzly white hair, longer on his sideburns than anywhere else. His general appearance could be placed roughly in the centre of a Venn diagram whose circles are comprised of the following fields: Magician, Antiques Dealer and Paedophile. A waistcoat of the most tasteless variety, spinach-green corduroys, a yellowed old shirt with strange stains on it. Signet rings shone on fingers grown too large for them. Spectacles, of course, though thankfully those of an antiques dealer rather than a paedophile. Mr Gideon Bartholomew Fishwick, taxidermist extraordinaire.

‘Why he-llooo Ms Featherington-Smythe!’ he simpered. ‘My most prized customer. What can I do for you? Have you come to buy? I have a de-lightful marine iguana I believe you’ll be MOST interested in!’

‘Hello Mr. Fishwick,’ sighed the poor old coot. ‘I’ve not come to buy, not today.’ She proffered the shoe box gingerly; meanwhile, Hermes had slithered from her shoulders and was gnawing on a snow leopard’s tail. ‘It’s Mr. Biscuits,’ she said in a hushed voice, ‘he’s passed away.’

Mr Fishwick opened the box and layed the frail, feathery carcass on the countertop and began to inspect it with great tenderness and professionalism, and although he frowned a little at the broken wing, he gave her his most sympathetic smile. ‘A fine specimen. Any preferences?’

‘N-no,’ she whimpered, ‘just make him look… dignified.’ The tattered old bird, of course, had never been dignified in his life; few parrots ever were, being such ridiculous mimics. But Mr Fishwick prided himself in his work, and vowed that his dignity would be restored to its ‘former glory.’ They did not discuss prices, as he knew well that this particular customer would pay whatever he asked – after all, there has never been a mad old coot who didn’t line her nest, and Ms Featherington-Smythe was no exception (her mattress was stuffed with dosh). ‘Hermes! Get down from that rhinoceros my boy! There’s a good chap.’ And with that, Ms. Featherington-Smythe thanked Mr. Fishwick and left.

When she got home, the first thing she noticed was that her front door was a funny shade of pistachio green. Had it always been that colour? (It had.) But the second thing she noticed was a small brown envelope on her door mat. ‘Hermes! What have we here!’

(To be continued)

Mrs Featherington-Smythe takes a trip

Ms. Phyllis Featherington-Smythe was quite mad. Not in the modern day, diagnosable-medically-treatable-mental-illness sense. Ms Featherington-Smythe was a batty old woman of the old-school variety. Lost her marbles and the little sack they came in. Mothballs in her pockets, large grubby hat-with-plastic-fruit-on, two odd shoes, ranting at strangers at bus stops, ‘kids-of-today!’, imaginary friends over for tea, taxidermied spaniels in the drawing room et al. She had relatives but she had long forgotten who they were (although little Clement and Anthea Smythe lived in perpetual fear of being sent to stay with ‘Mad Aunt Philly’). She dwelled in a fusty old house full of the miscellaneous items she had hoarded over the years. It had the air of an antique shop in which nothing much was of any value but which gave the overall impression of a sort of frowsty Edwardian Aladdin’s cave. Chintzy glasswear and china and knick-knacks; soiled porcelain dolls like miniature Miss Havishams; the aforementioned taxidermied spaniels - forming only a fraction of her entire zombified menagerie, mind – all draped in dirty lace and velvet and cobwebs. Dingy and delicate in equal measure. Hell for claustrophobics, asthmatics, OCD sufferers; a haven for Ms. Featherington-Smythe. She lived alone, although she believed she still had a Puerto-Rican maid named Estrella. She did not. What she did have were those infamous spaniels in the drawing room (both grinning maniacally as only a stuffed spaniel can), a large bear in the hall (stuffed, ex-circus, wearing a threadbare fez), two squirrels in the guest bedroom (stuffed, dressed as bride and groom), a monkey on the landing (stuffed, horrifically badly), a fox, a badger, and two pheasants in the lounge (all stuffed , all slightly damp), and finally, an elderly grey parrot named Mr. Biscuits and an old brown ferret named Hermes (both alive, though only just). Her house, as you can imagine, was permeated with a rank odour somewhere between a geriatric ward and a dirty rabbit hutch: base notes of urine and the musky scent of animals alive, dead or dying, with high notes of mothballs, talcum powder and mould. Ms. Featherington-Smythe herself exuded the same odour, although she covered it slightly by spritzing herself frequently with an old bottle of perfume called Eau de Chevrefeuille. It didn’t help much as it had been empty since the late seventies.

Every morning, Ms. Featherington-Smythe would get up, brush her teeth with Brylcream, powder her face with Maizena, put on her favourite dress (a violet monstrosity from an unidentifiable decade) have a spritz of Eau de Chevrefeuille and wither her way downstairs for breakfast. She would water the plants in her conservatory (mostly geraniums), put some jellied eels out for Mr. Biscuits and fill Hermes’s bowl with birdseed (the old creatures, long used to her foibles, knew to switch bowls). She would then call Estrella for her own breakfast.

‘Esstreeeellla! Estreeelllllllllaaaaa!’

‘Si Senora?’ Mr Biscuits would squawk in reply.

‘I’m reaaady for my morning victuals!’

‘Si, Senora.’

It is difficult to imagine what kind of mental processes were malfunctioning here in the mysterious mind of Ms Featherington-Smythe, but in any case, every morning she would pay little heed to Estrella’s failure to appear with breakfast. After several minutes, she would let out a sigh and fetch herself her usual crumpets with crab paste and a cup of Earl Grey. Then she would scoop Hermes up into her arms, oblivious of his vile stench, and caress him lovingly whilst she carried on with some old lady hobby or other. Embroidery, perhaps.

One morning, Ms. Featherington-Smythe, seated for breakfast as per her usual routine, was dismayed to hear no response from Estrella. She called her again but was greeted, once more, with silence. She got up from the table and went into the conservatory. ‘Estrella! Where has that woman gotten to!?’ Estrella was nowhere to be seen (of course) but what Ms. Featherington-Smythe saw instead was much more distressing: Mr. Biscuits, fallen from his perch, stone dead. As dead as the squirrels in the guest bedroom. Hermes scuttled over to have a sniff; the verdict was conclusive. ‘Oh!’ Exclaimed Ms. Featherington-Smythe. ‘Oh.’ Whilst she was much too mad to notice her maid had not returned from her summer holiday to Bognor Regis in ’84 (‘Bognor Regis’ being the Spanish for Puerto Rico and ‘summer holiday’ being the Spanish for ‘running away with £5000 worth of Ms. Featherington-Smythe’s old jewellery), she was sane enough to know a dead parrot when she saw one. It made her deeply sad, and her yellowy old eyes glassed over with tears. She had loved Mr. Biscuits, if in a rather absent-minded way. ‘Come on, Hermes.’ She croaked, grabbing the poor ferret by his ragged tail and wrapping him around her neck. ‘We’re going to see Mr. Fishwick.’

(To be continued…)