Hymn

One Bargain Too Many

I had a little time to kill this morning so decided to ferret around the town’s charity shops.  It’s always worth a look.  One day I might actually buy something.  Other than a book, that is.  I find books virtually irresistible and invariably leave clutching some odd tome to add to the piles at home.  I do love my books.  I actually read one once.

I didn’t find a book that I wanted today.  But I did notice that every shop had a copy of the How to be a Millionaire quiz and an old lady assistant wearing identical pink tartan cardigans.  I don’t suppose that’s odd.  What did fascinate me was that in the first shop, there was a copy of Now That’s What I Call Music Volume 26.  In the second shop sat, Now That’s What I Call Music Volume 27.  In the third, 28 and the fourth, 29.  Only when I got to the fifth and final store, the PDSA, did the pattern break.  They had volume 25.  But that’s animals for you.  Useless with numbers.  Dingos.

Window

The jam grinds us to a halt.  Something to do with the rain, I suspect.  Everything is to do with the rain these days.  It’s like the oceans have forgotten their rightful place and descended on rural England for a holiday. 

Water is coming down in sheets; not fine Egyptian cotton ones but bobbley flannelette that’s faded and worn from over washing.  Someone’s doing a hell of a lot of laundry and we’re on an endless rinse.  An invisible pixie is pouring a bottomless pail over my windscreen.  His countless siblings stand over every vehicle for miles around.  Including the inconspicuous Peugeot in the inside lane.

There’s a middle-aged Asian couple in the car.  She is resplendent in a genuinely beautiful sari that defies every colour wheel rule.  She oozes out of a seat that is far too small for her and the seatbelt slices into her like a rubber band.  She is also furious.  I cannot hear the words for the pelting rain but she’s really not happy.  Her face is so contorted with rage that her eyes have disappeared and her mouth assumes the preposterous proportions of a scooped out water melon.  Even from here I can see she’s had her tonsils removed.   

Her companion, a forty-something man who resembles a malnourished starling, simply stares ahead.  He is untroubled.  I wonder if he is deaf.  Or dead.  But he blinks which puts my mind at rest.  Something else strikes me.  His window is wound right down.  Right down. 

Now, other vehicles, despite the deluge, have windows slightly down.  And plumes of smoke issue forth.  But this couple weren’t smoking.

Water is gushing at us from impossible angles.  Just in case we could ignore the drumming of a million drops on the roof, high-pressure hoses send spray horizontally from every direction.  Torrents pour into their car.  Or rather into him.

The man must have sensed my stare.  He turns and smiles.  Water drips from his nose.  His face glistens.  His now transparent white shirt clings to his skin.  He presses a button on his door.  The window winds right up.  He presses it again and down comes the glass.  He nods ever so slightly and pulls away.

Too

I’m reading an obscure novel about coincidences.  Today having coffee with a friend I discovered he’s reading it too. 

I’m sure there was something I thought was interesting about that but I can’t think for the life of me what it was now.

Weed

There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment.  In my dream last night, this is what I saw:

I caught my hand as I squeezed through a house made of cardboard boxes.  The jagged edge ripped the skin exposing a blood red strawberry-like growth beneath the surface. I pulled it.  It came out quick enough, although not without some effort.  It tore like the roots of a dandelion being weeded. 

I sat alone at the top of my cardboard house with my wounded hand as a tangerine sky swirled above me.

It’s not even as though I take drugs. With a ‘normal’ psyche like this, can you imagine what effect narcotics would have?

I think I need to chill out.  And eat less cheese.

Witch Doctor Dolittle

I’ve only had one so it’s difficult for me to generalise but I think all mothers are a little quirky.  Not in a bad way, you understand; just adorably odd in some respects.  Maybe infuriatingly odd in others.  Maybe we’ve lived with some things that they no longer seem odd at all.  Unless of course you say the word ‘odd’ ten or eleven times in a row as quickly as you can - then even the word itself seems peculiar.

My mum is with us on this trip.  I’ll be honest: I’m ambivalent about it.  If the reputation is anything to go by, this isn’t the sort of place you’d take your elderly mother.  Or a young child for that matter.  And here we are.

Today we were out in the rain forest.  It is indescribably beautiful and lush.  Every facet so vibrant and rich. The place is swarming with butterflies.  Not the little things that we get at home but giants, insects the size of your hand - even if you have big hands with really long fingers.  And in the most astonishing colours.  Some more dazzling and perplexing than the best Rorschach test.  I am mesmerised.  Simple things like this make me happy. 

Great flocks of ludicrously orange ones flutter past my head.

I call back to point them out to my Mum.  But she already knows.  They are flying to her.  She is standing, arms out stretched, with a vast cloud of butterflies jostling for space around her. 

“This always happens” she says, as though being mobbed by flying insects the size of an Ordnance Survey map is an every day occurrence.

I can just about make her out beneath the ginger flurry.  I wander into the flapping agape. It’s like standing in a mouthful of tangerine sherbet.  I wonder how many cyclones this mass of butterfly wings will create.  I wonder if my house will have any chimney pots on it when we return.

My mum is looking down magnanimously.  Then I notice it: the butterflies are kissing her.  Well, licking, certainly.  Their great long proboscis unfurled and gently tapping up and down on her skin.  Gentle butterfly kisses.  I’m not an entomologist so I can’t be sure but I think they were smiling.

“It tickles a bit.  Sometimes, though, it gets in the way when I’m hanging out the washing.”

It’s all very lovely.  I’m just glad we’re not in Salem in the late seventeenth century.

Empty

It feels like my first day back at work.  It isn’t.   But it is the restart of routine.  The early morning commute leaves me feeling ever so slightly detached from life.  I’ve made this journey so many times that it passes like a dream; my movements mechanical and my mind blank.  It’s a bit like long distance running or a meeting about paperclips.  Often I can’t recall a single moment of the trip.

I always swim through Oxford Circus following the currents of fellow travellers.  It’s the connection between two trains from Hell and little imps swing bags and umbrellas at our legs as we struggle through.  Today something woke me from my sleep.  The trains were as busy as ever and platforms as violent but now I was utterly alone.  Not metaphorically (although that’s often the case) but really, absolutely, completely alone.  Like a lighthouse keeper, the silence made me start.  I stopped.  I looked back and forth.  The passageway was fifty metres long.  It was empty.  Not a soul in sight.  I wasn’t quick witted enough to worry about wormholes or zones of twilight.  I had pushed past a couple of fur coats but hadn’t noticed any wardrobe.  For the age of a moment, I paused.  Nothing happened.  Nothing continued to happen for another moment.  I walked on.

The instance I rounded a corner, the throng was there.  Crowds of people In front of me.  And behind.  Hundreds of the buggers.  Although I looked, I could see no sign of a snigger, no stifled laughter.  There was no Ta-dah!  Just another train.  Just another manic Monday.  With a peculiar eddy of calm.

Raging Bull

There's no shortage of people who would like to punch me until their fists bleed.  Most of them are close personal friends. Of course family members are a given.  Usually it takes me some time to really irritate people.  Don't get me wrong - I don't go out of my way to get up someone's nose, it's something that seems to happen naturally.  Occasionally it happens more quickly.  Like tonight.

A mate and I were enjoying a quiet drink when one of his colleagues and her friend joined us.  They were girls.  I mean real girls, not boys, actual girls.  This is a rare occurrence.  I am under no illusion that I am the least bit attractive to members of the opposite sex, and I’m rarely appealing to the same.  And without being mean, my mate, though wonderful, is similarly aesthetically-challenged, so two young women wandering over unbidden and unpaid was a bit of a novelty.  I was foolish to be flattered: these weren’t ladies.

Rather than polite and idle chit-chat, the friend embarked on a fairly intense cross-examination about my work.  Now, I don’t mind talking about my job, I’m not embarrassed to be the Office Teaboy, but this wasn’t small talk, this was interrogation.  After ten minutes of uncomfortable prying she paused for breath for the first time.  And then...
“God, you’re arrogant.”
‘I’m sorry.  What?’
“You are so fucking arrogant.”
‘I’m sorry.  What?’
“I can’t believe you.  You’re a jerk.” 

I was beginning to suspect I’d inadvertently fallen asleep, toppled over and, woken by the sound of breaking glass, tried to raise myself by tugging on the suspender belt of the local MP.

“God, I can’t believe you.”  She shook her head in disgust.
I managed to collect my thoughts enough to rephrase my confusion:
‘I’m sorry.  What?’ 

My subtle change of emphasis seemed to work.

“We’ve been talking for ages and you haven’t asked a single question about me.  You are so rude.”
‘I’m sorry. But you were asking me about my job’ I offered.
“Unbelievable!” she cried, “What a fucking loser.”

I looked around, utterly confused.  Was she actually talking to me?  Or someone just behind?  My friend and his colleague stood stupefied.  I scrabbled for some sense; quickly rerunning our conversation, checking my mental copy of the UN’s Offensive Behaviour list.  Had I mentioned politics, religion, sex or anything of any meaning at all?  No.  Had I made any physical contact whatsoever?  No.  Was my dress in any way controversial?  No, I wasn’t wearing a dress - it wasn’t one of those evenings and I’d left my KKK outfit at home.  Had I made any sudden or suggestive movements?  No: I hadn’t spilt my drink over anyone and the dancing hadn’t begun.  Had I looked at her inappropriately, stared coldly, or allowed my left eye to wander off on its own and gaze at something else?  No.  Did my breath smell?  I couldn’t be sure so quickly rinsed with beer.  In the slo-mo time of road traffic accidents, I racked my memory to see what I had done to deserve this treatment and, although clearly demonstrating the good Catholic principles of crushing self-doubt and prejudged guilt, I could find no just cause for this tirade.

‘I’m sorry.  What?’  I tried again, demonstrating the quick wit that has made me such a success in times of conflict.
“You’re a twat.”  She screamed before storming off. 

I looked at my mate for some kind of explanation.  He shrugged in a way only males can.  His colleague said nothing either but left in meek pursuit of the Maniac, as I will now call her.  The power of speech disappeared into the vacuum of logic that enveloped me.  I made my very lifelike fish impression.  ‘Another drink?’ my chum enquired, helpfully misinterpreted my gaping.  I nodded.

As we queued, they returned.  I stiffened.
“I’m so sorry.” She said, disarmingly.
‘I’m sorry.  What?’ I replied, rendered simple with fear.
“I’m so sorry.  I was bang out of order.  I’m really sorry.  Can we start again?’

Knocked completely off guard but always willing to offer a second chance, I bought them all a drink.  £30 for four drinks.  Good grief, this was an expensive olive branch.  It didn’t work.  Within five minutes, I was “a twat” again.
“I can tell you’re not a teacher,” she spat with unfathomable meaning, “You fucker.” 

It was utterly disorientating.  I just wanted a quiet chat with my old friend but this lunatic would not go away.  And, get this, after another vitriolic outpouring, she stormed off.  Only to return a few minutes later, begging forgiveness.  This time I was more restrained.  As I think she should have been.  By the local social services.

When she started belching obscenities for a third time, I realised this was a no-win situation.  I was not going to have a quiet chat with anyone anymore this evening. I thought about telling her to fuck off.  I considered violence.  I dismissed them both having remembered the effort it took to get the stain out of my shirt from the last time.  Finally, I resolved my course of action.  Demonstrating all the outstanding qualities that cost Britain its empire, I simply said ‘Good Night’ and left.

Something Afoot

There’s not exactly been a shortage of unexpected events since I became a Dad.  My selective sense of smell, for example.  Or my surprising ability to perform a complex feeding rituals in complete darkness and, for all intents and purposes, asleep.  There is one, perhaps less predictable side-effect of having a baby: a lack of socks.  And no, that’s not a phonetic misspelling.  I can’t explain it: I’m not bereft in any other clothing department, in fact I’m pretty sure there’s something exciting going on in my drawers.  I have a sneaking suspicion that my underpants are breeding.  All of a sudden I have hundreds of them; they’re bulging out of every conceivable storage space.  But where stockings are concerned, I’m losing them.  I can’t find them in the house for love nor money.  Today I went to work wearing one woolly green walking sock and one novelty effort featuring Sponge Bob Square Pants.  Thankfully, I carry off the look of sartorial lunacy with some ease.

Digital Code

Now, I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories or stories of abduction (that unpleasant episode with the Darts Team and the boot of a Hillman Avenger aside).  Generally, talk of extra-terrestrial contact is the reserve of lunatics madder than a mad mongoose or consumers of mind-altering drugs. However, I fear something is afoot.  Or rather a-hand. I haven’t touched a drop of liquor and I’m as sane as the next goat but I suspect aliens are using my fingers to communicate. 

It’s subtle, I grant you, but there’s something there.  On my thumb nail.  I’m used to ridges.  Ridges I know.  We all get ridges.  The occasional white spot.  No worries.  Bang on the finger or calcium deficiency, depending on who’s talking.  Common as Wimbledon.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  I have lines.  And bumps.  Lines of regularly spaced bumps stretching away from my cuticle.  Clearly visible lumpy bumps.  In columns.  Not that the columns are the same, mind.  No, each one has it own frequency.  I have Braille on my nail.  Aliens are transmitting a code and they’re just waiting for me to visit their impregnated beauty therapist for a manicure.  It’s the only rational explanation.

If I disappear suddenly, you’ll know They have taken me.

Crank

Other people dream of being shipwrecked with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or swimming in rivers of liquid chocolate or discovering they are the long lost Earl of Bognor Regis-shire and fabulously wealthy.  Last night I dreamt, in significant detail, about the rear axle of a short wheelbase Landrover.  And, with a crankshaft that looked like it had come off a mountain bike, it wasn’t even accurate.  I don’t even know what I’m talking about.  I really, really, need to get out more.