Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Flashing More Than A Wing

She steps out into the day. Sun. Squints a bit. An insect or two. And all the while – as this drama unfolds – he’s upstairs in the bath, resolving yet again to do something about his stomach. Resolving while singing My Way with all the wrong words.

That is, with his stomach, reduce it a bit. He doesn’t think he’s fat. He doesn’t look fat. Not with his clothes on. Just when he’s

He accidentally wets the toilet roll which sits at the end of the bath, on the ledge. He’d forgotten to remove it, to put it on the floor: away from the bath and the threat of displacement. You’d think, perhaps, that wiping your arse with wet toilet roll might be just the thing. But it isn’t just the thing. It breaks quickly, easily, and your fingers end up scraping at shit.

I hope you die, he says out loud as he climbs out of the bath, thinking about an acquaintance who had earlier announced to the world on Facebook that she was having the greatest time on holiday in Thailand. Did he really hope she’d die? Of course not.

(Lose the reference to Facebook.)

She’s in the day now, well into the day. Halfway to the city, upstairs on the bus. She’s remembering when she was younger, much younger, and how you used to be able to smoke on a bus. And how you could look down the mirror shaft to see the top of the driver’s head. It was like a little loft down there, above the driver’s head. Isn’t it funny, she thinks, the silly things you remember?

Later, and he’s been out of the bath for a while. Brushed his teeth, had a wank and drank a mug of tea. It’s a Sherlock Holmes mug. One of those Penguin Classic mugs: The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes. He ejaculated, if you must know, over a picture of a rather plump girl bending over and pulling her arse cheeks apart. You know, in the way that plump girls often do.

Stepping down from the bus she

How do they do it, these writers? How do they stretch this thin stuff into something even thinner? More to the point, why do they do it?

So his character is: well, he hangs around the house all day, wanking. He’s what, early thirties, been to university, left liberal, a bit of a hipster. He does something in advertising, marketing, graphic design. The funkier end. Glasses, shaved head. Innocuous cunt although he really thinks he isn’t.

And she: fairly lovely. Early thirties. She works, full-time, in something related. PR or something.

Their story takes place through some kind of angsty examination of a modern relationship in contemporary Britain. But no, wait. He’s a banker instead. Laid off. She also works in finance.

He falls apart, she rises. As the country slowly climbs out of recession she slowly rises. As he sinks. It’s like a window on the world. It’s very, very thin stuff.

They have a baby girl. Disabled in some way. She’s another element. He, it turns out, has to become her full-time carer. Can he do it? Can he let go of the wanking, the cocaine, the hookers, the twat friends? Can he rise to the challenge of his daughter? Who knows?

Who cares?

Better that they find themselves, him and his daughter, in the clutches of some kind of mad scientist who had earlier promised to cure the girl of whatever ailed her. He’s into cloning and creating new life and is a right fucking ringer for Frankenstein.

So a monster. A castle in Bavaria. Flaming torches. Peasants.

And suddenly all’s well with my world.

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