There they
were. Ten tiny little faces, all staring at Dail out of the foamy whiteness
whilst he lay there, naked as the day he was born, nodding at him. Wiggling
side to side, back and forth like some vile and twisted Mexican Wave. This was a bad idea, surmised Dail; a
grotesque, mind warping pantomime. Drawing faces on your toenails before you
get in the bath is definitely not for the weak minded or catastrophically
tired. So going for a swim didn’t generate any new ideas, nor did wandering
round the house all day. Maybe there is some merit to Gigi’s idea…I could call
it “‘Doodles and Brain Burps’ - a collection of musings
and scribblin’s about everyday life from an everyday person.” Or I could
not…because that is a silly idea. Quite mad. Speaking of quite mad…
Dail
realised that he had been holding his hand flat and making it vertically break
the surface of the water every now and then whilst moving along at a gentle
speed…whilst humming the theme from Jaws. A Great White Shark couldn’t fit in
The Bath, he reassured himself. At least, not whilst I’m still in there. Or
could it? No. It couldn’t. They’re quite big. But what if someone has
engineered pygmy Great Whites and let them loose in the water systems of
London? What then?
Evacuate. Leave
the premises in a calm and orderly fashion, taking care to mind the bundle of
clothes on the floor just next to The Bath.
He
veritably leapt out of The Bath, landed on the pile of guilty garments, fell
over, and decided that that particular spot on the floor was a nice one to have
a bit of a lie down. Dry off naturally. Towels, after all, are a crime against
nature. Probably…according to some people…that live in…trees…and eat…twigs…or…
The rest
of the day saw Dail maintaining similar levels of productivity. He stubbed his
toe on the stairs, swore at the offending step, felt hurt by the fact that it
didn’t even dignify him with a response (the silence cut deeper than any
comeback possibly could), and shunned the stairs for the remainder of the day.
This made him feel slightly better, despite the obvious drawback of confining
him to the ground floor; it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. He had
stared out of the window for a while, watching a cat creep along a fence and
mused that cats were very much like Germany circa 1938. They left the house
each morning with the sole purpose of commandeering as much land as possible,
then, upon their return, wondering why everyone was annoyed about the dead bird
on the living room carpet. Ok so the second part wasn’t like Germany…but the
first was. Sneaky cats. He noticed how animals were always a good source of
comedy. Gigi and Dail had once stood on a beach in Bournemouth, watching a
seagull try to pick up a stone. “Silly Bird”, Dail had commented, and this
throw-away statement had kept them laughing and giggling for the remainder of
the outing, like five year olds who were overly tired, so the parents had given
them an abundance of sugary snacks to keep them going, with catastrophic and
altogether unwanted side effects.
About an
hour was spent just lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling (staring at the
floor would have been tricky as his bed wasn’t transparent enough). Dail did
love his bed, especially after three years on university mattresses. Falling
asleep on a student accommodation bed was definitely an acquired skill; having only springs for company…springs that got overly intimate in the
night...springs that touched him in inappropriate places....springs made him
wake up every morning feeling as if he'd been violated. On the
other hand, it did mean that the feeling of having a metal coil lodged squarely
in his genitals was no longer an unwelcome shock, which was, Dail had to
concede, a comforting thought (as ironic as a comforting thought was, given the
situation in question).
Feeling
reflective, he looked back upon how he had gotten into this whole book writing
venture in the first place. I’ve kinda fallen into writing in much the same way
a person of slightly ‘larger’ proportions might fall into an open man-hole.
It’s sudden, unanticipated, and no-one quite expects it to fit. But, well,
wadya know, it does. Just about. Or does it? I mean, I haven’t actually written
anything yet. Notes on paper plates don’t really count and, in terms of actual
ideas for the book, I’m about as close to something solid as that old flatmate
of mine after I mischievously and quite covertly crushed eight laxatives into
his drink. I wonder how Chester’s doing nowadays anyway. Probably wrapped
himself and his bike around a lamppost at high speeds or got sucked into the
engine of a 747. Mad adrenaline junkie. What? Oh yeah, book. Book, book, book,
book, book. BOOK! No. Who? Oh. Bugger… What?
Many of
Dail’s inner monologues (if you could call them that) seemed to end like this
when he was tired. Sleep was usually the best remedy; though he had also found
that, for some inexplicable and wholly bizarre reason, carrots also worked.
Maybe Bugs Bunny was onto something. No, never trust a cartoon character. Not
after last time anyway, he remembered, visibly wincing. The clock on the wall
said “02.35 AM”, but at this stage Dail was too tired to worry about talking
household objects. Maybe he’d imagined it anyway, because when he looked at the
clock in question, he could quite clearly see the numbers “10:14” followed by a
glowing red “PM” (the letters “PM”, that was; not a luminescent Prime Minister).
“Bugger this”, he grumbled and, low and behold, two
and a half hours later was fast asleep. Well, as fast asleep as one can be when
still fully conscious. Another two and a half hours later, Dail was asleep.
Fast asleep. He opened one eye and sceptically surveyed his sleeping form.
“Yup”. Definitely asleep.
