Further Bewilderment: Episode 5

Monday:

I get up early and decide to have a walk in the nature reserve a few miles from where I live. I park the Micra in the car park and it’s dwarfed by Range Rovers and other huge four-wheel drives. A haughty looking woman, head-scarved and tweedy, is unloading a very large dog from one of these. I wish her a good morning. She doesn’t respond and eyes me with some suspicion.

I continue on my walk and encounter several women walking dogs. Some respond weakly to my “good-mornings”, others ignore me. Without exception, they all regard me with the same suspicion as the woman in the car park. Halfway round the walk, I meet up with a woman that I know who is being dragged along by an unruly spaniel. We exchange a few pleasantries as the dog tries its best to disjoint her arm. I remark on the suspicious glances I’ve been getting.

‘That’s because you’re not walking a dog. Whenever I see a man here without a dog, I’m very wary,’she tells me.

The logic of this defeats me.  Surely a cunning serial rapist could easily  be walking a dog as part of his cover. Also, what makes these women think that the ownership of a dog precludes the keeper from being a pervert?  Maybe the next time I take a walk here I should trundle around a toy dog on wheels. That way I might then only be regarded as an eccentric, rather than a potential sexual predator - and I wouldn’t need a pooper scooper.

 Tuesday:

I visit my doctor, because I’m plagued with hay fever and over the counter remedies have little effect. He goes through the usual ritual of questioning me about alcohol intake and exercise and I lie as glibly as ever. I get a prescription and take it to the pharmacy, where a lad of about seven and three quarters cautions me not to take the medication during the day or mix it with alcohol. When I get home, I skim through the instruction leaflet which, in this litigious age, warns of so many possible side effects that it’s a wonder anyone would feel safe taking it. After a modest supper, I swill a tablet down with the dregs of a glass of Chardonnay and go to bed.  I soon fall asleep and dream that I’ve built a raft from planks, old oil drums and a makeshift sail made from a tatty bed sheet.

I launch the raft on the little river that runs through my town and head downstream.  Locks open and close and fill and empty without me leaving the raft, or lifting a finger. We enter the Thames, passing the waffle-drome that is the mother of parliaments, phallic monuments to corporate hubris and long-forgotten Dickensian wharves and rotting jetties.  We turn right at Southend and finally enter the open sea.  I see dolphins, plastic ducks, whales, flying fish, doleful albatrosses and vast container ships, no doubt full of needless crap made by needy people.  And as we reach the limits of the ocean, the raft, with a creaking of timbers and straining of ropes, launches itself toward the heavens. Below I can see Patagonia and the outline of the South American continent. Higher and higher and further and further we go. I begin to breath hypothetical  gravitons rather than air. The years peel away and I once again feel the potency and vigour of my salad days. I’m Huckleberry Finn,  Phileas Fogg, Flash Gordon, Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong and Captain Kirk.  I boldly go  - a master of the universe.

 We pass great nebulae, spinning galaxies, black holes, singularities, event  horizons, gas giants and a trillion suns and planets. A solitary Higgs boson gives me a cheery wave on its way to a collision in Geneva.

Still onward the little raft goes. What was a simple construction of timber, rope and rusty oil drums is now a starship and the tatty bed sheet becomes a gossamer sail  billowing in the solar wind.  In a moment of clarity, I understand the universe and the inter-connectedness of everything.   Malaria, Tories, feudalism, capitalism, communism,  the slums of Mumbai, the tears of the dispossessed and hungry, bell ringers, doves, the Sermon on the Mount, Bono, irritable bowel syndrome and the Dagenham Girl Pipers.  In this fleeting instant, and for once in my life, scepticism and bewilderment are supplanted by this all-encompassing vision.

  These profound insights are, however, marred by Kryten,  the bone-headed robocop from Flat  One, overtaking the raft on a space scooter and giving me a ticket and a telling off for intergalactic speeding.  I wake up  feeling deflated and muzzy-headed.  I make a cup of tea and some toast and sit out on the balcony in the comforting presence of Owl. A speck of light slowly crosses the night sky. My rational mind, or what’s left of it at  this hour, tells me that this is a communications satellite. On the other hand, it might, just might, be my raft about to beam me up and take me on further adventures. Dream on.

Wednesday:

I re-read the leaflet that came with my medicine and see that “vivid and disturbing dreams” are one of the possible side effects, particularly when combined with alcohol. I resign myself to a sniffy, eye-watering summer and have a bacon sandwich for breakfast.  Henceforth, I shall regard the hay fever medicine as a recreational drug and limit my intake to special occasions and dreary gigs.

Thursday:

After a breakfast of muesli, which I hate, I compose a letter to Charlie Sparrow about the so-called condor.

Dear Mister Sparrow,

Thank-you for your letter regarding the bird on my balcony.  Reg, the caretaker, is mistaken in identifying it as a condor. It is in fact a python- eating eagle from Zanzibar.  It poses no threat to humans.  I feel sure that I once saw a television programme in which David Attenborough crept up on one of these birds and after imitating its mating cry with a Swanee whistle, was able to pet it and hand feed it  some chocolate buttons.  However, these birds have been known to take small dogs of the yappy, freely-defecating persuasion and I have warned Reg of this.

I am only looking after the bird for a friend who is currently in re-hab and expects to be released soon. His maiden aunt is keeping an eye on the puff adder. With your zoological contacts, it might be useful if you were to provide tenants with an exhaustive list of proscribed pets as I’m considering the purchase of a gibbon to keep me company of an evening and run small errands.

Yours etc.

Friday:

I walk into town. Thankfully, there’s not an accordion in sight, or a Big Issue seller. I go into Aunt Jemima’s Pantry for some bread and cheese straws. At the back of the shop there is a small area where meals are served. I’m reminded of the occasion when one of my wives was buying a loaf in the shop. She was taken ill with what turned out to be a mild heart attack. The concerned staff sat her down at a table into the dining area while an ambulance was called. Also seated at the table was a man reading a newspaper. He took absolutely no notice of the drama going on around him and carried on scanning the sports pages. He barely looked up when the paramedics arrived and began attaching electrodes to my wife’s arms and fitting her with an oxygen mask. In the midst of all this, he was served with an enormous full-English breakfast, which he began tucking into. As she was taken out on a stretcher, she briefly lifted the mask and pointed to the man’s breakfast.

‘I’ve just had one of those,’ she told him as he was about to shovel another fork load of cholesterol into his mouth.

Saturday:

I’m still pondering on writing a novel. I spend most of the day aimlessly doodling and then I remember my raft dream.  Perhaps this could be the basis of a story, much like Gulliver’s Travels, or Candide . Of course it has yet to be written, but I can already envisage literary acclaim and glittering prizes. I celebrate my new-found inspiration with a slab of brie and an Argentinian Shiraz.

Sunday:

A note through my letter-box advising me that there is to be a residents meeting next Friday evening. I wonder if this might be connected to the condor. I look forward to further sport and meeting some of the new residents, although I might wear a croupier’s eye-shade to deflect the Basilisk’s stare if she’s present.

AGE OF BEWILDERMENT is now available as a book at  www.bwildr.net or from Amazon/Kindle

 © David Sherrington 2012  Davidsherrington@aol.com   www.bwildr.net