My lager sat on the windowsill.  Behind it traffic buzzed, pedestrians ambled and the ubiquitous riff-raff loitered outside MacDonald’s.  It was remarkably engaging.  Life is fascinating when viewed through a pint glass.  The bubbles danced in time to Radiohead, or perhaps Radiohead were playing in time to the bubbles, but what caught my attention was the chap at the bar.

Coat folded neatly on the bar, hat balanced expertly on top, his usual drinking routine I suspect.  Faded t-shirt stretched over his belly.  Horizontal stripes never flatter.  An unusually prominent bottom lip made him look like a man who is perpetually displeased.  A nose like a parrot’s beak,  jet black hair that – given his age – had to be dyed.  He had all the deportment of a gloomy cockatoo. On his left wrist was the tiniest watch I have ever seen. Anorexic black strap and a minuscule face.  Seriously, it was so tiny that I can only suppose he had stolen it from a doll.

He checked his watch repeatedly, his manner was that of a wanted man.  He lifted the beer slowly, peered in the top and then slowly rotated the glass as he scrutinised it from the side. Humph, his expression said, the beer clearly disappointed and he glared at it morosely.  He put down the glass with a melodramatic sigh, shot a few conspiratorial glances around the pub, grabbed his coat and hat and left in a hurry.  But what was behind the suspicious behaviour?

I suspect the infamous Doll Mafia are after him.

Flippant, inexplicable and determinedly puerile. Unprovoked he swung round, cocked his head back and grinned. An evil, leery grin. To be fair it wasn’t really a grin, more of a grimace or a snarl, almost like that of a cartoon villain. I knew exactly what he was about to do and I couldn’t believe it. Only seconds before I was on the bus…

…all alone on the upper deck. Outside it was raining heavily, the bus was damp and bitterly cold. Did I say damp? I mean it was wet, very wet. Puddles formed and vanished with the motion of the bus. Drips on my head, drips on my book. I could barely make out the world outside. The windows were misty with droplets running down. Buildings loomed with dark, eerie windows. Eerie, the whole thing was eerie. It was a bit like a scene from a zombie movie but with a noticeable absence of any zombies.

Had I seen him before? Nope. Did he look dodgy? A bit. Was I doing anything other than minding my own business? Not at all. Yet here we were in torrential rain, facing each other like a couple of cowboys. I wasn’t scared or even feeling uneasy. I just walked towards him while looking him in the eye. Such a surreal moment in comparison to the lonely and peaceful setting just moments ago…

…where I pumped out the tunes through my mammoth headphones, I had the whole top deck to myself and it was lovely. Sure it was wet, cold, miserable, damn miserable, miserable as the little sodden leaf that clung to the window beside me, but the solitude was strangely refreshing. Lights outside flickered through the droplets on the window. Brake lights, traffic lights, street lights, police lights. Watching them made me dream, thoughts that no one could understand. Hooded and tightly wrapped in my coat I felt comforted. Nothing compares to the comfort of a good coat. (Apart from perhaps a good clean poo).

I stepped off the bus and headed home. I love listening to music while walking in the rain. In the distance I could make out the shape of a man. He walked slowly so I gained on him quickly. He was lugging a huge shoulder bag, wearing a baseball cap and one of those bomber jackets that were slightly cool fifteen years ago. I was five metres behind him when he swung round.

It was the bizarrest thing that has ever happened to me. He was standing the other side of a massive puddle. That’s when he grinned, snarled, grimaced or whatever. I knew exactly what he was going to do. The bastard. He, a total stranger, was going to drench me from a puddle using the schoolboy method, i.e. cause an airborne tsunami with a slow, swinging kick through the puddle.

He pulled his leg back slowly as if he was teasing. I picked up the pace and charged morosely at him. I was too wet to care and besides, any retaliation would require puddle-side positioning. He got the timing all wrong and soaked himself. The idiot. As I closed in on the puddle he scampered away into the night.

It’s like I’ve always said. You can never trust anyone in a bomber jacket.

***

P.S. Libby if you stop by again – you missed an absolute riot at Kings Cross on Friday and I even had to confront a total prat on the way home…

The Daily Wit set us a task to write a story using a (very bizarre) list of words. Time has been short and I wasn’t going to attempt it, but over a lunchtime beer I had second thoughts. The required words are in bold. Oh, and I’m on holiday now, I will be MIA for two weeks, please come back and I’ll be back on your blogs in two weeks’ time.

The room was bare. Well, almost. The body had been removed, a chalk outline marked where it had lain. There was pool of blood on the floor. Beside the pool were a pair of toothpicks, their tips read with blood. On the mantelpiece was a solitary statue of Torquemada and an empty mug.

“What sort of sick low-life would do this?” said Inspector Smith, sniffing the mug.

“Do what?” replied Inspector Jones.

“Kill a man with a pair toothpicks before relaxing with a cup of Ugandan coffee.”

Jones glanced out of the window. The bears were still trapped in glue. Bear-glue is a bit like mouse-glue, but stronger. Like its rodent counterpart, bear-glue is designed to hold the victim fast until death. Although clearly frustrated by the glue, which prevented them from moving and was irritating their tootsies, the bears were engaged in a furious debate about micro-lending. The credit-crunch is affecting everyone.

“Revenge?” suggested Jones, with a certain sardonic emphasis. He took a hip-flask out of his jacket pocket and knocked back some Jack Daniels, probably about a fifth.

Smith lit his pipe, assumed his favourite Sherlock pose and then cursed suddenly, a curse so deadly I’m reluctant to repeat it here.

“Neptune‘s Bathtub!” he swore, “it has to be so simple. I went on a 12 step program once, a course on detective work given by some twit dressed in a stupefying purple suit. He had horrible yellow skin, anyone would think he’d been eating radioactive isotopes or bitten by a tarantula or somethin’. He was a nut-case. One of my colleagues found him in a vacant lot blowing bubbles and pretending to play netball. Anyway it’s all about reading between the lines.”

“And?”

“There are no bloody lines and I don’t have a bloody clue.”

“Excuse me,” she said, bounding up to me like a rabbit on speed, “do you know where the nearest toilet is?”

The band at the Gemini beach bar was rocking away, the sun was beating down, we had finally reached the beach after a maddening 30 minutes dodging Brighton’s charity collectors. Out of the blue a large woman clad in a monstrous pink rugby shirt manifested herself. She was high and her body language smacked of a terrible bladder situation. She was discomfort itself.

“Um, I’m not sure,” I replied.

To be perfectly honest I didn’t even try. She had put one hand on Bubba Stoneskin’s pram and was leaning forward uncomfortably. It’s hard to think clearly in a world congested to overflowing with charity collectors and frenzied high-as-a-kite ladies in hideously large rugby shirts. Especially pink ones. In moments like these I tend to freeze.

“Please,” she pleaded, “just make a guess.”

“I think there’s one by The Exchange,” I suggested.

Hope came over the face of this amorphous mass of pink. She leaned forward, the stench of lager-breath was nauseating. Nothing could have prepared me for the randomness of her reply

“Thanks rabbit,” she said, and shuffled off.

Rabbit?

Today’s story is not that funny, but it really tickles me so I’ll tell it anyway. If you’ve been coming here a while you’ll know I try to keep my posts clean, but today there is a profanity which is a key part of the story so I’m going to leave it in.

Not long ago my friend’s dad went on holiday to Turkey for a few weeks. His name is Robin.

Each day he ate his lunch at a little cafe close to his hotel. It was a local-yocal little joint, always busy and populated by the same regulars. The cafe was run by a large jovial man named Irfan.

Irfan well and truly ran the show. He was a great bearded beast of a man with a booming voice and roaring laugh, a prolific anecdotalist captivating his audience with stories and gags.

On the final day of his holiday Robin went to the cafe for the last time. Having finished his lunch he said his goodbyes to Irfan. Realising they had never been properly introduced, Irfan asked Robin his name.

“Robin,” he replied.

“HA!” exclaimed Irfan, “you’re a Robin Basssssstarrrrrrrrd!”

The sky is blue, the air is crisp, the sun is falling but the day is bright. My senses feel as sharp as nails, as if they’ve gained acuteness lost. To the North lies the Gothic chapel, magnificent and eery. To the East a derelict factory, beautiful in its own right, proud but carrying an air of sadness. Beyond that the rolling Downs, green slopes, a white chalk ridge.

A bi-plane fuels from a bright yellow truck. A sleek red and white jet taxis in front of me. To my right a fleet of motionless Cessnas, their stillness compels my adoration. One of England’s oldest airfields, it makes me feel so very alive.

A sign adorns the fence I’m leaning on.

Please Do Not Feed The Birds

Stupid idiots, I thought, these are planes, not birds.