Once the water was gone –
Aw!
– he focussed in on the feathers again –
Penna
He began sorting them out, quite methodically, casting aside the smaller ones, before settling, finally, on the longest and strongest of the bunch. He inspected the tip of its quill with an expert eye –
Hmmn…
– then dabbed it, matter-of-factly, on to his tongue.
He grimaced.
It was a black feather –
Phleagh!
He grimaced again, as if disgusted by the taste of it, but then he stopped grimacing –
Phlegh?
Phleg?
Bhleg?
Bloec?
Blac?
Eh?!
Blac?
Blac?
– he peered down at his arms. They were covered in scratches. The scratches stung a little and they were still bleeding. ‘Blac…’ he murmured, frowning, then tipped the quill of the feather into a little stream of blood…
Hmmn
He shook his head –
Enque
Enke
Ink
He scowled, frustrated –
Blac
He shook his head –
Enke
He shook his head –
No…
Ruh…?
Eh?
He thought quietly for a while. Then –
Reudh?
Ruber?
Rood?
Rud?
Red?
Red?
Blut-red?
Eh?
Blut?
He examined the blut on his arms. He inspected the blut… But every time the concept of the blut, the idea of the blut, was formalised into a proper form of words, he felt something hiccough, he felt something disconnecting, he felt a kind of…almost like a…a rupture…a sudden cutting-off, a terrible, maddening, frustrating cleft – a chink – between his understanding and his feeling, as if the idea and the emotion had been violently rent. He stood silently for a while – struck dumb, wavering slightly – on the brink of this deep abyss – this intellectual chasm.
He couldn’t cross it. Not yet. So he stopped trying and stepped jauntily out of the shower cubicle instead. He dropped the feather. He reached for a towel and wrapped it around him. He opened the bathroom door (no problem with the handle) and padded out into the kitchen.
Here the tiles were also soaking. His feet made a series of delightful slapping sounds against them –
Viet-waat-viet-waat-viet-waat…
Hah!
He stood and gazed around him. Things seemed different – very different – but he didn’t know what the differences were, and he wasn’t exactly sure how he might be expected to respond to them. He frowned, thoughtfully, his sharp, brown eyes consuming every detail.
All the furniture in the living-room had been shoved – and in some cases, thrown – against the three outer walls. It almost looked as if a small tornado had been at work there. The middle of the room was now completely empty. Beede appraised this new space, inquisitively. Then he smiled…Yes. Good. He liked this new space. It was a fine new space…
As a mark of his approval he paraded around in the space for a while; he swaggered about in it, he preened and he strutted – kicking up his legs, thrusting out his chest, tossing back his head, both hands resting jauntily on his hips.
During the course of this brief interlude his towel fell off. Beede hurriedly grabbed for something to replace it with, chancing upon the shirt he’d removed earlier (drawing it – with a sense of palpable satisfaction – from the heart of the surrounding chaos) and eagerly pulling it on, but the wrong way around; fastening the top button at the back of his neck so that now (from the front, at least) he exuded a pious – almost a priestly – aspect.
He promptly recommenced his theatrics, fully aware, as he pranced, that the cheeks of his arse were fluttering in and out of view as the wings of the shirt flapped cheekily around it. He quickly integrated this into his walk, winking and leering, shaking his hips, thrusting obscenely, the whole, lascivious spectacle culminating, finally, in an extravagant bow (also – by sheer coincidence – a shameless piece of mooning).
As he straightened up (plainly delighted by this brazen display) Beede’s head smacked into something –
Eh?!
He glanced skyward, frowning. Suspended directly above him (attached to the electrical cord from the broken light fitment by what looked like a tie or a dressing-gown belt) was the cat. The cat was strung up, tightly, by his neck, like a piece of game that’d been left out to hang.
Beede stood and gazed at the cat, fascinated. The cat wasn’t yet dead. He still showed some slight signs of consciousness. His mouth leered and drooled, his eyes blinked, whitely. His back leg twitched.
Beede pulled laboriously on his chin as he appraised the cat. He tapped his foot. He rolled his eyes. He mimed himself thinking, strenuously. Then he stood on his tip-toes and reached up, as if to try and free the unhappy creature, but he was too short to untie the knot, so he turned and peered around him, looking for some kind of physical support.
His eye finally alighted upon a chair (the chair from his desk) which was lying upside down on a messy pile of books. He marched over to inspect the chair. He bent over to pick it up, but as he bent he froze, glanced over his shoulder, grabbed a hold of his two shirt flaps, held them modestly together, and simpered, coyly.
Once he’d finished simpering (once he’d taken it about as far as it could possibly go – then still further) Beede casually released the flaps, stationed his two feet firmly apart and bent over, crudely, to seize the chair. But instead of lifting it effortlessly (as was only to be expected – it wasn’t a large chair, after all), Beede discovered himself signally unable to establish a firm grip.
It was almost as if the chair had been oiled. Every time he placed a hand on it the hand slid off – and at great speed, to boot. Yet rather than responding to this challenge sensibly – slowing down, perhaps, or inspecting the chair more closely (locating the source of the problem, even) – Beede reacted by launching ever more frenzied attacks on it – throwing himself at the chair with such haste and such violence that each time he made physical contact he flew on to the floor, with a crash: once, twice, five times, ten…
Soon he was red-faced, sweating and out of breath. He mimed himself exhausted – panting like a thirsty hound, swiping a heavy arm across his forehead. He peered around him, searching for somewhere to sit and take stock. Naturally he espied the upturned chair. He went and grabbed a hold of it and set it straight. He sat down on it and appeared to relax…
Phew!
…until three/five/seven seconds later and then –
Weeeeeeeeee!’ he slid off the chair, at speed (as if the seat had been lubricated) and landed – thump – on the carpet.
He turned to appraise the chair, scratching his head –
‘Hmmn.’
– then he yanked himself to his feet and went over to inspect the cat. The cat’s foot was barely twitching now, but his eyelids were still fluttering.
‘Hmmn.’
Beede went back to try and grab the chair again, brusquely spitting on to his hands and wiping them on his shirt to secure his grip. This time (his body language proclaimed loudly) he really meant business.
He bent over, arms extended, and prepared to lunge, but just as he was lunging, he remembered his shirt. He pulled a bashful expression. He glanced behind him. He observed his naked buttocks. He gasped. He snatched at the shirt flaps, but snatched so vigorously – with both hands, simultaneously – that he ended up performing a compact somersault.
Beede landed, back on his feet, with a resounding thud. He looked astonished, as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what’d just happened. Then he calmed himself down. Then he returned to the chair. Then he spat on his hands. Then he slowly bent over. Then he prepared to lunge. Then he remembered his bare arse aga
in. Then he glanced behind him again. Then he gasped. Then he snatched at the shirt flaps. Another dramatic somersault –
Thud!
On this second occasion, however, he somehow managed to land with his hands pinning his shirt tails together – his modesty almost fully intact. He grinned, smugly. Then he dropped the flaps, spat on his palms, rubbed them together and grabbed at the chair like a wrestler commencing a brand-new bout.
This time his hands didn’t slip, they held firm, but instead of lifting the chair, the chair seemed to lift him.
Beede remained in the air for a few seconds and then was thrown down, sprawling, on to the carpet.
What?!
He gazed at the chair, appalled. Then his face purpled-up with rage. He clambered to his feet and he attacked the chair, savagely. Once again the chair got the better of him. It threw him up – into a lop-sided handstand – and then violently tossed him down.
Beede glared at the chair from his position on the rug. He was now – if it were possible – even angrier than before. Then a cunning thought suddenly occurred to him –
What if…? (his expression seemed to say)…What if I were to creep up on it?
To take it unawares?
To launch a secret attack on it from the rear?
Ha!
Beede slowly clambered to his knees – trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible – and furtively commenced crawling. Every so often, he’d pause, peer behind him, and place a warning finger to his lips –
Shhhhh!
As he drew closer to the chair his crawling slowed down to almost a snail’s pace and the warning finger grew ever more insistent –
Shhhhh!
– until, just as he was perfectly positioned to launch his assault, to spring to his feet, to attack –
Parp!
– he suddenly let rip – discharging a fart of such volume and such ferocity that he was spontaneously launched, like a rocket, over the back of the chair, landing – supported by the seat this time – on his two hands, struggling (even so) to clutch at it – only to be tossed, once again, into a dramatic flick-flack.
On his second hand-spring he managed to inadvertently kick the suspended cat. The cat swung up sharply into the ceiling, hitting it with a stomach-wrenching smack. Beede caught him –
Phut!
– (already upright again), on his downward trajectory –
Ta-dah!
The cat was now very still. Beede appraised him, with a poignant sigh. He let go of him. He walked over to fetch the chair. He grabbed it. He carried the chair over to the cat. He clambered on to the chair. He carefully untied the knot around the cat’s neck (his expression one of unspeakable tenderness), and then, as the knot came loose, he casually leaned back and allowed the cat to drop, unceremoniously, on to the carpet.
Beede peered down at the cat from his chair, with a shrug. Then he blinked. Then he looked down again, shocked, as if suddenly the floor seemed like it was many miles below him. He grimaced. He gave the distant cat carcass a tentative, little wave (almost as if suggesting that the cat might save him this time).
No movement from the cat. Beede grew increasingly alarmed by his high altitude. His knees began to knock. He gnawed on his fingernails. He personified anxiety. And then – in the wink of an eye – he’d back-flipped from the chair and on to the carpet, landing neatly and cleanly, like a seasoned gymnast –
Hah!
He slapped his hands together, smugly (to indicate a job well done) then turned and marched off jauntily towards the bedroom (obviously well-satisfied with the performance he’d given). Half-way to the door, though, the unexpected happened: his knees almost buckled under him –
Argh!
He threw out both arms (to prevent himself from falling) and ground to an abrupt halt. His face creased up in agony. He gazed down at his feet, despairingly. He groaned. He tried to walk again, but he couldn’t (his toes were in an awful rictus – curled up like claws – while the arch looked strangely pinched and contracted), the best he could muster was a pathetic hobble.
He glanced around him, looking for some kind of relief. His eye alighted on a mop and broom leaned up against the wall in the corner of the kitchen. He shuffled towards them, grabbed them, upended them, placed the padded/bristled sections under each of his armpits and employed them as a pair of piece-meal crutches. Slowly, stiffly, wincing – quite the oldest man in the planet – he pitched and staggered his way into the bedroom.
Five minutes passed. During this interlude the cat didn’t move. When Beede finally re-emerged he was well-spruced and tidily dressed – his hair neatly greased, his shirt buttoned up (in the traditional style), wearing a well-pressed pair of trousers, clean socks and shoes. His shoulder seemed tense – a little stiff – but his gait (in general) seemed relatively normal. He was holding the mop in his hand –
Eh?!
– and wearing an expression of slight confusion.
As he entered the kitchen he drew to a sharp halt. He peered at the floor, at the wet tiles underfoot…
‘Good God…What…?’
He inspected the mop again, scowling –
Oh –
Of course…
He placed it down on to the tiles and began cleaning up. Once the mop was saturated he looked around – somewhat dazedly – for the special bucket in which to wring it out…
Where is it?
He glanced over into the living-room, perplexed. His jaw dropped.
‘Kids…’ Kane drawled boredly, slowly pulling past a smart-looking saloon which’d recently been dumped at the entrance to the slip road from the Bad Munstereifel segment of the A2042 (half-on the kerb, half-off it), the door thrown open into oncoming traffic.
‘…Idiot, fuckin’ joyriders…’.
He drove on, accelerating boldly, casually negotiating one of the voluptuously looping, helter-skelter of curves leading down towards the roundabout while howling along, raucously, to an old Zappa cd –
Don’t go where the huskies go!
Don’t you eat that yellow snow!
He was still able, nevertheless (and quite miraculously, under the circumstances) to detect something strange (something anomalous, external, extraneous) beyond this marvellously impenetrable, aural wall –
A horn?
Kane scowled –
Eh?!
– instinctively covering the brake with his foot and reaching out, blindly, to turn down the music, when –
Fuck!
– he almost hit a man – one-handed. He wrenched at the steering wheel, gasping, to avoid the collision, then wrenched at the wheel again to avoid hitting an old Metro which’d just that second braked and swerved for precisely the same reason –
Bollocks!
He clipped the Metro’s back light as he flew past it, hearing a horn repeatedly sounding in time to the music –
My horn…?
(He inspected his hands)
Yup
– pulling over just as soon as was feasible –
Speeding…
Was I?
– hurling the Merc up on to a grassy verge –
Ouch!
Undercarriage didn’t like that much…
– as a third car shot by which had somehow succeeded in avoiding a collision –
Jammy swine!
– and so drove on, without stopping.
Kane glanced into his rearview mirror to check on the progress of the car he’d just clipped. It was currently stationary; stalled, at an angle. A woman sat the wheel. His eyes quickly shifted beyond her to confirm something which (instinctively, at gut-level) he already knew –
Isidore?
Is it…?
He sprang from the Merc and ran over to the Metro. Just as he was drawing near, though, the car’s engine turned, unexpectedly, and it shot forward (without warning – still in gear, presumably), almost ploughing straight into him –
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