Busy old day
yesterday. Up at 2am to finalise the fishing reports, then went for a walk by
the river and spied a weird looking bottle floating therein. Pulled it out
hoping for messages or treasure maps, but was just a few wee dregs of cider in
the bottom. Figured as a longstanding teetotaller it might be fun to drink it
and - phew! - it were only a sip but it took me bloody head off! Apparently I
got quite annoying after that - not that I remember much - but seemed like fun
to me.
Anyway, after a
little snooze and a very amazing session with a gypsy fortune teller I had to
run my friend Cara to the airport 'cos she was catching a plane to Syria
On the way I had a
chance to grill her about all those mad things she was saying about kids the
other day. Told her I was a bit troubled by it. That it seemed kind of dark and
defeatist.
She said not to
take any notice. That maybe she was just going through an existential phase.
And, anyway, she couldn't help it, what with her "time displacement
issues."
"Your
what?" I says.
"Time,"
she says, "ever since I had that accident when I was a kid, time's been
weird for me. It's like I see everything at once. So a question like, 'do you
want babies?' doesn't mean much to me - I don't see babies, I see angsty
teenagers, struggling adults, decrepit old people - hundreds of generations of
'em, stretching on and on until the day the Earth dissolves into the dying sun
and everything that ever was is gone - and I just don't want to play a part in
that. You know, save some beings some suffering."
"But what
about all the joy?"
"I know,"
she said, "and who knows? I may be wrong in all this, but that's the way I
see it." And then she changed the subject and asked me about something she
knew I couldn't help but wax lyrical on - some half-baked theory about
hereditary emotional tendencies - and next thing I knew we were there.
She gave me a big
hug. Leapt out. Leaned saucily through the window.
"I don't do
goodbyes," she said, "so I'll just walk away and not look back."
"Okay," I
said.
"But,
listen," she said, "can you do one last thing for me? Can you record
a piece of music so hideous, so annoying, and so ultimately boring that no one
in their right mind could possibly make it through the whole thing without
switching off? It sure would make me chuckle, knowing that was out there."
I nodded. She
smiled. And then she was gone.
I went home, got
out my guitar, fulfilled a good friend's dying wish, and drank some tea for
Cara.
