SHITTY AFTERNOON

 

A bloke bashed a granny in the park last night. I read about it on the internet. There were comments underneath: 'bloody animal' - 'worse than an animal' - 'how would he like to be bashed in the park?' - 'what has our world come to?' - 'you wouldn't get this in Canada' – 'he needs hanging' - 'we should take back our parks' - 'we should bring back the birch' - 'if people didn't go around doing this sort of thing it wouldn't happen' ...and so on. I left a comment myself. 'I hope some big lad rapes the hole off him in prison', I posted. I was banned from the website. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I was only agreeing. The injustice of the ban was upsetting me a bit so I put the thought of it out of my head.

No one mentioned the granny or how she was doing.

I turned off the computer and decided to do something else instead. Having long lost interest in television, pornography, and supposedly inspirational and thought provoking books, I decided to just sit and look out the window. A big black cloud hung over the whole shitty afternoon. The wind was hissing and bullying a load of dead leaves; booting them up the arse and causing them to flee in all directions. A crumpled crisp packet was snared in a branch of a dead tree. Mister Tayto, holding on for dear life. He lost his grip and was gone. Fwoosh! His services no longer required by the merciless Universe. Then an imagined image of the bashed granny's head came into my head. Horrible. I decided to put this head out of my head and picked up the phone and rang a friend. There was no answer. Then I rang another friend who answered and told me he couldn't talk because he was with the first friend I rang. 'What are you guys doing?' I asked/pleaded. 'We're talking about you', he said and hung up. I felt a tad offended. I didn't dwell on it. I put the thought out of my head.

I went into the kitchen and turned the kettle on. I watched it heat and boil and automatically click off. Then I left the kitchen, forgetting why I had gone in there in the first place. The thought had gone from my head. I'm sure it wasn't important, probably just a cup of tea or something. I saw an old plum I never ate; wilted, brown, bruised - a bashed granny's head. The bashed granny's head had crept back in my head. 'Begone bashed granny's head!' I roared like an exorcist banishing a demon. Then there was a knock at the front door and I hoped whoever was there didn't hear me.

I opened the door and saw the woman who lives in the nearby flat. She wanted me to go to her flat and lift something for her. I agreed and we went and I picked up the thing she wanted lifting. It was her father. He was slight, aged, and infirm. I lifted him out of a bed while she changed the sheets. The woman's father was embarrassed as I stood there holding him, his pajama bottoms all bunched up, his pale boney shins resting in the crooks of my arms, his wheezing ribs beneath a string vest. Imagine if I just went and fucked him out the window. Right in front of her. Imagine that. It'd be a disgrace. I put the thought out of my head, just like I did the thought of the bashed granny head. I wonder where my thoughts go when I put them out of my head. Do they go into someone else's head? I pity the poor head that ends up with my thoughts.

So, anyway, there I was holding this vulnerable, pulmonarily fucked, little bird man in my arms as his daughter changed his sheets. I tried to lighten the mood with a joke. 'You wouldn't last long in the park would you?', I asked the old fella. It was a rhetorical question. He looked at me with a combination of astonishment and disgust. His daughter turned and looked at me too. She looked furious. 'What kind of thing is that to say?' she asked (also rhetorical). 'What kind of man are you?' she continued, rhetorically. 'Well at least I didn't fuck him out the window', I said in my defence. There was a joint gasp from the woman and her father. Then the bird man feebly proffered a clenched fist and he threatened me. 'I'll fuck you out the window', he said. 'Ah no', I replied, 'ah no, I doubt you'd be able to manage that at this stage'. Then the woman asked me to put her father down on the bed and I did. Then she slapped me in the chops and pushed me out of her flat and into the corridor.

As I returned to my own place I passed the big window in the hall. I regarded it and then I opened it and then I jumped out of it.

I was whisked off by the wind (the wind is an awful whisker given half the chance) and I hurtled through the air with the dead leaves and crumpled Mister Tayto. Other things were also caught up in the current. Unanswered calls, unmade cups of tea, uneaten plums, and internet forum posts sped by as did dismissive remarks made by friends, inappropriate jokes, and unexpressed thoughts of flinging feeble old men out of windows. The bashed granny head I had put out of my head tumbled past too. 'There you are!' I said to the head. So, here I was with the thoughts in my head that I put out of my head. But where were we headed?

We twisted, turned, and somersaulted toward the big black cloud. The big black cloud that hung over the whole shitty afternoon. I waved at the old man and his daughter as I flew by their window. I'm not sure if they saw me. Maybe they did and just pretended they didn't. Maybe they had put the thought of me out of their heads.

I saw the inane punditry, atrophied foliage, notional beverages, unconsumed fruit, redundant snack food mascots, lengthy dialing tones, snotty dismissals, black humour, bad notions, and the bashed granny's head being sucked into the big black cloud ahead of me. I was next. I was about to discover where all us examples of intellectual and existential detritus end up. You already know of course. You can see us right now in front of you - the unwanted thoughts and purposeless products of a shitty afternoon, sitting right here in front of you in yet another blogpost. This is where my thoughts go when I put them out of my head. They go into someone else's head. They go into your head. I pity your poor head, ending up with my thoughts.