Tuesday, December 30, 2008

I Am A Walrus

So many days, too many meals, nothing to do but lay around like beached sea creatures, moaning mourntively*.

In desperation, I took an early night. I was too eaten up, drunk out and done in.

I woke in slight distress shortly after 1am. A harrowing dream of gravy and potatoes. It had been almost half a day after all. It was survival instinct that forced me down the stairs, into the cold, desolate kitchen. I reached for the hob and turned. Something clicked. I tried again. Same click. No spark. The fuel injection button was stuck, stuck fast with congealed gravy, much like my intestines. I considered it for a moment. Then decided to worry about it another day, much like my intestines, arteries and anything else from the neck down. I switched to the seldom-used ring at the back.

Minutes later I had a plate of Nigella's bread sauce-scented gratinaceaous-period potato and a couple of fossilised sausages warmed with gloopy jus before me. I entered the living room, dark, dank. The TV would not respond. I pressed the remote, all three of them. The same message beamed back to me. AV. That's what happens when teenage boys come back from University carrying X-Box 360s.

Deterred, but not yet defeated or eated, I returned to the kitchen and sat on the floor with my memories. A cornflake - I've not had any of those since the time we walked the Three Peaks. A shrivelled pea - that must have been Jack's re-enactment of Captain Corelli. A quid. I pocketed it and flicked on the wall-mounted television. A midget was performing YMCA. I looked again. It was a repeat for the Deaf.

I watched soundlessly, apart from the regular clicking of my jaw that has never been the same since the Edinburgh Rock incident, ajaw, between chews. Hundreds of walruses left the sea. They slowly made their way up the beach, exhausted, triumphant.

I silently thanked my parents for choosing a good dentist all those years ago as I made my cumberous** way back up the steep stairs.


* not sure if this the correct spelling, or even a word. If not, it is a Cherryism.

** and another

10 Comments:

Blogger Romeo Morningwood said...

No discussion of Walrus is ever complete without mentioning that John Lennon told my cousin's, best friend's, brother's, dental hygenist's, next-door-neighbour, that I AM THE WALRUS was a direct reference to the 25 in. baculum (penis bone) not the Carroll poem.

6:22 am  
Blogger Vicus Scurra said...

No, no, no in the original version he said "I'm going to Woolworths". A poignant message, which makes so much more sense.

10:44 am  
Blogger delcatto said...

I am still laughing at the midget performing YMCA.

11:38 pm  
Blogger Dave said...

Happy New Year CP. I do so hope it is.

9:35 am  
Blogger Zig said...

hello chuck, how's things? Me must catch up!

12:20 pm  
Blogger Krimo said...

Happy New Year, Cherrybabes.

12:32 am  
Blogger Russell CJ Duffy said...

All I know of 'I am the Walrus@' apart from it being a B side to 'Hello Goodbye and a track off of the EP (that's right USA - EP) Magical Mystery Tour and featuring hugely in the Oasis influences is that Lennon got the Riff from hearing a London police car's siren way back when.

As for Cherryism's...MORE!

1:59 pm  
Blogger Frieda Babbley said...

Just wanted to let you know I love this piece. I makes me smile and paints such a picture. And I have to admit, I come back to it often just to lisen to the video (a second time if I'm feeling deaf) and to read an excerp if I'm not busy singing along.

10:48 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You don't seem so fat...

8:06 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

mmmmmm

gravy...

11:54 pm  

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