2259. Dead

Hi. My name is Andreus. I regard myself as a realist. Some people just can’t face reality. I’ll give you an example or two.

When I read Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray I thought how morbid to be writing poetry sitting among all those dead people. Then I thought that those cows in the lowing herd that were winding slowly o’er the lea are now dead. Every one of them dead as a doornail. They’re not mooing anymore. They’re dead.

That got me thinking about other things. You know in “Oh what a beautiful morning” from Oklahoma? They sing “All the cattle are standin’ like statues; They don’t turn their heads as they see me ride by”. That’s because they’re all dead. For goodness sake! Nor would the corn be as high as an elephant’s eye because by now the elephant and the corn would be dead. There’s not a happy song left in the world because most things that inspired the songs are now dead.

The bluebird of happiness is dead.

When I went to the library a day or two ago I was fingering my way through a history picture book, and I thought that all those people in the pictures are dead. History is about dead people. There are dead people everywhere. Dead! Dead! Dead!

Some people are obsessed with dead people. Thank goodness I’m not. That’s one thing I’m dead sure about.

1860. An obsession with porn

Neville knew all the online addresses of porn sites. At least he thought he did; only the free ones, mind you. He wasn’t going to pay for all that rubbish.

His wife of course had no idea. She thought he was engrossed in a computer game, or maybe some intelligent reading. After all, he was interested in animals, and when he could drag himself away from the internet he would watch National Geographic on the television, especially if it was about animals that weren’t so common. Every second animal program was about lions or elephants or giraffes. He wasn’t that interested in that sort of program. Those programs were so common they had become boring. His interest lay in the less common fauna on the planet. The program on the Australian Gulbaru Gecko for example was fascinating.

“You’re addicted to the animal in you,” his wife joked.

For a while Neville thought his wife had caught him watching the porn on his computer, but thankfully she was talking about his choice of television watching.

As time went on, things began to creep up on Neville. Was that a touch of Alzheimer’s? Was senility starting to set in? Indeed it was, and in the end rather quickly. It wasn’t long before his wife was at the end of her tether. He had to go into an environment that was both safe and secure.

In the Care Centre Neville’s lifetime obsession with porn became apparent. Looking at porn sites was all he did. Everyone could see it. It’s all he would talk about. His wife tried to get him to take some interest in the Australian Gulbaru Gecko, and other skinks, lizards, and geckos. All to no avail. For Neville it was porn or nothing.

Until the day he died.

1614. The computer game

Keith was more than pleased that his wife, Zelma, was addicted to playing Candy Crush. She would come home from work and immediately begin to play the game on the computer.

“It makes such a difference playing on a bigger screen. The phone is so limiting.”

Keith always noticed that she was several levels ahead of where she was when she had left home that morning. Inevitably she was playing the game at work.

Why he was pleased with his wife’s obsession was because, to call a spade a spade, they had nothing to talk about. At least for the short time she was home, even though it drove him batty, she could talk about “Popping the bottles”, “Spreading the jam”, “Eating the chocolate” and “Getting the bear above the candy line”. It stopped them from having to face certain questions, such as why their relationship no longer worked.

The weekends were another thing altogether. Keith would hike off to his brother’s place, which Zelma didn’t mind because it gave her all the space in the world to play the game.

Last Thursday Zelma came home from work early. She had been sacked. She had no idea why.

Keith packed a bag and booked into a motel. Permanently.

1517. Is it Robbie’s lucky day?

He was getting on in life, and for all his obsession with sex, Robbie had never “done it”. It’s all he could think of half the time – sex sex sex. How come every male under the sun had “done it” and he’d never “done it”?

When he walked into a room all he could think of was sex. He wondered what it was like. Was it something to do with his childhood that prevented him from “scoring”? How come his father had never told him how to go about doing it? How was he meant to go about it now that he was older? He was sure that everyone – absolutely EVERYONE – was doing it. He decided he was too old and decrepit now to fumble around and “learn the ropes”. That would be embarrassing. He’d seen a bit of porn and it all looked complicated.

And that was when he met Mabel. Mabel was the best thing since sliced bread. He invited her to his fourteenth birthday party.