Friday, March 18, 2011

 

Ill tidings and the lowest ebb

I am, for the time being at least, looking after a new property in Islington. It is a bit of a state, to put it mildly. All the carpets are soiled. Somebody has been trying to grow a fern in the sink of the upstairs bathroom. When I went in the kitchen the other day, the light bulb exploded. Didn't just go ping! and stop working - exploded.

I was shipped into this place on very short notice. The urgency of my situation was made apparent when someone attempted to break in through the back window on my second night here. From time to time, I think I hear voices in the house, panic and start legging it up and down the stairs like a startled cat.

Someone I know asked me yesterday if I am a Christian; I replied that I am not. She told me that sometimes she prays for people she knows and that recently my face has been popping into her mind during prayer. She also told me that she isn't crazy. I believe her.

I've spent much of my week in the bookmakers, not so much in the expectation of improving my fortunes as accustoming myself to life at the sphincter end of society's great tract. And tonight I finally reached the lowest ebb of my life thus far when I found myself reading the instructions on the back of a pot of baked beans.

In honesty, I'm actually quite enjoying all this - it's like indoor camping. There are a lot of people in real trouble right now.

***

Via text

HE: Btw, is everyone you know in Japan suitably accounted for mate?

ME: If by 'suitably accounted for' you mean 'all dead and floating to Canada', then no, I don't think so.

***

Levity aside, the destruction in Japan is awful, beyond me. 人生はこんなにはかない、なんて。

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