There was even a time, a saucy enraged time, with dollops of skinny accountants and
perspiring walri, a time, my best beloved beloved ones, when all that was left in my
brain was a tendency to twiddle and sing at the top of my voice top ten pop melodies
from 1967. In my opinion, not a good year. But there it was, with my voice cracking
and sparkling in the hayloft light as she cut off all her lovely hair off with a rusty
pair of scissors. I loved her still, though she tried to flee, tried to drive me off
with excuses and shams, delights and betrayals. Have some tea, she said to me, or a
nightcap: hot buttered rum or a frisky nipple? No thanks, I said, that rat poison in your closet has been haunting my dreams lately, spiralling in my gut, and my gut and
I are friends, I said, we watch out for each other, though I admit (most solemnly and
resigned) that my gut does a better job of watching after me than I do of my gut.
The sun has returned (sort of) and shines (sometimes) through my lofty living room
windowpane: I dance and roll naked through the glistering (sometime) radioactivity.
Then dark clouds roll by and my flesh gooses. Telegrammatically, correct and to the
point, these tender spots glow brightly and shine forth warmly. I am distracted by
this burgeoning warmth, this sidling into hunger. Which way is the nearest exit? I
fear that I have wandered into chaos, a chaos of joy and fear, monkeys and wombats,
slicing and dicing, fighting and sighing, though the dirtiest thinking methinks
does not make my face turn red, still embarrassment steals over me when I remember
childhood… The knee-high-cricket boy, with round belly, and thin spindly legs, face
too thin for thinking or seeing. Thinly, I dallied amongst the knees of grown-ups,
saying nothing, and not being seen.
I have perfected the art of invisibility, having trained for seven decades with
the Hori-Matru ninjas of the spice islands. I was incompetent, dangerously incompetent
with regard to every other of their secret arts, and so I left, invisibly, and no one
missed me when I was gone. Stupid ninjas.