2. THE GNAT IN THE PANTS

Now donlt tell me, I know that very little in this chapter is actually possible...

It took me little more than moments to discover that i was in one hell of a quandary as i lay on the blood-stained marble slab in the pathology lab.

It slowly crossed my mind that a fellow is particularly useless when it comes to being animated when he’s dead, and I was most assuredly deceased, an ex-person, a stiff, a corpse. The very fact that I felt as if I might be compos mentis struck me as weird, but I didn't really have much time for considering the pros and cons of a situation I’d never hitherto dreamed was possible. But I knew that I had to do something or they’d bring that coffin back and put me into it alongside my spirit who I knew was already crying spiritual tears of frustration at being incarcerated in a rather cheap casket.

But I didn't have the time or patience to really feel sorry for that half of me.

What I didn’t know as I fought against being motionless and generally dead was that the funeral director, knowing that there wasn’t a soul on planet Earth who would ever lay claim to my mortal remains, decided there and then to dig a six foot whole in an unwanted corner plot of the cemetery within smelling distance of a public toilet there and then, and get rid of me poste-haste in order to concentrate on a more lucrative funeral involving the decomposing flesh of a duke who had been mistaken for a fox by his own pack of hounds.

And the whole unpleasant truth was my ghost was six feet under before the clock struck noon of that very day.

But back to my own dead flesh.

The pathologist (I would never learn his name, and that doesn’t matter) was busy having his carnal way with a mini-skirted assistant who was, as they say, gagging for it and consequently they were both blind to my problem.

I assume that as far as he was concerned I wasn’t going to do anything because, and let me repeat this until you understand my situation in all of its gravity, because I was dead. I’d had my skull cut open, my brain examined and even weighed before it was put back the wrong way round, and I was clearly in no condition to do anything as positive as think.

How I got off the marble slab which was my bed I don't think I’ll ever understand, but somehow I slithered along until I was hanging off it, my feet searching for the ground as gravity pulled them remorselessly downwards.

Have I mentioned that I was naked? The pathologist had stripped me of my clothing so that I was naked as the day I’d been born forty-odd years ago. He’d even measured my penis, for goodness sake, which was something that must have had something to do with a perversion of his because it had nothing to do with my cycling collision with a motor bicycle. And there he was, as I hung over the edge of the slab, enjoying coitus with his assistant, with no intention, I’m sure, for any interruptus.

Anyway, that’s by the by.

Eventually, while the pathologist’s eager assistant was gasping for more, I found my feet. My naked feet, one with a label tied to a big toe proclaiming that I’m Philip Smith. And they were on the cold floor of the laboratory.

One of the things said of me is I’ve got a great deal of common sense and am quite adept at planning ahead and this was one occasion when I could have done with quite a lot more.

I mean, how can a corpse plan to perambulate?

The answer came to me in a flash. It was the carnal activity only two or three yards away from me that gave me a clue.

“For God’s sake get your skates on!” squealed the short-skirted lass who, I noticed, by now had divested herself of that singularly attractive garment and was more animated than I’d ever been even when I was alive.

“I’m doing all I can,” replied her boss, gasping as if he was about to emulate one of the corpses he enjoyed slicing up, “I can’t manage any more!”

It was a brief conversation, but combined with the sight of a pair of roller skates someone had carelessly left by the door it prompted me to action. If only I could reach them, and having reached them, slip my feet in… I used to be a fair genius when it came to roller skating, capable of performing a huge number of acrobatic twists and turns as I raced along, sometimes tumbling, sometimes leaping head over heels and always landing on my feet.

Somehow, and don't ask me to explain how because I can’t, I’m dead and reasons why things happen are beyond me, I promise, but somehow I managed to flow, yes, that’s the right word, into the roller skates. It wasn’t something I’ll ever be able to repeat. Muscles that have already been dead for a few hours were getting increasingly floppy as the minutes ticked along. Rigor mortis was deserting me and, only just in time, I managed to sway and lurch towards the door on those skates, the well-greased wheels gaining momentum with every stumble.

And just before I reached it, the door was pushed open from the other side and a young policeman, probably just out of nappies, strode in. With no more ado and totally out of control I zoomed past him and out onto a side road where it was raining.

Behind me I heard the policeman call out for the pathologist, who by that time must have divested himself of his trousers because he said, “just a minute, Fred, I’ve got a gnat in my pants and it’s bitten me… come on girl, help me find it, and his assistant giggled and goodness knows what she did to him to make him squawk the way he did and tell her too breathlessly to be absolutely convincing, that’s a good lass, that’s the spot all right, now killed the damn thing …. no, not that thing … it’s done the trick, thanks very much, I can get dressed now…

And she saying, that’s all right sir, any time you get in trouble…as I heard the flat of her hand make audible contact with his pathological bottom.

© Peter Rogerson 23.08.19

Reviews

[Samuel Dickens]

This is wild stuff, Roger, Surely, Philip's naked, bloody, soulless body riding a bike in the rain is a common occurrence. (just kidding) An error here--"...six foot whole"

[Peter Rogerson]

Me and my typos. I never find them all... Thanks for looking anyway