5. THE FUTTOCKING NOSTRILS

It's beginning to be obvious that Philip might be dead

I suppose the talkative spirit who was curious about my ability to stroll down the street was as blind as I was, which was very blind indeed, because had he the gift of sight he should have seen that I was slumped on the sofa in a posture reserved exclusively for the dead. Anyway, whatever his problem it should have been clear that I was incapable of moving the least of muscles, let alone walking even one feeble little step.

In addition to that couldn’t talk, which was a hindrance, but it seemed I could project my thoughts at him. Maybe that was because he was the spirit of my ghost and we had some sort of ethereal connection. I didn’t know.

“I’m stuck here for eternity,” I managed to convey, using whatever supernatural skills I could call on.

I’ve never believed in the supernatural.

“Sod you then,” he mumbled, “then I’ll have to go back to where the air is fragrant with stale urine and other, less enjoyable stenches and see what our boss is up to,” he complained. The words might not have sounded complaining, but the tone of whatever he used as a voice was.

“Don’t go anywhere while I'm gone!” he growled, and I could tell straight away that he was gone. I rather suspect he walked through the wall and out onto the street, kicking my sunflower in the teeth as he went because it annoyed him. As I say, I rather suspect that, but I might be wrong, especially about the sunflower’s teeth because as far I’m aware it didn’t have any.

By now it ought to have been clear that I wasn’t going anywhere because of a total lack of pedestrian skills and the ghost of the ghost should have noticed that. As if I could go anywhere! I was mortified by its ignorance because in a tiny way I realised it was somehow part of me, or rather of my ghost.

I still didn’t believe in ghosts.

And at that moment, whilst I was trying to work out a brand new theory of everything involving deities, planets and dead people, one that allowed for my present circumstances to be rationalised, the door was knocked from the outside.

There was nothing I could do, so I waited.

I heard the sound of a key scraping in the old mortice lock, which constituted the entirety of my security system. After all, who was likely to want to burgle me? I am burglar proof in the way that those who don’t possess luxuries often are.

Then I heard the familiar squeak of the door opening, though in truth I didn’t hear anything because my ears either didn’t work or were no longer connected to anything alive enough to detect sound.

Then I heard “Are you there, Philip, and what’s that dreadful stink?” though I can’t have heard it for the above explained reason, and I can’t have had the mental kokum to recognise it for the same reason.

But I did recognise it. It belonged to Marianne, my last wife. The last of five who had all skedaddled off the moment our honeymoons had been over. You might think it was a rare joy to have enjoyed five honeymoons and all their, shall I call them tender moments, but if you omit the word enjoyed and substitute it for suffered you might get some idea what pains I went through five times.

Marianne was the sort of woman who was fond of her own voice and even more fond of her own prejudices.

I could tell, but I couldn’t see, her standing, hands on hips, staring at me where I lay in the blissful cocoon of death.

“So this is how you live now you haven’t got me to clean up after you?” she screeched, “it’s just as well you let me keep a key to this dump!”

It was a powerful screech. See a barn owl being chased by an eagle. Hear it.

Of course, I didn’t move a muscle in reply, mostly because I couldn’t. No, I lie, not mostly: entirely because I couldn’t.

“Look at you lounging there as if you were on a mortician’s slab and about to be interred in Mother Earth,” she scoffed, and that’s the right word, the did scoff: she was good at it.

“It’s no wonder you couldn’t keep a woman, you filthy little moron of a man, and what's that I see? Could it be? Out of your nose? Is that a maggot crawling out of your nose? Surely not! How filthy must a man allow himself to get if he’s got maggots crawling out of his orifices? Now you can see quite clearly why I left you!”

She might have continued in that vein until the sun flickered out at the end of time but for the fact that a second key started turning in that old mortice lock of mine. It creaked as if it was a rusty key in a rusty lock. The lock was certainly rusty, but I was in no position to judge the key’s degree of oxidisation.

“What the futtocks are you doing here?” asked the newcomer as she stomped in. It was Philomena, my penultimate wife. She had a skill with language, being uniquely capable of inventing her own swear words and using them whenever it seemed appropriate and sometimes when it didn’t.

“Who are you?” screeched Marianne. I rather believe I could hear it despite my body’s total lack of functioning audio equipment.

“I’m his futtocking wife!” grated Philomena, “or one of them seeing as he had a set of us, the useless barstable!”

“Well, he’s got maggots,” pointed out Marianne, “look there, trickling out of his nose like crawling snot!”

“He never did wipe it futtocking properly,” growled Philomena, “I used to tell him, I did, handkerchiefs are for noses, sweatshirt sleeves are for arms. And did he take any futtocking notice? No he phishing didn’t!”

Then Marianne noticed something you might have thought they’d both have noticed had they been looking at me in the loving ways that ex-wives sometimes might.

“Don’t look now, but I think he’s dead,” she screeched.

Philomena must have bent down to stare because she’s always been short-sighted.

“Well futtock me,” she mumbled, “I think you’re phishing right! How offensive, the futtocking barstable”

© Peter Rogerson 26.08.19