THE PARCEL FROM AMAZON

About the method of an elderly writer with a laptop...

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Graham Prendergast loved one thing above all others, and that was resting his elderly laptop computer onto his knees and making stuff up. He’d start with imagining a name and then he’d flesh that name out by giving him or her some clothes and a voice.

Such as, “Mariah Swinson loved to wear her tiny sixties mini skirt because it said so much about her…”

That gave him an intro to events he could write about. Such as, “Mariah loved to walk the streets just enjoying the sight of other people. She loved the old folks, men or women, she wasn’t choosy, and sometimes she’d offer to help them if it seemed they needed help…”

So his creation was an all-round good egg. She was young, sexy and kindly.

Then he’d make himself a cup of coffee and think about her while he was drinking it She wasn’t real, of course she wasn’t, but he was fleshing her out until he began to actually like her. I mean, how ridiculous can you get, inventing a person, a woman say, call her Mariah and then start falling for her! But he did that! You see, Graham Prendergast was a lonely old man and lonely old men can do daft things.

Then he would write something like “And one day she bumped into a man who would turn her life upside down…”

After a few more moments of contemplation it would come to him. Enough to fascinate him and make his heart thump with pleasure, and that didn’t happen very often, not in his real life, not when his doors were closed and it was getting dark because late afternoon was giving way to early evening.

“Mariah,” he would write, or maybe something like this because I’m nothing like him, “Mariah was in the supermarket, looking at the range of medical supplies because she had an annoying tickle in her throat and she wanted to get rid of it, and she spotted a few things she didn’t understand, her being an innocent young thing. What are prophylactics, she would ask herself, and so she turned to a young man who had a trolly and clearly worked there.

“‘What are those?’ she asked, and pointed to a row of small but rather gaudy packages.

“Don’t you know?” he asked her.

“And cheekily she replied, ‘I wouldn’t ask if I already knew!’ she shot back at him.

“So he looked around him to see who might be overhearing a conversation best kept private between them, and then explained, ‘you know when you’re with your boyfriend and he gets to be a bit too close to you…’ he began.

“’I don’t have a boyfriend,’ she told him, ‘why would I want one of those? Boys are always on about silly things like football! So what are those things in those packets?’

“’Prophylactics,’ he told her, ‘are condoms.’

“’Oh. I think I’ve heard of those,’ she replied, frowning, “and I don’t think I need any. Where do I find the sausages?’

“He pointed. ‘over there, where it says meats and sausages on that sign hanging over the sausage department,’ he said, a little cheekily, ‘do you want to put one of those,’ he pointed at the packets she had been enquiring about, ‘on a sausage?’ And he grinned and then chuckled as if he’d just cracked the most amusing joke in the world, which he probably thought he had.”

Graham Prendergast found his creative juices were really flowing and he forgot all about his cup of coffee.

“’I tell you what,’ the young assistant said cheekily, ‘I’m off duty in half an hour. If you hang around until then I’ll show you how to use them! You’ll like it, I promise you that, and I don’t reckon you’ll get into any trouble because of it! I mean, they’re designed to stop trouble from ever raising its ugly head!”

“’I can’t,’ she said, sounding regretful, ‘I’ve got to get some sausages and take them to my granny, and then I’d better go home in case a parcel comes from Amazon. I’m expecting a new skirt.’

“You look fair smashing in the one you’re wearing,” he smiled.

“’I need a shorter one,’ she told him, ‘didn’t you know they’re all the fashion this year? I mean, just look at Taylor Swift.’

“He shook his head. ‘I’m not into pop singers,’ he told her, ‘I prefer Bach and his fugues.’

“’I tell you want,’ she dared, ‘if I tell you where I live why don’t you call round and explain to me about those things’, and she pointed at the packets she’d asked about.”

Graham Prendergast almost salivated at the suggestion. He reckoned he was on to a good thing writing a story for the more introverted teenage market. Why, he thought, they might make it into a film or a soppy television series if he wrote it well enough to attract professional attention. He returned to his keyboard and continued racing along.

“’Well,’ replied the shop assistant leaning in his trolley, ‘ I haven’t got a girlfriend at the moment, so it might be an interesting little diversion for me to do. To show you, I mean, to explain where we can’t be overheard. That is, unless your granny’s in…’

“She laughed at that. ‘not likely,’ she said, ‘she lives round the corner from where I live. I’ve got a flat on Duckbill Estate.’

“’I know that! He exclaimed, ‘here, I’ll write ir down. What’s your number and the name of your road?’

“’Number 13,” she proffered, ‘on Featherdown Close.’

“And he wrote it down while she wandered off to find the sausages.”

Graham Prendergast felt something inside his chest swelling with the kind of anticipation he wasn’t used to experiencing from his own words. That girl, Mariah, was something special.

He was about to create a hot concluding scene when his doorbell rang.

“What’s this?” he muttered, never liking it when his doorbell rang unexpectedly. The Graham Prendergasts of this world like their loneliness to be complete.

But doors have to be opened when the doorbell rings

So he grumpily made his way to the door and if whoever was there wasn’t important he would soon send them on their way.

It was a delivery man and he held out a cardboard box.

“Your parcel,” he said, “for a lass called Mariah Swinson and I’m guessing it’s one of those sexy little skirts all the girls are buying.”

And Graham Prendergast was left holding a small box labelled for the girl he’d created not an hour ago. And it felt very much as though it might contain a garment that was interestingly flimsy.

But what to do with the parcel? The delivery man hadn’t waited long enough fr him to say that nobody called Mariah anything lived at this address.

“Ah! He came with it then!” called a cheerful voice.

And the perfect young woman who resided on his laptop came skipping from the front gate and up to the door she had been about to close, and her skirt was mouth-wateringly brief even for an elderly gentleman's eyes.

“I’m looking forward to this,” she smiled, “there are things I ought to know but don’t and you’re the man to tell me! But first, I’ll try that new skirt on, the one in the box that you’re holding. I hope you’ve got a good strong heart because according to the advertisement it really is quite short, and that’s why I bought it…”

© Peter Rogerson 17.09.24

xxx