Wednesday 29 September 2010

Surreal 500.

I had this problem, see. (Why am I writing like a Welshman?) How might I celebrate my 500th post with something completely different? The old brain was in an advanced state of atrophy, and any prospect of success looking increasingly distant.

And then along comes Carmen with a suggestion. Brilliant. Don’t think, just write. I’d heard of this technique before, but never got around to doing it. So I did. I left the brain active, but switched the thought processes off. The result follows. When I woke up, I did go back over it just to put some punctuation in and correct the spellings. Nothing else, though. The writer in me wants to edit it.

I think I might regret this.

The day dragged sadly to a close while Mimi sucked her blanket in the corner. Ben scratched the blister on his ear. ‘Hey Ben, where’d the blister come from?’ ‘Mars.’ ‘What, the one near Venus?’ ‘Nah, the one next to Tesco.’ ‘Never been to Tesco.’ ‘You don’t want to.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘The elephants eat people.’ ‘Is the candy floss green?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘So how d’you know the elephants eat people?’ ‘David said so.’ ‘Is he the big bloke with two feet?’ ‘No.’ ‘Who is he then?’ ‘Don’t know. Never seen him.’ ‘So can we go to bed now? I’m tired?’ ‘Where?’ ‘On the moon.’ ‘But there’s no daylight left.’ ‘That’s OK, I’ve got plenty of chocolate.’ ‘My toe hurts.’ ‘Which one?’ ‘This one.’ ‘Oh.’

The big clock on the wardrobe said that ice cream can give you measles, so Mimi cried a bit. And then the window pane coughed, but three days later the men came to fix the washing machine. It wasn’t broken, but the bacon wasn’t frying properly so the rice noodles weren’t happy.

Three days later, several trees wandered down the road and asked Ben what the time was. They said they had a bus to catch and the oranges wouldn’t wait any longer. Ben sat down and played a game of chess with the manhole cover, but the day seemed like it would never end.

‘Try setting it alight,’ said the ball bouncing on the counterpane. ‘What?’

‘I can’t do this any more, cried Mimi.’ ‘You shouldn’t anyway,’ said Ben. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ ‘How would I know anyway?’ ‘Know what?’ ‘Why buses are all red, of course.’ ‘Are they?’ ‘No.’

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

love this, Jeff. So deliciously arbit. Very post moderney.

JJ said...

I was thinking more LSD, Dominique. And I definitely wouldn't show it to a psychologist. You're not a psychologist, are you?

Carmen said...

Happy 500th post!!
Hey this is great!! You know this reminds me a bit of Waiting for Godot. :)

JJ said...

Carms, you said it! Waiting for Godot is my favourite play. I saw it five times when we did it at the theatre where I worked.

Carmen said...

wooooooooow. i have never seen it. ive only read bits of it. I Wanted to see it when Ian Mckellen was doing it in Australia but it was over 100 dollars, quite naturally.


One day:)

JJ said...

We got tiny audiences when we did it. I used to watch the reaction of people as they were leaving, and smile at those shaking their heads and saying 'What the hell was that all about?' Our taste for the absurd marks us out, Carms.