Egghead.

So there I was, sitting in my car on the retail park in Ashbourne, munching my egg and cress sandwich and generally musing on the state of the world, when a scene was enacted in front of my eyes without forethought or provocation.

A mortuary attendant goes over to a cadaver lying on a slab and cuts its head off with a chopper. He carries the head to his desk, sets it upright on a plate, fetches one of those saws the pathologists use, and neatly trims off the top of the skull. He takes a teaspoon out of a drawer in his desk and proceeds to spoon out the brains and eat them. And then he stops and thinks for a moment.

He gets up and goes into the staff kitchen where he toasts two slices of bread and butters them. He collects the salt and pepper shakers from a cupboard and returns to his desk, seasons the brains, and uses the toast as a dip. He carries on munching quietly and nonchalantly while reading a magazine.

Now, what kind of mind manufactures such a horrific scene without forethought or provocation? It seems that mine does, so I asked myself why it should amuse me so.

Because it isn’t horrific, merely gross. If the head had remained attached to a live and conscious human being it would have been horrific. As it is, it’s surreal. And funny, which is why I do believe my talents are truly wasted on an uncomprehending world.