Living in the then

So, while I've been away, things have been happening.

I hate it when I go away and something happens, it makes me feel like things just happen out there without my input, and that is a sad, sad thought.

Lets take a quick recap of whats happened since my last post.

Time briefly ceased to exist, a microcosm was invented and quashed and Sunny Delight, sadly, is still with us.

'There's nothing delightful about Sunny D,' intoned Herbert. 'It tastes like having your throat amputated and the only thing they've found to anaesthetise it is stale Walrus urine.'

'Oooh, get her,' I said camply. 'Whats put you in such a bad mood?'

'Well, I was going to see that new movie 'The curious case of Zebedee Zipper*' but its so long I might die before its actually finished playing.'

'Ah, its getting a taste of your own mortality then?' I tried to look reassuring and comforting at the same time, which is hard when you're eating garlic chillies.

'No, I thought it would be a good film. But then I thought how the only people who will come out of the cinema at the end of the showing - which is when Prad Bitt* dies - will be people who were conceived during the showing. You see, the film is revolutionary in its use of time. It simply films Prad Bitt continually for the rest of his life. Its very curious. This footage is then broadcast to your cinema where you will sit for the rest of Prad Bitt's interminably chirpy, happy life, wanting him to die so you can go for a pee. But, because he has been genetically and surgically enhanced he'll probably live until he's a thousand and twelve hundred and sixty-seven and one half and you'll end up weeing yourself. And dead. You'll end up dead stinking of urine.'

'Bummer.'

I shuddered briefly at the incredibly harsh picture of the future he was painting. There's nothing like a morose giraffe to bring you to your senses.

Re-evaluation is an intense process that is best to get right the first time, which is why I'm very glad to have been lent a convertible car for the week. Nothing says 'crisis' quite like a man driving round in a roofless car, in the middle of the day.

Still, it could be worse, I could have an alternate life online, perhaps pretending to be a pirate whose best friend is a wooden giraffe...


*Names changed to avoid getting myself sued to poverty and back