#76

People always say things for a reason. That reason very rarely has anything to do with what they say. Sometimes I play a game where every time someone says something, I ask myself “why? Why, did they tell me that?”

“The fish's water needs changing.” John said, tapping something into the computer.
From the green armchair, I lowered my Readers Digest novel and I looked over at Jaws. His water was as gold as he, and there was something swimming on the top. Jaws himself was pressed up tight against the glass of his bowl and looked kind of ill. “What the fuck!” I cried darting over to the bookcase. Floating on the top of Jaws water was a B&H cigarette butt – ash and bits of tobacco had collected around the rim. “John, do you know anything about this?” I freaked, holding up the sopping wet filter.
“Err, maybe it was in his fish feed??? Or, it culd've accidentally landed in there as I tried to flick it into the ashtray?”
I eyed John intensely, trying to decipher if there was any truth in what he said, if maybe he was owning up to a genuine mishap. He looked sort of sorry, like he does when sometimes he doesn't make the toilet on time. “Oh, John! You must be more careful. Why don't you take the ashtray with you? Certainly don't go flicking live cigarettes around the apartment, the place could go up in flames. Jesus! And why didn't you tell me? I could've changed the water instead of having the tobacco stain through like that. Jaws could have been poisoned, even killed!”
“I wanted to tell you, even tried to wake you, but you was out cold on them pills. When I persisted you just got angry and swung an arm out at me. After that it slipped my mind, sorry.” I shook my head in disappointment, then took Jaw's bowl through to the bathroom.

Normally Jaws is hard to catch. He will not let my hand go anywhere near him. I think if he had teeth he would bite. But today he was subdued and let me take him out without so much as a wriggle. I popped him into a glass of fresh water and emptied his bowl into the sink. That's when the smell hit me. But not the scent of soaked tobacco and wet ash, urine... strong golden first of the morning urine. For God knows how long my little fish had been swimming in a bowl of piss.

I flew out the bathroom. I was crazy and wanting to throttle John. It could only have been him. It must have been! I stood in the room, my teeth clenched and the muscles in my jaw pulsating. My anger was fizzling up like lava about to erupt. I felt like I would come. But I didn't explode, nor did I make a grab for Johns neck. Pathetically I just broke down and started to cry. At first a tear, then big whelping sobs. With my face hung ridiculously with grief, John became just a watery blur through a veil of tears.
“What's wrong?” he asked “Tristy, are you OK?” I kind of let out a wail, a sound of pain, and then I collapsed. “I love you John,” I blubbered, thumping the floor in frustration “I fucking love you! But it hurts... It hurts like you'd never ever believe.”

2 comments:

  1. The Nerdettes - who only see films with numbers in the title - want Jaws to know that Jaws 3 was a big mistake.

    I am running out of number films to keep them happy. So far they have seen:

    Se7en
    Nil by Mouth
    Halloween H2O
    Close Encounters of the Third Kind
    The Postman Always Rings Twice
    Slaughter House Five
    Plan 9 From Outer Space
    10 Things I Hate About You
    Miracle on 34th Street
    The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
    and Daleks Invasion Earth 2150AD

    Why am I surrounded by weirdos?

    ReplyDelete
  2. One flew over the cuckoo nest
    The 400 blows (TBG will get excited by that until he see's its in b&w)
    The Fourth Man
    The 39 steps

    Trick: you can put the DVD plyer on repeat play. The film will loop over and over again. That should keep the Nerdettes occupied until there bodies calm down a bit.

    Tristram. X

    ReplyDelete

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