SUSPENDED ANIMATION

Written on 13.01.93. - unemployed, cleaning cafes in the evenings for cash -

It was just another of those days. Woke to find myself with nothing to do, and I agreed with that. Stayed lying down, curled up. Since I finished my life as a performing dog, I had met quite a few days like this. Met them with the same lack of drive and motivation, the same lack of verve.

It passed through my mind that I had to make something of it. I don’t know whose phrase that was, but it stuck in my mind and in my throat. If my life as a Private Investigator of the mind ever brought me up against an aggressive opponent who sneered, ‘Do you want to make something of it?’ my answer would, in all probability, be ‘No, not really.’

It was fortunate that when I had met violent people they had perceived me as ‘non threatening’, so I hadn’t accidentally triggered their childhood traumas into an escalating squabble. A couple of times they had been women, and so had taken advantage of my English upbringing, to fight without fear of retaliation. The men had left me room to back down.

It was another grey day, and that was exaggerated by the fact that it was the twilight time zone before I stirred.

Nobody would walk into the office today, if I had an office. No offers of money, or adventure and excitement. It was going to be a matter of making my own amusement.

With a sigh, I set aside my daydreams, and started making the first of my interminable coffees. No, strike that, I settled for tea, as more suitable for clearing the fluffy, stagnant taste of tobacco from my mouth. What kind of hero sits sipping lemon tea, and feeling sorry for himself? Well, without some input from the surrounding world, I wasn’t likely to become anyone’s hero but my own. With this thought, I decided to impress myself with the effort of getting up, and even doing a little grooming. Evidence of previous days of inaction were visible in the clean surfaces in the kitchen. Even the paintwork. It was going to be difficult when everything was clean. I was hoping that houses provided work the way the Forth Bridge kept painters out of trouble.

Some hope. The only thing that would get this place clean would be to throw out the boxes of books and papers, the broken-down but treasured training shoes, the defunct electrical goods, the landlord’s furniture, ancient carpets. I imagined the rooms stripped bare, and painted white, and imagined returning objects to the space one by one, in mock-Japanese fashion. But when would I stop? They would all creep back through my generous filtering system. “I might need that. Someone must have a use for this. I’ll finish that one day.’

Convinced once more of my inability to get into a trimmed down, spare, life, I decided instead to put a few words into the machine, and here they are. Still we are not finished yet. The story, I’m told, is only just beginning. Today is the beginning of the rest of your story.

Well, so far so good.

I tossed the laconic, modern detective novel aside, aware that I had been day-dreaming in those terms. Two days before my inner voice was speaking in rounded Victorian phrases. I had to be careful which books I read, as they each and everyone took me into funny realms.

Well, out to the stake out. Cover story - cleaning a Patisserie.

What was really going on will be revealed before too long. (Well, no, it certainly will be too long, as I have waited literally years to find out this was all about.)

There was no reason to believe that today would bring me much closer to an ending. I knew I was in the days in-between. The tactic was to slog on like a man in the trenches, hold out for sanity to strike at last before the century ended. So, setting aside all the grand plans and schemes, all the unlikely possibilities of being discovered, freed, let loose, I got myself dressed and ready to pass through the streets unnoticed, do my work quietly and efficiently, and get back without succumbing to despair or exhaustion. That’s how big it seemed, yet I knew that from another place in time and space it would look easy, a soft option, a funny way to spend a life.

 ©    toby philpott  1993

                                                     Home                                 Back to Writings