'not boiling'

The kettle seethed, and Marcus was watching it all the way.

It was a Sunday, and all the shops were closed. Except the church shops, which were selling keyrings with Biblical phrases on them, snow globes, leather bookmarks that smelled of cooked animals, DVDs tangentially related to the works of Our Lord and Saviour (a quiz about figs etc), little plastic figurines of Hercules, dooormats, beermats, bearmats, coasters, saucers, frisbees and postcards displaying pleasant scenes of other pleasant places.

But Marcus never shopped there. They didn't fulfil his needs (neither shopping nor spiritual). He waited for the kettle to cool from 'boiling' to 'not boiling', and then poured it over a green teabag. It was green tea. Though the bag was also green.

Without warning, Marcus decided to refer to himself as The Tiger Prawn.

***

I probably shouldn't write these things so late. They make me sound quite odd. Someone might stumble across this and realise that I'm quite odd. Maybe you know me, but not well. Maybe this blog came up in conversation, and you thought you'd check it out for a laugh.

Maybe you're starting to get scared.

Who are you? How did you find this?

Do you know me?

(Tomorrow, I'll read this, and be forced to answer all those questions myself. It will be embarrassing.)

I'd quite like to know who reads this. I think I have some idea. My poll down there on the right had nine votes. Is that everybody? Who would read this, and opt not to vote? It's anonymous. It's meaningless. I wonder who the nine are...

One of them was me.

Maybe we can all get together. We can drive around in a van solving mysteries like in Scooby Doo. Or the A-Team. Or like Columbo's organs.

I'd like to write a TV show that was half detective murder mystery, and half biological explanation of human functions. It would show the inner workings of Columbo's brain, cells, bones, etc, and would explain how they all combined into a genius detective.

It would be educational and fun.

Likewise, I'd like to see a programme where Jeremy Kyle is stabbed in the stomach. The programme will show his excruciatingly slow death in real time. Intercut with this will be scenes of human achievement, love, art, truth, nobility, self-sacrifice, imagination, happiness.

It will explain that with every spilled drop of Kyle's black blood, the world is regaining some colour, some hope.

We'll save him before the end. We'll patch him up and give him a transfusion. Forgiveness is the watchword.

I like the idea of forgiveness as a virtue. Forgiveness is like noble apathy - accepting that it doesn't really matter in the long run. Because there is no long run.

***

Marcus drained the last grainy glug from the mug.

"The Tiger Prawn is ready for his day!" he shouted.

"Who?" asked his cousin, Roooooooooog.

"The Tiger Prawn! That's my name from now on!"

And he stubbed out a cigarette on an upturned Christian frisbee, ensuring he had lit one first.