Morbidnessman

I'm in the middle of something, so thought I'd take this opportunity - grasp it with both hands and between my knees - to write a sentence that doesn't conform to the rules of traditional structure -----------> INSERT ADVERB HERE ;--------------------- 88 meaning fortified ''loan,, travellers|

The sun is out, and I'm waiting for a machine to answer my queries. It's doing it more quickly than I could, but I still resent it. Because I'm spoiled, and have acclimatised to the miraculous world in which we live.

I've got an envelope on my desk. Imagine! What would they have said fifteen or twenty years ago about that? They'd be astounded.

It's like a pocket of paper with an adhesive flap to prevent things falling out.

Pure Buck Rogers!

But I treat it as though it was the norm. I'm no longer filled with the childlike awe I had when I was a child, like.

I remember when my mum first showed me an envelope. I was eleven or twelve, and had (until that point) only known paper to be flat - maybe folded - but never able to securely encase a document, greetings card or human toe. I was astonished. It was like seeing real-life magic being performed.

My generation is the bridge. We're the last generation that didn't grow up with envelopes as an accepted, ordinary part of life. We were there for the inception.

But even so, we've become complacent.

I see envelopes all the time, and don't stop to marvel.

We forget what it was like without envelopes. We even forget what those early envelopes were like: huge, unwieldy, the adhesive only activated by camel saliva or nailed shut.

Now they make envelopes so small you can fit them in your pocket. You can get all manner of shapes and colours.

I'm sure in thirty years' time, envelope technology will have advanced even further. There'll be 4D envelopes, 3G envelopes, Blu-Ray envelopes.

We'll look back on today's envelopes as quaint relics from a simpler age.

I suppose it's an evolutionary advantage to grow quickly accustomed to changes in the world. Sitting around with your mouth agape in fascination would probably have got you eaten by a wolf in caveman days.

But we've grown beyond simple natural selection. Sometimes it's important to appreciate what you've got.

Who knows? In a thousand years, envelope technology might have been lost, like Aztec envelope engoldening techniques.

We've never had it so good.

Envelope-wise.

***

N-velope or onvelope?

Scoan or sconn?

N-nvelope or sconvelope?

Eeether or eyether?

Words can be pronounced in different ways. And spelled in different ways. That's the naycher of the beest.

We run the show.

***

Forgive my lack of concentration. I've having to fragment myself to squeeze into the gaps between work. I'm not quite multi-tasking, but am shifting between tasks so quickly it seems to be one task.

Like one of those sticks you wave back and forth really quickly so it looks like a bigger stick.

You know those sticks.

***

I think I might start pretending to be dead all the time.

It may seem like a strange goal, but there's a method to my morbidity.

People often say of the deceased: "he died the way he lived".

Well, if I'm pretending to be dead all my life, and I die the way I lived, when I actually die, I'll only be pretending.

So I'll be alive.

You can't fault my logic.

It does mean I'll need to live in a box underground and rot. But I think that's a reasonable price to pay. As long as there's 3G coverage down there (I don't want to do without the latest onvelope).