tooth soup

photo credit: Chris Blakeley

The next morning,

Charley let Dave wake up slowly. It was an intriguing thing, watching the huge man roll from one end of his bed to the other, forcing the springs to emit creaks like the tortured mewls of a flattened tomcat. Once he managed to get out of bed he shambled around the little space, stared at the crappy old bar stool lying in the middle of his living room in a confused manner, before belching loudly and rustling among his saucepans for something he could cook his breakfast on. It was a Sunday morning, which apparently meant that a big fry up was in order. Charley watched on as Dave, who had bemoaned his own complete uselessness only the night before, cooked up a spectacular meal of eggs Benedict with sides of caramelised tomatoes, mushrooms, and a couple of rashes of bacon. Not so useless when food is concerned, thought Charley. When Dave had finished tucking away the magnificent meal in less than the time it took for the kettle to boil, Charley decided to break his silence.

‘So, you are finally awake, are you?’

Dave spun around in astonishment, dropping the kettle he had been pouring his coffee from and spilling boiling water down his naked thigh. When the cursing had died down, Charley continued.

‘You didn’t think you dreamed my adoption of your pathetic character did you? If you did, think again my flabby fellow. You claimed to want training last night and you will now stake that claim.’

Dave’s mouth merely grew wider as he stood stock still in the aftershock of Charley’s words thrumming through the soup of his hung over brain. If I had arms, thought Charley, now would be a good time to slap this lazy good-for-nothing.

“Did you…” uttered Dave, in the kind of tentative tone of voice that comes from addressing an inanimate object, “Did you just speak? To me?”

‘I can’t see anyone else in this wretched place, can you?’

‘You can’t speak, you’re a stool!’

‘I beg to differ.’

‘But, but, no! You can’t speak. You’re a bloody stool, a barfly far surpassing the likes of any other! If it were possible for furniture to communicate they’d have screamed at us not to park our behinds on them before the last turn on the lathe. You can’t possibly be speaking to me right now, I refuse to believe it. I must still be drunk, some new phase of inebriation that allows me to walk around and talk and eat and function without possessing the vital ability to ignore when a lump of wood is addressing me. I should report it to the medical review, I should turn myself into a freak show and become a sofa whisperer, I should…”

Charley sighed as Dave continued his rant. The human capacity for denial was something he had come to appreciate over the years. In the face of impossible things, humans preferred to retain their sense of reality, regardless of the fact that their personal view of reality was largely ignored or viewed as an amusement by the supposed ‘impossibilities’ that wandered freely around it.

To be continued next Friday!

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