...So anyway, I was
walking alone through Cooks' Hill, seeing but not seeing the trendy
terraces scrolling past my blind spot while my
drug-affected
mind wrestled with the questions she'd angrily posed
during our recent philosophical fisticuffs:
How do you
know that everything is ultimately scientifically explainable?
Why is it so inconceivable that paranormal phenomena do exist but evade
analysis? She was wrong, of course; but
scientific faith, like
any other kind, must come from within and cannot be taught. I'd given
up and walked out of her life without looking back. Things had been
going downhill for a while, and she was pathetic company
between the sheets anyway--the stench of incense in her bedroom didn't
help. Trying to force her bullshit spirituality on me was the last
straw. If I was going to change my opinions in that area, it would be
because
the universe itself slapped me in the face--a miracle, a
ghostly visitation, an alien anal probe--not because a fiery sexy
stubborn nubile arrogant leggy brunette felt compelled to educate her new
toy.
As I walked, I gazed with new eyes upon the seething crowds of feminine
possibility strutting past me. The blonde in bikeshorts, has she ever
held a séance? Does the minx in impossibly high heels believe
in stigmata? Is she noisy when she comes? A carrot hit me in
the forehead. A carrot hit me
in the forehead. I
stopped dead, gazing at empty air, and it swung back to hit me again.
And again, softer. And again, this time just a touch, the pendulum
being dampened by my skull on each swing. TAP TAp Tap tap tap. Not once did I glimpse my assailant, but I grew up on a farm and, visible or not, I know what a
carrot in the head feels like. Reaching
a hand forward, I located the invisible dangling vegetable and for
some reason--subconsciously, it was probably revenge--I batted it away
viciously. I foresaw its unseeable trajectory a moment too late, and
dodged awkwardly sideways as it swung back. It caught the tip
of my nose violently, bringing tears and causing loss of balance. I
stumbled into an old man in ratty clothes, who somehow--he couldn't
have been half my weight--caught me before the asphalt did. Chuckling
quietly through grey stubble, he shook his toothless head and shuffled
away. "How 'bout them transparent dangling carrots?" he mumbled to
himself.
I was still dazed ten minutes later as I walked into yet another of the
generic cafés
that infest Darby Street. There were more ways to
serve the coffee than they had customers in an average day:
long or short, black or white, sugar or carcinogenic
substitute, scoop of icecream or marshmallow, eight different beans
and three different strengths. I felt ashamed to drink there, but the
impending caffeine headache decided the ideological dilemma. It only
took them about eight minutes longer to prepare than it took me to
boil a kettle at home, and they only charged four dollars more, so I
couldn't complain. "Another coffee?" The waitress had more piercings
than I had ex-girlfriends, and I stared rudely for too long
before answering no. "Did you know that the second coffee is half
price, and we'll give you a discount card that can be used here any
time in the next month?" I would have laughed at her if the
unnecessary complications of modern consumerism didn't sadden me so.
"Thanks, but I just want to pay now." Did they really think that
people would be enticed to pay too much--half price was still
overpriced--for a drink they didn't want by a discount they wouldn't
use? It was like waving a carrot in front of a donkey, except donkeys
are stupid whereas I, as well as having opposable thumbs, could see straight
through their scam as easily as gazing through a window. She thanked
me for the undeserved tip; I smiled and said, "How about those transparent
dangling carrots?"
Haggling over how much coffee to ingest almost made me miss the bus.
As it was, I boarded last and ended up sitting next to a
middle-aged overweight male smoker
who wheezed and smelt and felt not at all
embarrassed about taking up three-quarters of the seat after paying
half fare. He liked sport, and unsuccessfully attempted to engage me
in conversation about the local football team, the
Non-Opaque Suspended Herbaceous Biennial Root Crops.
No-one quite knew
where the unwieldy name came from, and no-one except pedantic fans or
journalists actually used it. A local Latin scholar suggested
daucus carota as a pithy nickname, but for some reason that
had never caught on. Anyway, the Marlboro Cow sitting next to me
referred to the team by their most popular three-word epithet, and was
far more excited than I about the upcoming weekend match. My cold
nonchalance eventually blackened his mood, and he sulked fatly next to
me, no doubt inwardly making vulgar anatomical suggestions
to me and pining for a
fellow fan.
Just when I thought I'd heard the last of it, a likeminded eavesdropper behind
us tapped Lard-Arse on the shoulder and leant forward to proclaim his
fanaticism.
You already know what he said.
All I heard was, "How 'bout them..." before I stood up to get off the
bus, giving Carrots Devotee Number Two an opportunity to sit next to his
new soulmate.
I walked home in constant fear of invisible vegetable collisions.
What a weird fucking day. At least it might have been good for my eyesight.