The monotony of festering in tiny, tiny flat with nothing to occupy my hands nor brains drowned my sanity to such an degree that I reread the script of Vague Blizzard. Its words, my words, disappointed, and I returned to the bed.
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
Bark!
Fuck off!
I couldn’t sleep. Underneath my floor, a dog barked and a voice yelled ‘fuck off’ in retort.
This duologue (dogologue?) repeated every minute for two hours. It was, then, the 120th ‘fuck off’ that spurred me to action. I jumped from He-Man duvet and, without thought of threat, stomped downstairs to ‘14a’, the ground-floor flat.
I knocked, with rapidity and force, for thirty seconds. The purple paint-peeling front door of 14a was opened with such speed that I only narrowly avoided punching the man in the face with my flailing fist.
“You trying to punch me?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
The man wore only (stained) shorts. He appeared younger than me, and shorter too. His skin was ghost-like and his chest concave. The was a gap where an upper front tooth should have stood. He looked like he hadn’t seen sun in seven years.
“What d’you want?” he asked with a voice a-hoarse.
I told him that I lived in the upstairs flat. He told me that he knew and asked my name.
Naturally suspicious, I answered:
Julian.
I asked his name. He didn’t tell, instead he claimed that I had ignored him three times in recent weeks when passing at the letterboxes. This I refuted. But he was insistent. I told him that if I had ‘blanked’ him, which I doubted, that I was sorry. He asked if I had come downstairs to apologise. No, I said.
“I am here because of the noise.” I pointed at my eye-patch. “I’m sick. I need to sleep. Your dog’s barking is loud.”
“I don’t have a dog,” he said.
A dog barked from his flat. He shouted ‘fuck off’ without flinching.
“What was that?” I asked.
“My girlfriend,” said the man.
I shrugged, sensing that the conversation was drifting away.
“I’m asking if you could keep down the volume of swearing and barking.”
He told me to ‘fuck off my own business’ and that his uncle was the landlord, Dowson. This, he said, meant his dog, even though he didn’t have one, could bark as loudly as it wanted. I told the man that his relation to Dowson was fortuitous as it would make complaining about the noise easier. I got on well with his uncle, I told him. He shook an emaciated arm at my face.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he said and slammed the door, pulling in his skeleton limb at the last second, like Indiana Jones and his fedora in Temple of Doom
Upstairs, on bed, the air was free of dog-barking for ten minutes, after which the crushing cycle of ‘Bark!’/’Fuck off’ began in earnest once more. I left an irate message on Dowson’s answer phone, reminding him that I’d paid my rent on time, and placing the phone on the carpet so as to catch some of the subterranean (woofy) cacophony.
8 comments:
So what happened? Unfair to blog readers!! :P
Eventually, I got back to sleep. That is all. Nothing much else happened. Thanks for reading.
Hi, Kay. I love your blog. You have the ability to create a dynamic milieu with movement! And your witty dialogue goes unmatched ~ the things that books are made on. And your re-conjuring of Julian here made me Laugh Out Loud! (how fortuitous that you and I should publish a new post on the very same day- are we psychically connected?)
The more I hear about your landlord, the more exciting he seems. But then again, I think the dog is pretty cool, too.
The more I hear about your landlord, the more exciting he seems. But then again, I think the dog is pretty cool, too.
Tracy, thanks for reading. I love you words. Especially 'milieu'. Perhaps we are connected. I shall visit your blog forthwith.
HJH, I see, perhaps, that you too became excited in responding not once BUT TWICE to this post. Many thanks.
Have you thought about becoming a professional party animal until the writing gig comes through? Take out an advertisement in the local rag and offer to show people around town, pub crawling and the like, for a modest sum of money.
Your daily antics are a bright spot in my day. Pulling a story of humor and interest from the normal scope of existence is indeed a talent. It's lovely to note that you do not rely on your chiseled cheek bones alone for prominence in this play of life ;)
And if you do figure out how to get more followers of your blog, please share the magic, as I have an anorexic following at best, most of whom I believe are dead, or playing as such to avoid comment.
In regards to the barking girlfriend, perhaps you could hire someone to absquatulate with her? (My word of the day pays off, see?) Just a thought.
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