44: Letter

Corduroy trousered forms jostled amongst highfalutin ideas and the various aforementioned overseeing authorities in the environs of a rip off café where the punters were parading in, out and about like it was showtime, with cake, segments of tray-bakes and drinks of every conceivable temperature. Nearly all the tables were consumed by families swopping JPEG’s of collectible earthenware purchases, indifferent to their children who, once through the tiffin, brownies and cheese rope snack box, gnawed on each other’s faces. I rolled up a persons wallet, looked somewhere around 30 by their ID, then noticed them watching me with segments of their body completely deflated, vocals cords airless enough for their protests to be incoherent as I gently, and with boundless love, manoeuvred them out from the chair, “Need the table, that’s all.” Anyway, they were found on the adjacent one where I’d draped them, even though as I’d turned they’d instantly become trapped under discarded trays full of cups, food slops, satiated gluttony and poor decisions that piled up so damn quick they may as well have fallen out of the sky. “Would you look at that?” I smirked to myself, standing awhile to watch members of staff fumbling with foot pumps while others scrolled desperately on tablets for YouTube instructional videos on customers losing gas and flattening. I was here as my phone had pinged in the A&E an hour ago telling me of some potential clue and this was the first surface I’d come across large enough to unfold its 2ft screen. I plugged in the charger, loosened my tie, undid my collar and dipped my head down into it until it’s entirety was submerged. [You my toy] My 50 year old face was on my 10 year old self back at the heavy petting farm - what a name - mother and father shuffled as we stood awkwardly staring into the sculpted nipple while waiting to pat various piglets in latex briefs. Then we mulled over the exhibit titled ‘Purported pressurisation of miniature ornamental Friesians on middle class mantelpieces’ as, in the background, our parents intermittently swapped problematic stories of mothers seemingly endless gap year. She’d resentfully taken precious time off to come here with us, losing all those valuable hours she could have spent following what dad called shiny crystallised snot trails in Bridlington and the surrounding coast. All emotive talk to kill time really, by sending it into a coma so we could all skip passed while we made our way standing still in the space time continuum to journey towards the moment the main spectacle of the festivities would race into our sensory organs untrammelled. We were here to see the fattened lambs rolled on a floured counter right there in front of us until they shrank into microscopic pellets, salted like gannet quarters, served packed in a souvenir soft toy bear casing. “They spelt my name wrong on its sweater dad!” my brother whined as we walked back to the car. Students were swarming everywhere now, discussing the inconsistency of vinyl trunks and textures of vomit, when my fondue burns began to ache, creating large perforations in the pocked surroundings. “Where’s that hatch?” But it was too late. I was sat upright again in the cafe’s chair, the conveyor belt of corduroyed buttocks nudging my shoulder one after the other as I mopped the sweat from my brow. “Where did I see that hatch?” [St. Marti Mirror]