168: Woodlands

The window cleaner man is sopping wet from head to toe, as if he'd taken a Hollywood shower and forgot to take off his clothes before heading out to work. He stands in this claggy aspect in stark contrast to the contents of this bucket, which, save for a filthy, shallow slop, is all but dry. And he's using a stiff hog-hair bristle broom which absorbs scant water anyway, produces no suds or lava, and scratches in nasty futility against the intricate stained glass panels for the chapel windows, chipping segments of the iron trims away and chafing at the coloured metal oxides. I have half a mind to intervene, but then again maybe it'd be for the best if he just scrapes the whole chapel into oblivion. After all, I've not been having much luck since inheriting the Captain's estate. I mean, I was perfectly happy under the A47 flyover at Brixley. What was I supposed to do with 17 hectares of Norfolk woodlands, an established gold course, a 26-bedroomed manor house, a 13th century chapel, a dwindling goat farm and the ruins of a fortified medieval citadel? Well, I immediately put the whole estate up for hire on conference hall, of course. To begin with, I wasn't really the best of hosts, a case in point being the first conference organizer to book a weekend slot at some kind of wretched halitosis. The result, unbeknownst to me at the time, of a metabolic disorder, a genetic condition that had sent its suffering to lengthy periods of depression over the course of his Afflicted past, and who had only recently started coming to terms with the condition to accept that his body was simply unable to break down the triethylamine that would accumulate in his mucus and sweat, leading to acute fish malodour syndrome, which was further compounded by a rare imbalance in his digestive microbiota that would cause a bacterial overproduction of foul sulphurous gases, which, when not expressed in unpredictable bouts of explosive flatulence, would rise up through the gullet and out the mouth in a noxious atmosphere of fusty goat balls and rotting trout meat. and so when we were discussing the conference booking, the details of the arrangement were somewhat sullied in a rapt of cloud of breath that hung nastily between us. And me being me, I couldn't stop my instinct. So the first thing I said to him was, well, did you fall face down in the cow part and then continue to sort of gobble up the cow part and then slow up the cow part into your mouth and swallow it down and then get up from the field and sort of Wipe your face off to remove all the traces of the cowpox, but then fall back down into the cowpox and sup the cowpox up into your face again, before crawling all dummy and stinking to my office and now you're here breathing at me with that ingested cowpox stench coming from your breath. But he hadn't done that. He hadn't done that at all. It was because of his trying methylaminuria and his bacterial dysbiosis. And now I regret saying those things because it gave me a three-star review on conference hob. Pleasant capacious hall in an idylic location, only somewhat let down by the insensitivity of the host. Three stars would give 2.5 if could. And, as this was the first ever rating, it'll take me a few more conferences yet to adjust that up to a four star. And I'll need to fire the window cleaner at least.

How do we grasp chaos? With the manufacture of uncertainty. Chaos is vast, not contoured, yet fractal from some readings. But comparatively, uncertainty is mere dress-up, a uniform, uniformity, and, as an image realised in 3D, can have anything from fleshy folds to be firmly held, or dainty handles of the sort found on fine china teacups, ornamentation that only functions as it is supposed to for miniature mits, the sense being that it has something of a tap to it. The most shocking thing you might discover from knocking along its surface being that parts of it are wood paneling, partitions, may be false walls, but ones within a larger, firm, concrete structure. Uncertainty is found behind the hollow walls, but even that is housed safely. What's an example of one of these graspables? For once invented, they have to be given distinguished names, one used as though it were immutable. One bandied around by those keen, wide-eyed knives supping at the Kool-Aid, dispensed from the Kool-Aid cooler they gather around, a utility subsidised by the sponsors, is the economy. That's a popular one. You'll hear it a lot. You'll soon hear that another agent of the Graspable will pass above us.

There is another organ donation scheduled for today. A film crew from the local TV station, R.G.B.G. has parked up outside and the men secretly scorned for their long hair by a congregation happy to powder the wigs of their saviour are hersed in and offered hot tea and some homemade cookies. Stephen from Pew 16D is looking a little pale from fasting, amplified by the green of his ceremonial gown. The filming starts. He is wheeled from the north transept to a hearty applause. The floodlights give the scene an ambience of officialdom. Electricity has that effect. With help from his two assistants, Kelly and Spencer Totem, he eases himself onto the slab and is hooked with ritualistic fervour up to the various machines that promise to keep him on the right path. Father D, never one to abandon an oath, has kept up with his Hippocratic engagements on the side since his conversion. Now appearing on the balcony to administer a few words on the subject of healing, and now sliding down the spiral staircase to meet the glory of this present Transfiguration. Scalpel in hand, he slits the side of Stephen subdued, where a kidney lays waiting.