Brunswick Blues, Pt. 3. Why would an alien from Saturn come to Brunswick?

He didn’t know where it came from, thought maybe that if he ignored it, it would go away. Did it turn up recently, or had it always been there? It was becoming impossible to ignore, the dark grey blob that – just – hung around. He walked up the familiar street, past the same cracks weeds flowers, acutely aware – more acutely than ever – that it was following him.

“What do you want?” he asked, telepathically. He figured, since no-one could see it, it was probably best to communicate telepathically with it. It didn’t answer, didn’t react at all.

“You know, you’re making a lot of trouble with me and the girl. I think it’s me, she thinks it’s her, but really it’s you. Did you know that?”

No answer

He wondered if maybe it couldn’t hear him telepathically. Maybe it was stupid. Probably the way it communicated did not fit very well with his flawed human perception of space-time. He had heard that it came from Saturn, that it came around sometimes. Why would an alien from Saturn come to Brunswick, he wondered?

 

He stood still, just looking at the dark grey blob that no-one could see. He realized that there was an unspoken rule against standing still on a footpath for no apparent reason. He hoped that he would not get in trouble, didn’t want to upset anyone by interfering with the delicate cycle of predictability.

It moved, shifted slightly. It seemed like it had a mouth after all.

“So you have a mouth after all, you little rascal!”

No answer.

A soggy, weather-worn tennis ball fell from its amorphous maw, bounced uncertainly to his feet.

“You – you want to play?”

He raised the ball high, threw it in a way he imagined was similar to the way Odysseus or Achilles would have, and indeed the ball flew as though carried in an incorporeal flying shopping trolley by Athene of the flashing eyes. The blob did not seem to appreciate such pageantry, but dutifully ambled off in pursuit of the ball.

The sun broke through the wall of clouds just occasionally, just to remind everyone that it was still there. The sky was like a giant twin brother of his newfound friend. Except that nobody could see the blob, whereas just about everybody can see the sky. As this story progresses along, it would be nice to introduce more characters, such as the Man who Contained the Game. In this case, it would be good to give our man a name. We can name him, and then he can name his blob. I’ll call him Malmo, because I like the way it sounds, but if you, the reader, would prefer to call him something like Walter of Stevie, then feel free to replace every “Malmo” with a word of your choice. Other writers would find this idea monstrous.

            I’m not like that.

In fact, feel free to rewrite this book as much as you like. You’re probably better at drawing than me, too.

Malmo opened his eyes. It was still dark, so he closed them again. The next time he opened them, a morning sun hit him full in the face. He lay there for some time. It was quite hard to get out of bed today, it just didn’t seem like there was much point. In fact, Malmo realized, the reason it was hard to get out of bed was that the blob was sleeping on top of him. It must have come there during the night, for warmth.

“Come on, off you get lazy bones.”

It remained silent as usual, but he got the feeling it resented being accused of having bones.

He walked. The air was cold, but the sun was warm

LOST PETS MET IN A STORM (7)

[this is a cryptic crossword clue that I saw one Thursday.. I liked it so much that I wrote it down. If you do the cryptic crossword regularly then you should be able to figure it out. Unless, of course, you try too hard]

Suddenly, it has become hard to write again. The story was going really well, but then the wheels fell off.

Essentially, the problem was that I started to think that it was good. In fact, I thought it was really good, so I read it out to a bunch of people, and they agreed that it was really good, and now I feel like I cannot continue to be good at it. Like I’ve written one page of a novel and I’ve already passed the pinnacle of my writing career. It is important sometimes to write these feelings thoughts down, to expose them as ridiculous. Thoughtlings? We continue.

Malmo wandered past a particularly good Lebanese bakery. The sky above him and the ground below him, these things felt very real to him that day. The phrase “very real”, it occurred to him did not make sense, since something was either real or it was not. Or was it? There was no other way to succinctly describe this feeling, so the superlative would have to remain.

“Hi Malmo!” A car door opened and a girl with long sandy hair and fruckles. He could never remember her name, had forgotten it so many times now that it was not even worth asking anymore. In fact, she had no name, when people asked her name, she would say the first name that came into her head, to avoid having to describe her anomalous situation. This gave everyone the impression that they’d forgotten her name.

He knew her by accident. For the longest time, he thought that she was actually someone else. The fact that they both worked in a noodle restaurant in Fitzroy allowed the myth to be perpetuated. Since this was one of the few things he originally knew about the girl he thought she was, they never discovered the truth, at any rate not until the real one turned up.

Now he knew the girl with no name much better than the girl he originally thought she was. But he wouldn’t say that he was close friends with either of them. Both characters waited patiently while you read or listened to this last little history, and unless you have any questions, I’ll let them continue.
The blob waited patiently, too.

“Hi, Malmo!” The girl repeated. She had an impressive dusting of freckles.