Humor (2 page)

No one is happy and if they say they are they’re fucking lying. And I should know; I’ve tried it. I’ve collected all the ingredients of happiness and rubbed the resulting mixture all over myself.

Not many people have done it. It’s extremely difficult to get any of the ingredients in the first place, let alone all of them. Mixing them properly is also very challenging; a lot of people get it totally wrong by concentrating on one ingredient at the expense of another; an easy mistake to make. What you have to do is lie in wait for each, be patient while they congregate (which doesn’t often happen) and then saunter over, introduce yourself, and invite them back to your place. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

But it doesn’t end there. It’s not simply a matter of assembly; you’ve got to add various sorts of seasoning if the whole thing isn’t going to end up like some nauseating religious marzipan. What you want is an easily absorbed lotion that won’t bring you out in a rash or make you smell.

Beware of commercial preparations, expensive luxuries, evangelical tautologies, meretricious platitudes and printed hyperbole. Anything that promises fast results or pain-free acquisition should be avoided. Real happiness is, as I’ve said, incredibly hard to attain, requiring years of
struggle, hurt, anguish, self-doubt, paranoia, and lengthy periods of agonising melancholy. Anyone who tells you different is either fooling you or themselves.

Personally speaking, I have overcome these many obstacles. And you can too, if you’re willing to work at it; but, to be brutally honest, it’s not worth it.

I got into a fight in the perfume department of a large store. It wasn’t my fault; I had been trying to choose a nice scent for my new girlfriend and there was a scuffle to my left. The perfume ladies backed away. I was filled, at the time, with a sense of invulnerability that came with having recently fallen in love, and I stepped forward to quell the incipient violence.

Naturally I was punched, knocked over and kicked in the face, but the broken bottles of perfume released such an incredible bouquet that I afterwards remembered the encounter with a degree of fondness.

Turned on the telly. On BBC1 was
I’m So Lonely
. On ITV was
You’ll Never Be Famous
. Thought of cranes, pylons, dams, volcanoes, locusts, lightning, helicopters, Hiroshima, show homes and ring roads.

Read that for men under thirty-four the biggest killer is car accidents. Second is suicides. Spent a while wondering what third was. Hit my head against the wall a few times.

Something without a name has been eating at my thoughts for a while. Standing in the checkout queue at the supermarket I feel violent, or bored, or hopeless, or depressed, or pointless, or just sick inside. Need only to see a headline of someone else’s newspaper to feel frightened, or frustrated, or alienated, or helpless, or doomed, or just suicidal. Waking up was a battle with my limbs; stodgy, unreliable, wayward, hurting.

Woke up. Found I’d forgotten how to tie my shoelaces. Basic cognitive functions then failed with increasing rapidity until all I could do was sit in a chair staring at the wall.
Tried to phone for help but my arm wouldn’t move. Eventually

One day I found out that my urine was acting like a powerful foaming agent. I thought that I could take advantage of my ability by hosting piss-scented foam parties in the pub toilets, but the landlord wasn’t keen. He didn’t think that people would be interested. In fact, he said that it was a disgusting idea. I said I’d rather go to a piss foam party than watch the fucking football, but he said that I’m in a very small minority and the big screen stays.

It is only after I have been at my new flat for some months that I begin to receive mail other than bills and offers to enter prize draws.

One of my first personal envelopes contains a scrawled message from an old acquaintance with whom I was friendly many years ago. I am distressed to read that my friend is deeply unhappy, and I am disturbed further to read that if he receives no reply to the letter I hold in my hands he will feel compelled to chop off one of his fingers with a kitchen knife. Days pass, full of inconsequential incidents, until a small parcel arrives. The postmark indicates that it is from my friend. With trepidation I open it.

Underneath the brown wrapping paper is a little box that bears the return address of my friend. There is also a stamp on the box, but other than this the package proves to be empty. I open up the box, but the space within is likewise vacant. A sense of relief floods briefly through me, and my days once more assume a comfortable aspect.

One week later, another identical parcel arrives. It too is empty, and I insist to myself that I will write to my friend. Time drifts past, and eventually I have ten empty parcels. It is on a Friday that I realise what I have to do.

With what I feel is admirable forethought I use my left hand to chop three fingers from my right. With the
remaining two, I hack off all the fingers of my left hand. In considerable pain I place the fingers in eight of the parcels. There is a lot of blood, and this makes the use of Sellotape difficult. With eight parcels wrapped, I hold the knife in my right thumb and forefinger. I look at the last two boxes. As always, it is my inability to complete any task that drives me to tears.

It is summer, and I am persuaded to take a Continental holiday by two enthusiastic acquaintances. Being a creature of habit, I am accustomed to vacations in the seaside resorts near to my home, but the proposition is put in such a way that I find it hard to make excuses.

We depart, and travel by train to Romania, where, after a series of misadventures, we are all captured by Count Dracula, Prince of Darkness. We are taken in a foul-smelling horse-drawn carriage to his castle, which towers blasphemously above the forests, fingering the torn sky with its crumbling turrets. We are, naturally, rent with terror. It is clear that the Count intends to drink our blood, turning us into undead monsters of the night in the process.

We are imprisoned in once-luxurious apartments, overlooking Dracula’s estate. It is evident that the twentieth century has not treated our host well. Ominously, he tells us in heavily accented English that he has been forced to open up large tracts of his estate as a theme park, with log flumes, bowling alleys, rollercoasters and burger bars, all of which are frequented by Western tourists who know nothing of the old ways.

Our sympathy is tempered by the sure knowledge that the Count intends to suck out our souls with his
pointy teeth. We secretly devise a daring plan to flee. We encourage the Count to show us round the theme park, and, as we come to the bowling alley, hurl ourselves down the planks into the skittley darkness. We scramble through wires, pipes and other obstructions until we find ourselves in an area devoted to crazy golf, where we mingle with the tourists. It is with some relief that we exit through the turnstiles. It is easy from thence to find a hire car and complete our courageous escape.

Back home in Eastbourne, I wonder if we did the right thing. It infuriates me that Dracula may have needed my soul more than I do.

When I moved to my new flat I was very happy but when I worked out that the whispering voices that I can hear when I put my head under the water in the bath belong to dead people I wasn’t happy any longer, particularly because I realised that every time I put my head under the water when I had a bath the voices were slightly louder than the time before.

I tried not putting my head under the water when I had a bath but every fucking time curiosity got the better of me and I had to try it just for a second just to check and of course even half a second of that sort of thing would bother anyone.

I keep asking the landlord to put a shower in but he prevaricates and says things like what do you want a shower for that’s a lovely old bath that’s an antique that is look at it it’s Victorian you’d pay top dollar for one of those at the reclamation yard.

It’s all right for him. He hasn’t got fucking dead people talking to him every time he washes his hair.

One night I am alone in my house, compiling lists of friends from the past. It grows dark, and I begin to wish for company. The list sits before me on the table, reproaching me with intimations of missed opportunities and regretful abandonments.

There is a scratching at the window, and absently I open it, assuming that one of my cats is feeling lonely too. To my dismay, a small devil-creature, salivating with anticipation, leaps squatly into the room. I recognise it immediately as being of the type to possess the soul without hesitation.

Backing away from its gleaming eyes, I consider my options. With a flash of intelligence, I announce to the devil-creature that it is yesterday, and today I am dead. The creature looks quizzically at me. I insist that it has made an error – it is yesterday, and later this evening I kill myself with a large, sharp kitchen knife. I am dead. My soul has gone. The devil-creature is too late.

It looks puzzled, but I explain, with placatory hand movements, that this is really a simple matter. As I am already dead, there is no point in attempting to take my soul. Come back in a week, I tell the devil-creature. The landlord will have re-let the house, and there will be fresh prey. Huffing and puffing, the creature waddles back to the window, and lurches off into the night.

Congratulating myself on my quick thinking, I close the window. I sit down once more in front of my list, and it is with a heavy heart that I wander into the kitchen and begin rifling through the knife drawer.

The world is at terrible risk from hideous and malevolent Alien monsters and it is up to me to do something about it.

Luckily I stumble across an Alien podule which can take me up to the huge war satellite that is circling Earth. It is a squeeze, but I get into the podule and quickly comprehend the Alien dashboard and launch into space.

Within minutes I dock with the war satellite and effect my egress. The satellite is a maze of chrome corridors, and I creep along them in my silent, rubber-soled shoes.

I take my Beretta from inside my dinner jacket as I hear a faint cough in the distance. I pass along more corridors and through several chrome rooms the size of cathedrals until I near my quarry.

I peer around a doorway and am surprised to see a famous professor from Earth. Swiftly I attack him. When I kick him in the stomach, he collapses like a sack of heavy air.

I pull him to his feet and interrogate him. It seems that he has been creating Alien monsters with an evil Alien academic who wants to take over the planet Earth. At first he assumed the Alien was well intentioned, but the monsters they made were increasingly violent and deranged.

He introduces me to his first monster, who is very courteous, but I am told that all the subsequent monsters
would tear my head off at the slightest provocation. I decide to let the professor go, for the time being, and, hefting my Beretta, I go in search of my nemesis.

After a tortured night I awake full of determination.

I review my position, and consider with circumspect gravity my inner strength. My new job demands much, and I eat my breakfast while wearing a serious and adult expression. I suck the hot coffee with a professionally pained mouth, and flip the pages of my broadsheet nonchalantly.

I swoop back up the stairs in my towelling dressing-gown, and fling open my wardrobe in a manner that I assume to be casual and easy. My suit hangs in front of me, full of nothing. It is up to me to fill it with myself.

I pull on the trousers, and carefully fold my penis behind the zip, fastening the button with what I hope is a manly grin. I tuck my shirt into the trousers, and spend some time with my understated tie.

My jacket feels slightly small under my arms, but it is nothing anyone would notice.

I wonder what my new workmates will be like, and fantasise briefly about the relationships I may possibly enjoy with other members of the organisation.

I glance once again at my digital watch, and decide that I am ready. I pull on my coat, check that I have my keys, and walk out of the front door, slamming it firmly behind me.

I stand outside, looking blankly ahead, realising I don’t have a new job at all.

I am in the foyer of the supermarket, an empty wire trolley idling beneath my imperceptibly trembling fingers. The light is bright, and the smell is of nothing at all. My mind is blank. There is a route to be followed: straight ahead, turn right then right again, travelling aisle by aisle until (I am planning ahead) I end up in the wines, beers and spirits. My experience in these matters tells me that I will have run out of money by then, unless I am careful. I will have to be careful.

But, almost immediately, things start to go wrong. Here I am, transfixed by the twitching red muscles in the meat aisle. This isn’t very good. I take a deep breath and move away. Nothing to see here. There is the rattle of teeth, of fingernails, bones, in the cardboard cereal packets, sloshings of lumpy fluids in jars and tins, and the muffled howls of the doomed. I jerk my head away from the cans of ‘processed meats’ and the hanks of hair in the salad bags.

In the frozen-food cabinets; plastic sacks of severed fingers, cling film stretched fetishistically over pale limbs bent double and tied with white string, blood pooling darkly in the polystyrene trays.

Death warrants – signed, but with the name left blank – among the Sunday papers.

I can’t do it. I can’t shop. Looking determinedly straight ahead, I remove a bottle (whiskey? vodka? I am unsure) and stand in line at the checkout. Do I have a loyalty card? I stare in fear at my interrogator.

‘Yes,’ I whimper. ‘I mean, no.’