Head Boy
Created | Updated Apr 14, 2004
I don't know why I keep doing this.
The skipper phoned. They're short again, and can I play Sunday?
But he doesn't really want me to open. We need to score a bit quicker, and anyhow I'd only get beaten black and blue like that other time.
Coming in at seven or eight would be more like it. Which'll turn out to be at ten, of course.
And a bowl? Well, maybe. Depends how it's going.
But fixing the minibus, yeah, I can definitely do that.
Only I'll probably get called away by work again, and finish up paying the garage.
Because I said I'd fix it.
Because they rely on me.
I gave my wicket away in the over before lunch on the first morning.
I'd made a hundred and sixty, you see, and I had an important engagement that afternoon.
The bowler was the Australians' principal all-rounder, but he won't be taking any further part in the series.
The return catch shattered his right hand and cracked a couple of ribs.
The Chairman of Selectors met me on the pavilion steps, amid the rapturous applause of the members, and a capacity crowd.
He was very understanding. He walked me to my Ferrari, still beaming.
I told him to leave word at the Club, should he need any more help with winning the Ashes.
The Missus is furious.
It seems the skipper called again while I was away, and asked if she'd mind driving the minibus to Greaseborough, along with the kit.
Indeed she had noticed that I'd still got it. The oil on the drive served as a useful reminder.
He rang off apologetically, observing that doing the teas were presumably out of the question then.
I've been back two hours, and she's still going on about it.
And dinner seems to have gone the same way as the teas.
They're probably not the only things that are out of the question tonight, I reckon.
Welcome home, dear.
Not.
She is young, slim and athletic, and I watch her retreating form with approval.
The fascinating switch of her ass, flexing left-right to the click of teetering heels.
My preference is to pay off my assistants after three weeks or so, but this one might entertain me a little longer.
She fellates with some panache.
Her devotion hints at obsession rather than opportunism.
She intrigues me. A welcome tonic, when one can enjoy any woman one chooses.
For God's sake shut up, you silly bitch.
I am trying to use the bathroom. Can we at least postpone the tirade for a few minutes?
Of course I've got nothing to say to that. I am not going to conduct a discussion while in this position.
You bet I locked the door.
You always claim that men can't multiplex.
Well this one most emphatically chooses not to argue and sh*t at the same time.
Here aloft on the Throne of Power, the primeval forces of doom are mine to command.
The vile spirits of the cosmic sewer wait upon my instruction.
I can invoke the undoing of any soul I choose.
I can summon a mighty avalanche of ordure, the issue of countless cloaca long past.
I can bury my chosen victim to the neck, or to oblivion.
Those I spare succumb to madness, since none believe their improbable tale.
The authorities even censored the relevant episode of the X-Files.
You'd think there might be some respite at work, but no.
So you think I'm not pulling my weight, do you?
Well, God knows how you got this fancy office anyway. You wouldn't have a clue without me and a few others who can actually do the job.
One of these days, I'll get you back for all the unfair b*ll*ckings you've given me.
I hate your guts, you little worm.
The tiny but deadly meteorite struck the building in a near-vertical trajectory.
En route to its resting place, it punched a hole in the Sales Manager's beloved golf-trophy, and then miraculously parted the bra-strap and knicker-elastic of that frigid cow in the credit control department.
Tragically, the Chief Buyer was to suffer a worse fate than the mere derangement of his underwear.
The glowing ember finally came to a halt, nestling in his rectum. It had seared a tunnel through cranium, thorax and abdomen.
His legendary halitosis has given way to the more agreeable aroma of roasting meat. If only he hadn't chosen that moment to lunge forward in order to clutch at the throat of a member of staff.
God, what a day.
Sprawled on the sofa, alone at the end of it.
Whisky bottle empty, Fantasy Channel freeview dissipated. The satellite signal's rubbish when it rains like this.
Where did they all go, the dreams I used to have?
Where did I lose the excitement and the joy? Why this bitterness and this sense of failure?
I wish that my life had a point.
Some time, eventually, all of this will end.
The colour of nothingness is a deep black.
Its sensation is beyond description.
The visions of the moment can never be recalled.
Something will terminate, as if it never happened.
There will be no picture, not this time.
No shadowy figure, no scythe.
Cut.
