Tell me a story...

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dholliday said:
A sort-of true story, depending on perspective...the couple of German sentences are translated at the end.


"Eh? Where's the other half of my face?"

I murmur this to myself as my fingers brush against nothing but void air...where my left cheek should be. Having just been shot in the face does have the rather upsetting ability to force this question.

Must get myself fixed. I look around (note to scene-setters: Berlin at night, outside, streets and buildings) and see a, sort of, figure of a man - for I am beholding a man in a, sort of, drunken double-vision.

Instead of that rigid splitting in two and forth known and beloved to us all, one of him is bouncing and spinning at all angles all about the other him, his more stable twin...the entire existence around unstable-man dancing too, of course. 'Tis as if my left eye is hanging by a loose thread, still able to see and swinging gay roundabouts. I am not drunk and knowing this, stumble on.

"Deene Auje hängt ja so komisch. Kennste überhäupt nok wat sehn?" says this bloke.

"I need help...who can fix me?" I venture in my best English.

"Naja...da gibt es nur diese eine Dame. Sie mach's heil für Euch..." responds the helpful man in his best hoch-deutsch as both hims now settle into a dubious cross, shamelessly referencing religious symbolism.

"...dort!" he is pointing across the road, or is it towards the sky? STRAIN YOURSELF, MAN! I choose the across the road bit, seeming more likely.

"Dank you." I confidently thank and walk on.


I realise now that our hero back there was pointing to a house, and its entrance. Still, I'm not getting the hang (sorry) of my impairment and struggle to reconcile unstable-world with its constant partner. Simply attempting to reach this front door of my fix produces the kind of silly walk not seen since navigating through a near-empty dance-floor on acid...what to do?

Well, that's novel. I can actually close my left eye, rendering my marvellous trip redundant...didn't see that one coming.

I get to the door (scene-setting: rusted oak of splintering hues). The door (sign on the) says: "Komm erst mal rein". So I do.


Hmm...all lights are on and bets off. Busy noises abound: radio-music, hoovering, flowing tap-water sounds, clunking and clanking, a boom and some banging...sortiments of audio goading...a woman is talking.

I see her flitting hither and thither in the kitchen, sometimes out of view. She's barking into the phone cradled in her neck, sounding flustered as she hectically washes a couple of cups at the sink before retreating from view to another part of the kitchen...is that a cat under her arm? If so, you can choose its colour.

"Ha-llo!" the word loud, clear and drenching with urgency from its source, me, still a couple of steps away from the kitchen entrance. The woman blows back into view, the cat jumps off not amused.

"I hef no time. Camm beck later." that's her.

"Please...it's my face...my eye is hanging off...LOOK!" that's me.

"Yes, I know. No time." (unintelligible yapping down the phone) "...later!".


She waves me off and is washing cups again - the cat triumphantly springs back on and fits snugly under her arm. I feel rather bothered by the sight of this woman washing up while holding a cat under her arm, not-to-mention her skewed head allowing for the phone.

"Mama. Mama!" a little girl's voice screeches and is full of dreadful and determined finality...an ultimatum. I look up the long, steep, high and very marble staircase directly opposite the front door and see this small girl of maybe 3 years at the top. She begins a violent forward swinging motion.

"MAMA...ICH SPRINGE GLEICH!! MAMA...ICH SPRINGE GLEICH!! MAMA..." she mantras like a foiled Cartman. I look back towards the kitchen, expecting to feel the breeze as the mama whizzes past me to get to her daughter.

"Später, Kindchen - hab' jetzt keine Zeit."

"MMMAAARRRGGGHHH-MMMAAAHHH!!!!!!" a terrible, terrible cry but the woman is back to jabbering on the phone. The music on the hoover is turned up. The cat closes the kitchen door.

What about the bloody girl! I sprint up the stairs, skipping every other step, just as she begins a run-up and is about to jump head-first down them.

GOT-YA! I block her vault into doom at the death with my outstretched hands. I am a mite annoyed - how can that mother carry on regardless when her girl is imploring her like that?!


I risk opening my left eye and to my no great surprise discover that it is back where it belongs. I can see properly again and there be no void air where my left cheek should be, seen as that has also returned.

As I ponder back down the stairs I am alertly aware of the only sounds present being my very steps and the odd "humph" from me.

I'll never forget the sound of that click as I shut the front door on my way out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------



German translations:

"Deene Auje hängt ja so komisch. Kennst de überhäupt nok wat sehn?"

Your eye is hanging all weird, can you even see?

---

"Naja...da gibt es nur diese eine Dame. Sie mach's heil für Euch..."

Well, there be this one lady. She'll fix it for you.

---

"...dort!"

There!

---

"Komm erst mal rein"

Come in first.

---

"MAMA...ICH SPRINGE GLEICH!!"

MAM...I'M GONNA JUMP!!

---

"Später, Kindchen - hab' jetzt keine Zeit."

Later, kidda - no time right now.

---
Click to expand...

Calm down, Dickens.
 
Well, yesterday involved oldest child, big hill, drop off, BMX, mate with video phone, lack of skill, mid air back flip, 999, paramedics, ambulance, air ambulance on stand by, worried parents, hospital, xrays, no broken limbs, and time off school. Hence why I didnt drive back to Aberdeen this morning and am er currently *cough* working from home today..
 

In grad school, I had an apartment in the basement of the Provost's house. This was at Yale University and the Provost and President's houses were very fine old mansions located on a pretty street called Hillhouse Avenue. I was sort of the caretaker of the Provost house when the Provost was gone.

One Friday night I was hanging out alone and there was no one upstairs in the main house. I decided to get really high. Man-o-man was I baked. I turned on Friday Night Fights (boxing) with no volume, and then thought, what the heck, let's throw on some Serge Gainsbourg. For some reason, I was wearing a neon orange bathrobe and short pants, but nothing else. The music was loud and my apartment was illuminated by all these little white christmas tree lights. I also decided to paint my toenails metallic green, since my law-school friend Romy and I were talking about this subject earlier that day and she left a bottle of said toenail polish at my house.

So this is the scene: I am super baked, I'm watching these glistening men pummel each other on TV, Serge Gainsbourg is belting from my speakers, and I'm in a bright orange bathrobe with metallic green toenails in a cozy room that is illuminated by about 300 white christmas lights. Then the doorbell rings.

The door to my apartment is right off the room in question. I open the door and there are two policemen standing there. They peer in and look around, hearing what can only be perceived as somewhat effeminate french lounge music; they see my shirtless torso with my metallic green toenails that sparkle off of the TV set, the latter of which shows these shirtless men punching each other. The christmas lights cast a Caravaggio-esque illumination through the room dappled by each individual light petitioning for its own identity. It was quite "David Lynchy" or at the very least similar to that scene in Seinfeld where Kramer and Mr. Costanza are listening to Cha-Cha music and trying on the "manzier" (or bro).

And rather than saying "hello" or "can I help you?" or even "what's up?" I utter a non sequitur that, to this day, makes no sense. As I stand at the door, I turn and gesture towards the sparkling room behind me and I say, "Sorry about the lights...I'm watching boxing." That was my opening line to two police officers! If you repeat this to yourself, as I have since a hundred times, it makes NO sense.

The Sargent, who was standing a little bit in front of his junior partner, cooly looked me up and down, then looked back at his partner and asked him, "...you wanna handle this one?" The junior partner looked at me with my open robe and green toenails as 'Mambo Miam Miam' played on and said, "Not really..." and they go on to say something about a burglar alarm upstairs and then leave.

No take-home message here but I guess if you're gonna get blazed, do it grandly--extravagantly so--and only speak in non sequiturs. Keeps the heat away.
 
Once upon a time I hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. We were all on a week-long geology field trip during our college spring break. We camped at the bottom and had a gay old time. And by gay you need to think of a Captain of Industry discussing politics over candle light in 1885, not the crude neologism appropriated by teenagers in the 20th century. I still have a chunk of rock that is 2 billion years old from the bottom. Picking up that rock makes me feel like the insignificant piece of sh_t that I am in the grand cosmological scheme of things, kinda like the 14 billion year-old universe chuckling at planet earth trying to ride a bicycle. Anyways, the next morning we hiked back up to the top of the Grand Canyon along the Bright Angel Trail. We were all a bit hungover, me in particular, and my girlfriend as well. It took hours. Sweating. Walking on incline. Stopping to take it all in. Repeat. I was numb. We get to the top of the canyon and finally feel relieved. We set up our tents, eat, shower, etc. About 9pm that evening we all converge in a local bar. I'm shooting pool with some friends who were also on the trip. My girlfriend is standing on the periphery tantalizing older men, that was her demographic specialty, they adored her in ways that the rest of us 19 year-olds couldn't understand. But now much older than 19, I do understand. I notice some tinging discomfort in my nether parts. Specifically, I feel some slight burning at the apex of my bellend. Fug it. Shake it off. I'm behind the 8 ball and the beer is cold and I just hiked out of a really grand canyon. Another shot, good looking carom, sip of beer. Life is good. But damn there's that tingling. Can't take it no more. I head to the bathroom and make towards the urinal. I undo my pants, underwear, compression shorts, nun's foundation, chastity belt, and polka-dot lycra skivvies--okay, just kidding, just undo my pants and look down. I see a black fleck that looks like dirt right on the end of my penis. Ah, a little bit of dirt. That's the root cause of the stinging. I try to flick it off. Hurts like sh_t. Doesn't move at all. I'm puzzled. Doubleyou-tee-eff I think. I flick it again. Nothing. This time I try to pick, not flick. Something feels weird. I pull. I end up removing a 3cm pine needle that has become all-the-way stuck in my urethra. This is unheard of and raises many questions first and foremost is how the heck did it manage to embed itself like that without me noticing. I'm at the urinal with a pine needle between my thumb and forefinger that is this long: --------------- It came out of my penis. I am awed. I return hurriedly to my pool game and approach my girlfriend who is now leaning against the pool table. I say look what just came out of my d_ck and I show her the pine needle. She's like you sick f_ck and slaps the pine needle out of my hand. It goes spiraling onto the green felt in a way that mimics the spiraling smoke from the cigarette of the guy she's flirting with as well as my spiraling disbelief about what I just pulled out of my disco-stick. If I were a quicker thinker, I would have kept the pine needle along with my 2 billion year old rock. Totems of humility. But it just lay there on the felt and we left. It's probably been flicked to the floor or the side pocket of the pool table. But it's been elsewhere.
 
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