There is a smell and an insistent noise rolling around apartment 2204. The source unknown. The sad face that absorbs this sensory abuse can’t do anything about it, except do what it normally does. Nothing. The face has only just slashed acres of hair and wiped all sorts of creams and lotions to remove the scabies like materials protruding from pores. Pores effected by some weird affliction. The cause of which thought to be an extremely long wait in some extreme heat / humidity and the conditions in the car that collected him, so many years ago. Doctors, as per normal, offered no relief for the face.
Years go by
The face was also stretching as the years shot by. The pace of the stretching was worthy of a BBC documentary. One that looked at other faces and compared the rate, impact and reactions. The local people reacted to the face when it when downstairs and then outside, prior to darting inside again elsewhere. Just like a scared rabbit. This major outdoors experience would break up the monotonous routine endured by the face. The reason for the dash outside varied and often caused much drama.
The noise kept going. It would start, stop, start, on and on. The face thought the open window was the source, so it was closed. Remarkably the noise stopped. While that was a relief, the smell now stained the very soul of those uniquely enough to be in its grasp. Luckily the face was the only one stained. It was absorbing the filth and sweat it presented, now that the window was closed. The smell was increasing in unpleasantness.
The face thought
“It was me that smells, the open window reduced the impact.”
It was this rambling roundabout thinking that drove the face to the computer. It would type out a short story, hopefully an entertaining one. The task of filling a blank screen was difficult but not anything not faced before by the face. Nonsense, fiction dripping in truth, all disguised by the use of too clever by half word play. The face thought this was necessary.
The outcome of the smell and the noise was delayed. Shower, ablutions, more lotions, spays and sparkling freshly washed clothes seemed to remove the smell. It was the face all along. The noise was the wind from outside coming inside. Something that the face was to do now that it had a new pristine condition was to present these to those downstairs. Mask on, money ready, phone charged, off it went.
The neighbours confronted by the face in the lift on the way down were very surprised. The choice of clothes were later described to those not present, as an LSD trip gone bad in a paint factory. Red shoes, yellow socks, purple shorts (said to be far too tight) a teal t shirt (two sizes too small) and a floppy black felt hat from 1960s San Fransisco. The face was colour blind and seemed oblivious to the stares of others. The others weren’t oblivious to the face, it was impossible to miss the explosion of style, colour, taste and the lack of self awareness.
It did smell nice though
The short story sat on the computer for a couple of hours. The curser blinked and the blank sections left unaltered washed the room in a warm white glow. Now that the window was closed, there was no noise. Now that the face and the rest of the body was clean, there was no smell. The room, the computer and the story were ready for a conclusion, an ending and a purpose for their existence.
Sadly they would not be provided with any of these.
An increasingly grumpy old fart posting rants, observations and trying to write somewhat twisted short stories for adults. All rights reserved unless otherwise credited © Alan Crawford - 2024
