John M. Dow's Blog, page 4

Boing!

My ears twitched in annoyance at the springing fool in front of me. Up and down he bounced, grinning inanely and clapping his hands over his head. Clearly, having massive coiled springs attached to his feet had driven off his sanity.

"Woooooooooo" he cried. "Look at meeeeeeee!"

"Yes." I said. "You're bouncing. Well done."

He continued to leap and bounce, happily springing up and down, up and down.

"Can you stop that please?"

A brief frown flickered across the imbecile's face. "You know, I'm not sure I can," he said. "But – Weeeeeeeeee! Why would I ever want to!"

My neck was growing painful from the effort of trying to maintain eye-contact with the oscillating buffoon.

"Would you like me to help you to stop," I offered.

"Never, sir!" he cried. "Now that I have uncovered the arcane mysteries of bouncing, I shall continue to bounce until I draw my last breath, and even then I shall bounce my way past Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven."

I considered this horrifying vision. A world where my sole companion was a gibbering, leaping, idiot. An afterlife populated by vertically catapulting fruitcakes.

I examined his face as closely as I could, given the incredible rate of change applied to its positioning relative to mine. Idiot or not, the look of joy on his face was unmistakable. And who am I to interfere in the joy of another.

"Very well," I said. "By all means, enjoy your bouncing. But I ask you as a lifelong friend – would you consider doing it in someone else's soup?"

 

Fish, Spoon, Phone

The ground shook as the great, flapping, pufferfish bounced down the street towards me. It was one of the weird deep-sea varieties – all teeth and spikes – and didn't appear to be particularly pleased to be bouncing down a suburban street in the middle of the afternoon.

The fish was of a peculiar size – approximately the same dimensions as one of those little eastern european cars you see discarded at the side of the motorway, shortly before you pass angry-looking men with leather coats and beards.

Every time the fish hit the ground, it made a peculiar whooping-gasp sound, syncopated by the rasping of its pointy bits against the concrete. Its eyes were wild and staring.

It was difficult to run away. Unless you've witnessed first hand the sudden onrush of unavoidable personal injury caused by the appearance of oceanic life where no oceanic life belongs, you really can't understand the hypnotic power of such an event.

So I stood, and it bounced. A small dog ran out in front of it and yapped energetically. An orifice opened which I would dearly love to believe was the fish's mouth, and the dog vanished. The sea-creature emitted a singularly fishy belch and continued down the street towards me.

Still unable to run, I rummaged in my pocket for some implement I could use in my defence. I pulled out a yoyo. A nice orange one, with stripy string and a flashing light in the middle. I contemplated the yoyo and the fish contemplated me.

It boinged up in the air in what was likely to be the final bounce before oblivion, when I was suddenly pushed from the side. A young man wearing a leather jacket and a string of onions had attached himself to my arm and was propelling me out of the fish's path with considerably more gusto than was strictly necessary. As it passed, one of the fish's razor sharp spines slashed across my yoyo, reducing it to a yo.

"What are you doing, you fool?" the young man shouted in my astonished face. "You can't just stand still in front of a rampaging puffer fish and expect it to go around you!"

"I can stand wherever I like, Sir, and there's nothing you can do about it," I said angrily. I reached into my pocket and produced a small stainless steel teaspoon. I gestured at the young man with it. "I have a spoon!"

The young man, in turn, reached into his own pocket and produced a telephone. "I shall call the coastguard," he said, "and report the puffer fish to them. Once I have done this, I shall call the police and inform them of your implied assault with cheap cutlery."

"Damn you, sir!" I cried. "Why couldn't you just leave me alone? I was perfectly happy, there in the path of the puffer fish. You've ruined everything!"

The young man was evidently shocked by my outburst and wasted no time in telling me exactly that. "But it would have killed you," he cried!

"Never," I said coldly. "In all my life, I've never heard of anyone being killed in the street by a puffer fish. Why the very idea is ridiculous."