love thy fridge ·
6 July 05

He wakes up. 6.45am. His eyes are cloudy, blurred, fuzzy. There’s a taste of something bitter in his mouth; as if someone liquified the taste of urine and poured it down his mouth, and now he was reaping the unexpected, yet expectated, aftertaste.

The back of the mouth, close to his rear wisdom teeth, releases this vile liquid, as he wretches and spits on the floor. It’s too bitter, and it’s made him feel nauseous. He places his right hand on his right temple, to delude himself that someone else is there to comfort him. Closing his eyes, he momentarily slipps to a happier time, a happier place, when the world was more difficult to understand, but wonderful to discover. He opens one eye carefully, to see if he still exists in that happier time, and realises he doesn’t.

His back hurts. The bed that he was going to change two years ago, was never changed. There never seemed enough time to do anything, with work, with his girlfriend, and family; he never really had time to do anything for himself. Today was different though.

Today he felt as though, he had all the time in the world. The Louis Armstrong song starts to play in his head. He smiles, and sighs at the same time and moves over to the CD rack. He can’t remember if it was Louis or Louie, he’s always getting confused, and it slightly bothers him that he won’t know until he reaches the CD, as his fingers trace the the rack vertically, he remembers doing the same with a xylophone during one music lesson.

Xylophones. He never understood them, and how they could be used in modern music. They have been, he’s seen it, he’s heard it, but he’s never considered it a real musical instrument, not like a guitar or a violin. The way he saw it, some posh guy probably made it, and then everyone agreed it was an instrument because of his status. Probably some French aristocrat; they were often quite insane.

What was that thing they used to hit the xylophones with? He never knew or remembered what they were called. In his head, it was called a “stick thing”, but he wanted the actual name. He could look it up on the Internet, it’s resourceful that sort of random thought that needs answers.

He logs on to the computer, as the dust scatters off the keyboard into his face. He coughs, sputters and then remembers the spit on his floor. He didn’t even aim for the bin. He goes to the kitchen, grabs a new sponge, soaks it with water, adds a dab of washing up liquid (he’s a sucker for adverts), and squeezes it. The foam is instantaneous. His friend told him something about foam in shampoo’s not being needed, and it was only when pepople said that they couldn’t tell if they had washed their hair that foam was introduced.

There was something pure and honest about his work that he liked, that attracted him. It wasn’t something anyone else he knew listened to.

On his hands and knees, he first takes a tissue and wipes off the glob of spit. It has specks of colour in it, but he doesn’t bother examining it, and throws the tissue in the paper. Paranoia was getting to him, and he considered using bleach. There was a fear that told him the spit had soaked so far in to the carpet that some new mutated bacteria would form, grow and latch on this foot. He scrubbed vigirously on the wet patch until it became an even bigger wet patch. He drifted off into another memory, or when he used to scrub the floors.

It was part of his chores, and often he did it for his siblings. It was important, to him, that they were protected, and they turned out better for it. He sometimes felt like the protective-father, even if was only a year older than them. He stopped scrubbing, and stared at the patch below him. If someone walled in now, they could easily suspect that he urinated on the floor. Now he needed to dry it.

The hair dryer has never been used. His mother gave it to him. She always said “Dry your hair or you’ll catch a cold”. She was a traditionalist, so it was in her head that drying your hair with a device that throws out hot, burning heat is good for your hair. He was always a “towel dry” sort of person himself. It’s a big thing, like something off an aeroplane; he wondered if there was a flight somewhere in the world that was missing an engine.

As he sat on the floor with the hair dryer between his legs (or blow dryer as it was universally known – he didn’t care much for Americanisms), he remembered how his mother used to sit behind him, drying his hair when he was a child. He doesn’t know why he remembers it, as it wasn’t anything specific to him. His brother and sister were treated the same as he was, but for him being loved by your parent and watching them love another child is not the same. He smiled as a tear rolled down his cheek, hanging at the chin as a drop. The tear drop hung, and he imagined what it looked like; what he looked like with tears. He had never seen himself cry.

Awakened, he turned off the hair dryer and rubbed his hand over the warm patch; the drama was over. He knotted the cable for the dryer and tucked away in the corner. Moving back to his computer, he clicked on the Internet shortcut and waited. There was an electrifying buzzing and crackling; he had forgotten to turn the volume down. It was perhaps the second more irritating thing about using the Internet. The first most irritating thing was not being able to connect.

[zz93]

Perhaps today was his day, but after only seven attempts, he was connected. It normally takes an hour of trying, a few hours of giving up and then trying again. Today they Internet was kind. His homepage was google. Google, he felt, provided him the answers with almost any query he had, often a random thought, such as what colour is rice?

Results 1 – 10 of about 1,520,000 for what colour is rice. (0.58 seconds)

Although it never provided an obvious or complete answer, it often threw up more than enough interesting sites to kill the boredom, and to read himself to sleep with. In this, it was an article entitled:

“Colour Handbook of Pests, Diseases and Disorders of Rice. By: Sally Leong”

He typed in Xylophone in Google which responded with:

Results 1 – 10 of about 16,900 for xylophone stick. (0.53 seconds)

Although the results provided him with the answer he wanted, the stick being called a mallet, he was drawn to something else:

UrbanDictionary.com/Xylophone Buggery

He clicked the link which provided the following:

1. xylophone buggery

When somebody is ‘buggered’ by an xylophone
when somebody has sex with an xylophone

lets go to a music lesson ill sit here on this xylophone …...... oh yeah im horny and the only thing i have is an xylophone ;)
Source: Michael, Jul 26, 2004

followed by

2. Xylophone Buggery

Anal Sex with the use of a Xylophone or Xylophone sticks.

She buggered herself in the ass with the hard round ball at the end of the xylophone stick.
Source: RandyL, Oct 17, 2003

The copyright notice below read: Urban Dictionary is not appropriate for all audiences. ©1999-2004

He never understood them, and how they could be used in modern music. They have been, he’s seen it, he’s heard it, but he’s never considered it a real musical instrument, not like a guitar or a violin.

What surprised him more than anything was the poor grammatical structure, the inappropriate use of captial letters and disappointing punctuation, and the fact that everyone called the mallets sticks. The latter made hims smile, as it just reminded him that everyone has something in common with someone else, even if it’s not significant.

Then he remembered it was Louis Armstrong, the track he wanted was on the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Movie Soundtrack. Perhaps the only James Bond soundtrack he owned, and the only track on it he wanted. He had Armstrong’s other albums from All-Time Greatest Hits (something he felt wasn’t quite true with this particular album) to Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong and even Hot Fives & Sevens, where Armstrong was in a jazz band.

There was something about the way he stood, the way he smiled, those large blow fish cheeks; that wide, beaming grin which showed his bright teeth and and red gums. There was something pure and honest about his work that he liked, that attracted him. It wasn’t something anyone else he knew listened to. He wasn’t a jazz expert, but he knew what liked, and he liked Louis Armstron; even the more unhappy songs which gave a more sorrowful blues feeling, provided some comfort and respite from the chaos of the world.

Still, he feels rather introspective, with the trickles of memories that have returned, he decides to play some Sigur Ros. It’s escapist music for him; throwing you back in to “an abstract chaos of beauty and sadness”, as he once said to a friend in a moment where he felt smart, but didn’t quite know what the hell he was talking about. His friend looked impressed and hummed in the manner of someone who doesn’t have a response because they don’t understand the statement, yet trying to look agreeable and understanding of the statement so as not to look stupid or uncultured.

He often says things he doesn’t understand; a random thought; a captured expression spliced from several other expressions; a memory that may or may not be real, as it mixes and folds into a food mixture of thoughts based on reality an imagination; set to Gas Mark 3 and leave for 20 minutes.

He went over to the kitchen and opened the sleek Americana fridge. For all his abstinence from Americanism, even he couldn’t kep his eyes off this monstrosity. Sometimes he would stare at it, like some vile sculpture in which he knowingly wasted money; it was a representation of the American ego in his kitchen, and at the same time, it’s dominance fitted the muted feeling well, as the perfect contrast to the the simplicity and understated nature of the kitchen.

When people visited and saw it, they were often taken aback by not only its size, but it’s isolation from the entire decor of the apartment. His response was random and always different everytime the question was asked, “Everyone needs a representation of ugliness in their living space” to “A metaphor, stating that bigger is not always better and more beautiful”. Again, he didn’t care what he was saying, and never gave the same response twice. Eventually he became bored, and stuck a note on the front of the fridge stating:

“It’s a fridge. Deal with it.”