Eb-izarr-or
Once again, my supplications for interesting times strike like a curse and wreak terror, oblivion and carbon copies all around me.
Today has greatly contrasted all my essay days in that I rose earlier, ventured out later, ate less and was the recipient of much more vitamin D all in the name of handing in my latest oeuvre on time with no regrets whatsoever about it being retained for file records as this meant I would never have to peruse the damn thing again. I disposed of all my physical draft copies in a recycling bin outside the English Admin. office, saint that I am.
Then there was the usual essay-handing-in rebalancing, which meant a tour of charity shops in the hours before my supervisory meeting and the discovery of my marks. During these hours, I purchased the following:
- An Epson E74 inkjet printer.
- a sausage and stuffing sandwich with raw onion rings, minus ketchup.
- Kenickie's "I Will Fix You" CD single, The Stills "Logic Will Break Your Heart" CD Album, Ash's "Free All Angels" CD Album, Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" 45 vinyl.
- Being John Malkovich on DVD
- A pot of only mildly overpriced tea.
Then it was off to the City Art Gallery to stare at Romantic etchings and watercolours before venturing to view my new favourite "Surgeon Waiting", a blue and scratchy beauty from 1946 with huge hands that I think I ended up finally properly appreciating today.
Following the supervisory simplicity of getting the damn mark I get every single term, I retired to one of the world's most pretentious Thai cafes to drink something horrendously alcoholic containing mismatched absinthe and gin that seemed to do everything I had intended it to.
As I sat on the first floor, on the right hand side of the middle table, by the window I passed two or three minutes people-watching and constructing a house out of sugar packets, praying for entertainment...
...which was when I noticed one of those lycra-spandex-fluorescent defibrillator wielding cyclists that seem to teem around York tending to a gentlemen with a stick who seeming to be rather too inanimate. He was aided by an ambulance full of similar fluorescents who gave up on breathing into the gentleman's lungs (he had a medical crutch style walking stick) and feed him a tank of oxygen before throwing him onto a stretcher (his leg bounced off quite alarmingly. He was wearing brown loafers) and piling him in the back of the ambulance. The crowd of rubber-neckers dispersed, including the woman whom I thought had contacted the emergency services (she picked her bag up from between the cobbles and the kerb-side) and the van rocked around for about fifteen minutes before the cyclist got out, then twenty minutes more (If this van's a rocking...then some lyric came over the tannoy about being breathless). Then the van drove off, without anyone accompanying the man in his sixties with glass, unblinking eyes and an immobile chest (was he a tourist by himself? Or just going for a walk?) and I finished my drink with its ridiculous shade in its ridiculous glass with its ridiculous two tiny straws. No-one in the restaurant had acknowledged what was going on (no more than six other people saw what was happening) and the departure of the ambulance was masked by a gigantic waste disposal crusher trundling crunchily behind it, so no-one on the street would have seen it. Except the cyclist, who was still there (he was setting up some sort of hands-free kit and looking quite bored). I hesitantly walked towards him
and then didn't say anything and walked home. Because the whole situation felt too Schrödinger's Cat. Because I felt like if I asked "Hey, I'm sorry if this sounds ghoulish but...uhm...is he alright? I mean, he's not dead, is he?" like I'd rehearsed in my head about fifteen times on the way down the stairs to the exit and the fluorescent fellow said "Yes, he's dead" then I'd somehow have contributed to it.
He looked pretty dead.
So I came home and played vinyls until I got to Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper" 45. I should probably laugh or feel bad or both.
Now I'm about to eat reduced-price quiche.
A man in the crowd was stood with an open pack of After Eights, just chowing down.
I walked past a Fiat "Life" on the way home.
Everyone else is having exams and I don't have to submit ANY work until October.
I opened my curtains and jumped over the front wall for the first since I moved into this house today.
York is weird once more.
Yeah, so I don't have photoshop either...
