Koosh, the stuffed raccoon toy who cohabitated with Breeze (but was none too happy with that arrangement), was sitting on its sofa (for everything in Breeze’s flat belonged to Koosh, even the flat), trying to read the Unbearable Lightness of Being. ‘Trying’ being the operative word. It was not the ‘trying’ to turn the pages with the fingerless representation of paws that was the challenge, nor was it the ‘trying’ to read with glass representation of eyes that made the task so tricky, it was the tremendous racket Breeze was making in Koosh’s flat, again, which was the problem.
Breeze had not slept in fourteen days. She had forcibly been keeping herself awake through a diet of coffee, coffee liqueur, coffee flavoured caffeinated energy drinks and a coffee container full of cocaine. She had spent the last two weeks staring at her late mother’s clock, watching for any more misbehaviour, which was a little insulting as the clock had done, frankly, a fantastic job in ticking in the one direction consistently over the last thirteen days. It had done such a good job in fact that Breeze finally relaxed enough for sleep deprivation induced insanity to set in.
On deciding to calculate how much of her life she had spent asleep she realised that when you turn per cent into percentage the space goes missing. This worried her greatly; what had happened to the poor little space? Why was no one trying to find it?
‘Its parents must be freaking out.’ She rattled like someone on a heroic amount of cocaine only could.
Koosh thought Breeze was losing it. Koosh did not care.
‘Come on spacey, spacey, spacey.’ She cooed as she searched empty corners for the additional gap hoping this point of conscious madness was the source of her overbearing anxiety.
‘This is no good, I’m too tired… I need more stimulants.’ She said assertively.
‘No cocaine.’ Koosh demanded.
‘But…’ Breeze started to protest.
‘No cocaine, it’s mine.’ Koosh declared.
‘But I bought it…’ Breeze moaned.
‘My cocaine.’ Koosh snapped as it threw The Unbearable Lightness of Being at her head.
Breeze accepted illogical defeat and sulked towards the Bean Cupboard, carefully stepping as to not fall into any additional spaces that may be lying about. Truth be told Breeze was not so irritated that her callous carnival had denied her this vice. It was most likely the cause of her intense unease and a detox for the next couple of hours would probably do her some good.
Koosh did not care for cocaine; frankly Koosh despised that white powder. Cocaine had a habit of getting itself deep into the poor raccoon’s fur and was then a nightmare to get out again. Koosh especially didn’t appreciate Breeze’s preferred method of cleaning the white stuff out of the little toy’s pelt, which was to try to snort it out.
‘I am not a nose hanky!’ Koosh would scream and then scratch her.
No, Koosh was not a fan of cocaine, it just liked owning things so other people couldn’t have them. As irritatingly territorial as it might be, Koosh knew better than to try to confiscate her coffee. No bit of joyful cruelty was worth that fight.
On opening the bean cupboard within her bean cupboard she discovered something awful, something very, very, very terrible.
‘I only have one more bag of coffee left!’ She said in horror. ‘I’ve got to make it last.’ She decided purposefully before pouring the whole bag of powder into the cafetiere.
Breeze carried the beautiful drink back to her lounge where she would snuggle up with her little bad tempered and worse behaved toy. Or at least that was the plan…
Turning to the kitchen door she spotted the missing space, it was hanging precariously in the gap between the doorframe and it looked less like a cavity and more like a divot. This appearing apparition surprised her, so much so that she dropped her hot drink on the linoleum floor, shattering it and splashing the contents everywhere.
‘Oh fudge!’ Breeze cried before bursting into tears.
By no means did the cracked cup have any sentimental value to her, it was only her favourite cup in the times in which contained coffee and it was the waste of this which caused so my consternation. Perhaps this is best explained in an example. There is a human expression, ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’, which doesn’t make a great deal of sense. There is a much more pertinent expression that Wood Nymphs have, don’t cry over spilt coffee, and the Wood Nymph that coined the phrase was shortly thereafter beaten to death with his own mugs. Such is the passion Wood Nymphs have for the stuff.
Koosh in a rare act of affection sprang into Breeze’s arms to comfort her before turning its attention to the unwelcome guest.
‘Piss off you badger fondler’ hissed the little fluffy stuffy who was under the impression that badgers were raccoons’ mortal enemies and thus must be the most cutting insult.
But the divot didn’t piss off; it didn’t do anything at all. Unbeknownst to Breeze it was figuring out the situation and on understanding that the commotion was caused by the broken ceramic, it moved the cooling fluid and broken vessel to be vaporised in a Quasar star about two-hundred trillion light years away. It then recognised that the lack of coffee cup and subsequent coffee was far more reason for upset so portaled in a fresh one into her hand.
Mrs Doris Mae, of number 34 Brownlow Street, had been stunned still like a statue by a horizontal hurricane that had just pulled her morning cup of coffee from her hand. She was so stunned in fact that she hadn’t realised she was still pouring piping hot coffee onto her foot.
‘Oh bloody hell!’ She screamed as she rushed for the cold tap in great distress. It was her favourite cup.
Breeze sudden ill-temper was quickly abated, first by the fluid and then on recognising the helpful apparition.
‘Oh I know you.’ Breeze squeaked excitedly, ‘Why do you look so guilty…?’
***
Fabien wasn’t singing anymore, he was screaming. One-Eye, Biggs and Leopold hadn’t actually started torturing him yet but that didn’t stop him yelling his lung out, if anything it was encouraging him as it seemed like it was buying him time.
‘This guy is crying more than that Armenian did after we cut off all his appendages.’ Leopold said judgementally.
‘I think you mean the Armless-enian.’ Biggs jokes.
‘No I’m pretty sure they’re called Armenians. It’s that country in Europe; it’s where all the soldiers come from.’ Leopold said blankly.
‘Dry up.’ One-Eye spat at everyone in the room.
Despite how intimidating the big man was Fabien kept screaming, defiantly, and this only antagonised One-Eye more. One-Eye turned up the oxyacetylene torch keen to see how loud Fabien could scream when his tongue had been burnt out.
The heat licked Fabien’s face and he instinctively pulled back afraid his luck had finally run out. Fortunately at that moment a little anomaly in the fabric of space-time that Fabien had come to know as Fred appeared beneath him. To the three observers Fabien seemed to fall into the toilet bowl. Confused and bewildered Biggs and One-Eye peered in to look for him. Fred pulled them through itself too.
Leopold didn’t move for a moment, he was too shocked and scared. When he did finally get his body to flinch his legs ran him out of the little ITallian restaurant in the Bronx and straight for his home. The next day he ripped out his toilet to the fury of his then wife. She would later cite that the reason for instigating divorce proceedings was because of Leopold’s absolute irrational refusal to use a toilet, choosing instead to always go in a bucket next to the bed. The judge would grant that divorce without question just on the pure thought of the horrific smell.
Fabien, One-Eye and Biggs found themselves falling from a very great height. This terrified Biggs, irked One-Eye and confused the hell out of Fabien, Fred had never put him in danger before. But it didn’t take them long to hit the salty waters below with a hard enough splash to knock the wind out of their lungs.
Disoriented by the deep blue that encompassed him it took Fabien a moment to work out which was up. He raced for the surface breathless.
‘That’s it we’re thru. You hear me Fred? Thru!’ Fabien screamed furious.
His attention was turned by the loud splashing that emanated behind him. One-Eye broke the surface like a beast from the deep. A little closer Biggs popped up thrashing like a surfer being taken down by a shark, screaming that he couldn’t swim.
Fabien could be pretty charitable when he wanted to be, but he had a rule, actually he had seven, but number six on the list was to ‘never help someone who’s trying to kill you’ (followed closely by ‘never sleep someone who’s trying to kill you’ – that one was underlined several times in his head) so he turned to look where the nearest land mass was and swam towards it, thanking the Big Cheese in the sky that he had taken all those swimming lessons.
After not too long Fabien washed up onto a jet black sandy shore, coughing and spluttering the brine from his lungs. He checked over his shoulder (something, sickeningly, he knew would become routine) to see if the two was on his tail. They were nowhere to be seen not but that didn’t ease his anxiety which was driving him deeper inland.
It was fair to say Fabien was scared, really scared, but it also fair to say he was annoyed. He was irritated that his gorgeous pinstripe, three-piece suit had been ruined, it was dry-clean only. He would not forgive Fred for putting him through that salt bath. But he was mostly irked that he couldn’t just relax and enjoy the lovely day. The sky was a spectacular pearl blue with a few cheeky clouds providing a little ‘what do they look like’ entertainment. There were nice palm trees grown to giant proportions in the oxygen rich environment that provided pleasant shade on cool flat pale grey rocks. He could have had a comfortable nap on those. But no, he couldn’t have a rest because escape two psychopaths that might be on his tail.
The psychopaths, as it turns out, were on Fabien’s tail. Back in the sea One-Eye was about to give chase when Biggs caught his attention.
‘One-Eye…help…please…I can’t swim.’ Biggs cried between gulps.
One-Eye swam back and placed his literal partner in crime on his back.
‘Thanks One-Eye.’ Biggs said trembling. ‘Who knew the inside of the toilet bowl was so large.’
One-Eye didn’t say a word, he simply watched Fabien swim off to safety, knowing deep down in his stomach that when he finally catches up to his mark, and he would, he’d dig one of Fabien’s eyes right out of his skull with his bare fingers.
***
Fred always liked Breeze. Breeze always liked Fred. Fabien always liked Breeze too, and as much as he didn’t like to admit it, he still did. Breeze couldn’t stand Fabien and she loved to admit that. The one regret Breeze had about that relationship was losing Fred. Fred had always been the friendliest uncommunicative interstellar portal and she had desperately missed it.
Breeze and Fabien had once been a fine couple, the sort that if you were walking behind them down the high-street, and were single and bitter, you would secretly hope to see one of them fall down a manhole just because the ensuing argument would make you feel a little less bitter about being single. Well either that or you would hope to bump into them in Ikea later that day. Interestingly Ikea was actually named after the patron saint for relationship destroying fights in furniture stores.
Breeze first met Fabien in the one place you’d imagine a magical wood nymph would meet a time-travelling 1950’s swing singer, Orkney. After a whirlwind romance they decided they would make a fine couple, the sort people would hope to see in a fight in Ikea. And the blame for Breeze and Fabien’s eventual breakup lay firmly at Fabien’s feet, or rather, penis.
Fabien declared on more than one occasion that he was madly devoted to Breeze, which was true, except when it wasn’t which was most of the time, or rather times. Breeze slowly deduced that he had been maintaining several historic romances during their relationship that seemed to include (but not limited to) a rather saucy one with a stone-age woman and the flowering love that will one day, or rather already has, or rather more specifically one day will have has inspired Romeo and Juliet.
Three years into a very fun, if a little unhealthy relationship, Breeze discovered his multiple dalliances. This was in part due to the romantic Tudor love letters she discovered about his person, partly due to a very insightful ancient Egyptian text that explained in great hieroglyphic detail his exploits with Cleopatra, but mostly because of an STD that hadn’t been diagnosed in over twenty millennia. They broke up during a blazing row as every couple eventually does, in the furniture shop, Urban Outfitters, much to the annoyance of the bitter, single people who had been waiting for them in Ikea.
‘Fred, why have you turned a bright shade of sepia?’ Breeze asked parentally, ‘Don’t you try to hide from me,’ She said as Fred scuttled away, ‘where’s Fabien?’
Fred tried to hide in a corner, but she wasn’t having any of it, after spending a morning looking for hidden spaces, she was now a space finding ninja.
‘It’s okay Fred, I didn’t like Fabien anymore anyway.’ She said before dropping a discarded orange peel through it. Fred turned back to a pleasing phthalocyanine blue.
‘I knew that’d make you feel better.’ Breeze chirped with a giggle. ‘It’s classic Sartre, essence precedes purpose. Everyone and everything feels better knowing they have a reason.’
‘I subscribe to existential nihilism,’ Koosh said perking up, ‘life has no meaning, no value. You are entirely insignificant. One day you’ll be dead and no one will care.’ Before adding in a cheery note, ‘You may as well have never been born. Who wants a game of Ticket to Ride?’
‘What’s the point of playing games if nothing has any meaning?’ Breeze asked sarcastically.
‘Don’t use my words against me.’ Koosh barked throwing Ticket to Ride and Breeze’s head. She caught it deftly and set it up. Fred even helped dropping the respective pieces around the board.
Two games of Ticket to Ride and three tantrums later Koosh, Fred and Breeze were wrapped up on the sofa watching the TV. Well Fred wasn’t so much wrapped up as it was hovering above it.
Koosh snuggled into Breeze’s lap as her head slowly dropped to the dulcet tones of the TV.
‘This is the news at 6.’ It announced in a soothing note as if knowing Breeze was on the edge of sleep’s tender embrace. ‘Top story tonight,’ it whispered, ‘a Kings’ College press conference announcing a remarkable discovery on the nature of space-time ended today in a fight. The video of the assault on a Daily Mail journalist by Glaswegian professor, Adam Dewar, has spread across…’
‘Dewy?’ Breeze jumped up with a start, much to the distress of Koosh who went flying across the room.
‘Dewy is in London?’ She said in a mixture of anxious excitement. ‘He’s the one who can help me. This is fate, it has to be.’ She said desperately as Koosh screamed blue obscenities at her.
Fate is a funny thing. The Universe is fated to behave in a certain, deterministic way because of the laws that it abides by. It’s entirely predictable if you have a mind to calculate such infinite formulas. People ascribe meaning where there is no meaning. They see coincidences coalescing and assume its causation when in truth it’s often no more remarkable than a wood nymph worried about the imminent end of the Universe happening to see an old physicist boyfriend on a news bulletin who as it turns out is responsible for the beginning of the end of reality. It’s as mundane as that everyday occurrence. And it’s that kind of false assertion that ends up getting a wood nymph who is worried about the imminent end of the Universe to contact her old physicist boyfriend and accidentally make the whole “end of everything” situation a whole bloody lot worse.
The NaNoWriMo Poject 