Contemplating the piles

Reality and the Piles

My eyes are closed and I am anywhere I want. Africa. A beach in the
Pacific. Having a meal with friends. But if I open my eyes, the
children of the village, the swimmers, my fellow diners, all cease to
exist. Reality is somewhat greyer, less populated. Reality is me,
alone. The world of a teacher and would-be writer.

I have no desk, just an easy chair surrounded by many years of
accumulated crap. Mainly lesson notes, and that's a big lie because
lesson notes are what meticulous teachers have, and what you have,
boy-o (speaking to myself), are strudles of texts you don't read but
can't do without, and overheads galore that should be systematically
ordered but end up loose in little plastic jackets. Sort of in piles.
Towers of Pisa, leaning, unstable, dust-covered. One complete with
stapler, one with a 'Stable Table' (for dinner on the knees), topped by
cordless phone and transistor radio. And a half consumed box of Baklava
which I insist on calling Balaclava. The piles are cunning: they have
eaten my tv remote, and I have been locked into one channel for weeks.
At least I have seen some footy.

These piles will be sorted. Soon. I'd guess next weekend, except I've
learn that weekends fly up their own backsides and vanish as soon as
they start. Rubbish expands to fill the space it's in. My shed, my car
and the bookshelves are eternal proof. There's a corollary: you tidy
the rubbish, sort it, throw big black garbage bags of it out, and it
still fills the same space. Proof that clean-ups are a waste of
time.

I would actually save time if I put it in some sort of order. Each
week, I dig from one end of the piles to the other to find the
resources I need. But I don't find them. I find the ones I wanted, but
didn't find, last week, So I give up, print new masters from the
computer, and reproduce as overheads or handouts, so that next week the
process can start over. Reverse recycling.

Ah: the computer. Laptop. Sitting on my lap. Well duhhrrr I am hardly
typing this in the air am I? When it starts burning my testicles I know
it's overheating, and I reach between piles and pull the power lead out
of the powerboard. Battery power is cool (literally) and my poor little
testes appreciate the break.

The most difficult thing right now is to find a flat stable surface for
my cuppa. There just isn't one. Stable Table is a POW too. I could sit
with the mug in my hand, but wouldn't be able to type, and that's why
I'm here. I perch it on a pile high above the powerboard, and tell
myself I've never knocked one over. Not yet.

See my big footstool, half for feet-up, half for writing implements,
half to serve as a pending tray, half as a pharmacy. That's four
halves, and it looks it. The latter three halves take turns in falling
to the floor.

In the land under my chair live a family of handkerchiefs that have not
seen the washing machine for, let's be honest, years. (I mean it: side
story: I am waiting for gut pains, or the runs, or both from the
mustard I made from powder today. I didn't read the use by June 1997
sign until its vile bitter taste almost choked me). There is also food
under the chair (I think) and definitely plastic bags. The food
(slimming things like chocolate) comes in the bags, and they get left
over for filling with crap to go out with the rubbish. The cockroaches
don't know they are there, but in case I am wrong, there are cockie
baits under there somewhere too. Next year I may look. In 'now' time my
writing is getting longer as you can see. Longer is good. This is a
very good churn day.

The guided tour is almost complete. There's a big cane hamper thing on
my right, bristling with more pending stuff. Also lots of coins,
overflowing a small plastic container. All the big value coins get
skimmed from the top, so you have to dive through the top ones to find
them underneath. This flicks coins down the hole between the hamper
thing and the bags that surround it. Could move the bags but don't.
Betcha there's squillions there for a rainy day. The area between the
front seats of my car is its only rival as a coin repository.

Ah yes, and there's the bag behind the seat - totally inaccessible.
Could contain a treasure. Or anything. Add in seven huge bookcases,
leaning impossibly inward like shops in Old Rotterdam. Then I spy two
large hillocks: legend has it that there are two desks buried there.
Some days I can almost see their outlines. Last week, there was a
teensy pathway of floor to get in and out. This is now a series of tiny
'stepping places'. No passing, no overtaking.

If I were to cross the room to the sliding door without which we could
have two more bookcases, I would I look down where twelve odd years
ago, a beautiful cottage garden whispered 'buy the house'. All gone,
really. Midas in reverse:Two dogs running like greyhounds turning grass
into dust, and digging up the gardens. The big one eats potting mix for
desert. The small one is an escapologist, a digger of some
talent.

The dogs are sadly not my friends. Actually, I don't have any. Friends
that is. Because all I do is sit here and try to write. No one can find
me. No one wants to. Ah, so what. The dog is not the only escapologist.
Here's the Zambezi flowing past a herd of elephants, and I turn to my
small group of tourists, and say: 'We must be very?.'