Where the Indigo Melts

Having established my team support of great Australian poetry in the previous post I thought I might give this one the chance to undo it. My summer purge of old an unread paper turned up a lot of beige pages of attempted poetry. The only one I thought I'd save to at least type out properly was this short story from Grade 12, the year The Monsoons is set and the year the previous post talked about. I handed this in as an English assignment, partly as a pisstake but partly because I wanted to plead the cause of writers we weren't studying like William Burroughs, Kurt Vonnegut and Anthony Burgess. Mr Kneipp laughed in his hip to be square way, and got it completely wrong by saying it was like something out of Mad Magazine. It was ABSURDIST! Alright, my sister gave me that term but I knew what it meant. Anyway ....

I've corrected a very little punctuation where it might have misled and some spelling which might, even at my ethereal height, have embarrassed me. So .... (Oh, by the way, the scrawl in the column is a sign of the times, it's the address of a party and I think even I remember whose it was.)

Where the Indigo Melts

"Hello!" shouted James T. Eggyolk to the crisp blue policeman beside him. Well, that was his job (someone had to do it) and he did it well. The policeman sighed and picked out five soiled notes.

"Thanks," smile the policeman wearily and handed the notes to James. "James," he said shyly.

"Yes?"

"Would you ... I mean, after all, I've got nobody to love after my kids went on strike and..."

James frowned a little. He knew what was coming. No cop needed what he wanted and if James Eggyolk was going to do it he would make the cop suffer.

"Double the price," he said firmly.

"James!" pleaded the cop. But James was a hard man and, striking kids or no, he was going to get double the price.

The cop broke down. "Alright," he sobbed, "alright. You'll get your pound of flesh." The cop hastily fumbled in his pockets and threw ten soiled notes  at him. Satisfied, James shouted, "Hello again!" and quickly walked away from the suffering policeman and down the street.

Seeing someone he didn't like the look of James smashed him against a brick wall. "So what if my name's Eggyolk!" he screamed at the bewildered  prime minister. "It's not my fault!" He released the prime minister, who had started sneezing, and went on his way.

"Life's not meant to be easy," said a dog telepathically. James, who hated smart dogs, frowned and kicked it in the ribs.

Already he was home. He shuffled in and shuffled sourly up the slimy stairs, singing songs of stupidity in a sleepy voice. "Number seventeen," scowled the door blankly. James told it to shut up and pounded it open.

His flat was kept nicely neat in a natural way. Everything was where it should be and no mistake there was. Corned Beef, his pet aardvark, was trying to sing. James grinned for awhile but, bored by this, became very serious indeed. "One day," he frowned, "you're going to sing Blue Suede Shoes in Spanish." Corned  Beef looked back in shame and hid his hairy hog eyes with his broken tennis racquet.

James shook his head. "Something's got to give," he sighed and sulkily removed his coat. If Corned Beef couldn't sing in two week there would be no life left to live. It was a fact he had to face and his revolver was always ready.

Yes, life was boring for James Tomato Eggyolk, and he was the first to admit it. He was bored with saying hello to policemen for money. He paid his nightly visit to the refrigerator and all that was there was a rotten lettuce with its yellow leaves grinning at him.

Furious, he threw it out the window whence it fell into the mouth of a large grey criminal. "I didn't do it, honest!" screamed the criminal through his newly acquired rotten lettuce and scurried swiftly away.

The aardvark tried to say, "what's the matter," but it came out as, "rrrrrrrrg!" James laughed loudly but it turned into a silent and sarcastic smirk as he read the words, "dream your sleep to self," behind his eyes. But he could not. Sleep, that is.

It always reminded him of the cat. "Meow," the cat had said, waiting for milk, but, having no milk, James gave it a bullet instead. Right between the eyes but the cat liked it and came back for some more.

"Dream you sleep to self," read the sign behind his eyes and James, for the first time since he knew he was born, slept. It was very dark inside his skull for awhile. Then, all of a sudden, he saw an angel. The type that never die but just fade away.

"Hey, you," snarled the angel. "Yeah you! Your purpose in life is to say hello to policemen and if you don't like it -- tough!"

"Get lost!" said James.

"Oh no!" screamed the ethereal figure. " You don't get rid of me like that. And anyway I'm going to tell you my grievances."

This was getting boring so James pushed the dream out of his eyes and awoke. It was morning. Corned Beef woke him by scratching his arm lightly.

He crashed out of bed still in his smart new suit and screamed tearfully, "this is useless. You're never going to sing . Something had to give."

And it did. He raced to the cupboard, snatched his revolver and ran down, down, down to the street where a small red statue said, "telephone." He ran in, called the police department and shouted, "Hello! Pay me by mail!" He then raised the pistol to his heart and pulled the trigger.

Click!

It was empty. For the first time in his happy existence he cried.