The Aftermath

On a road near a railway there is a house. A house with a shiny white door, opposite a church of roughly the same description, on a road that leads to a 24hour tescos, several charity bookshops, an iceland, and numerous fried chicken take-aways. Apart from the shiny white door, there is little within the house that still manages to look new and shiny and at all presentable. The two giant cookers are still quite new, and impressively operational, but they no longer look it. Everything in the house is old and worn, and repaired and rebroken many times over. It is a gloriously lived in place.

In the kitchen is a dramatically yet off-handedly balanced pile of washing up, the output of a well-eaten cooked breakfast. Tesco value baked beans (9p per can), Tesco value sausages (79p for 20), bacon, eggs, salami, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast... Someone even ate some of the bombay mix leftover from last night. The floor is still sticky from spilled drink, and especially so by the cupboard where the bin bag split from the night's empty beer cans. There are a few pages of the Yellow Pages floating around.

If you follow the yellow page trail (follow follow follow follow follow the yellow page trail), you will pass a matress with a thin blanket, just next to the fridge, upon which various bits of dessicated coconut can be found. Past this there is a failed Yellow Page paper aeroplane, and a paper boat, and two of those origami fortune telling children's games. The rest of that illustrious reference directory is spread out in pages accross the living room floor, and various pages can be seen poking out the back of the sofa. 5 stained glass window specialists. A whole page of indian restaurants. Mortgage specialists. Church suppliers. It started the evening in a box on top of the fridge, and several pieces still hang from there. It is impossible to decide if the effect is more cosy nest, or leans closer towards hamster cage bedding.

Head out the backdoor, watch the broken glass, walk around the side of the house, be careful not to trip up over the discarded suitcase. There are three defunct refrigerators, some less than vertical. They may be awaiting collection, they may have been disregarded, it may be a task being passed around. Irregular blocks of concrete balance precariously amidst builders' furniture rubble. Crawler plant ivy strangles the rest of the paved garden, bushing up to chest height in places. Progress carefully, keeping your mind alert for seesaw terrain, but walk forward to the white ashes and blacker embers as yet undoused in the little cleared space. Apparently the garden is less strangled this morning than it was last night. Two resentful karate training axes lie in neglect at the edge of the clearing.

Back inside in the hallway there is an arrangement of electrical tape thrown carelessly to the floor. Fluff from clothing, as well as bark from a tree, are still attached to the clump. It's difficult to tell, but it might be a little singed at the edges as well. Someone got taped to a tree last night, and then mutilated the whole by ripping free. It is easy to see the gothic pierced boy walking around all night with a pair of angry twisted tape fairy wings in some drink resistant mind's eye. Walk up the stairs, feel the matted red carpet like felt beneath your matted white sports socks. The top step gives a little, and there's a gorilla suit lying casually to the right on the landing, halfway through a doorway.

Carry on down the hallway. The toilet door doesn't shut properly unless you make sure the string to turn on the light isn't trapped in the doorframe. The bath needs cleaning, and there's no toilet roll left amongst numerous cardboard cylinders of finished rolls. There are some dated gadget magazines and a copy of an anthology of The Far Side, though.

Return to the gorilla suit, walk through the door. On the wall are two empty nailed slots, and just above that rests a samurai sword, or at least a training one, along with some other weapons recognised only from the movies. To the side is a metal armour breastplate, and next to that a piece of discworld related art. There is some red wax splashed down another wall, and next to it a crooked wall candelabra with two half-burnt red candles in, although there are placings for three. The samurai sword looks felonious.

In a small few square inches of the floor there is also a large square white candle with three wicks, long since gone out, crammed in amongst the debris of broken plastic cups, more spilled drink, and roll-up papers. The rest of the floor is covered in large thick pieces of industrial foam, with a mismatched variety of blankets thrown over them. Interspersed upon these are sleeping people, some between the foam and blankets, and some who never bothered with that extra bit of effort. If you look carefully at the people, and most specifically at their forearms, you'd see burn marks on some of them. Little fine dark red dots and lines littered from the wrist to the elbow. Somebody's key has a slightly altered electronic structure this morning, and a now misplaced Lightening Ball got good use well into the morning. At least someone remembered to turn off the Fibre Spray. These people have missed breakfast, but their priorities are appealing.

There are many other rooms in this house; indeed, there is an entire other floor. The urge to have a quiet explore whilst the house languors is strong, but instead you go and find a rake to start clearing up the Yellow Pages as part of your contribution to your friend's cleaning offensive. There'll be other oppurtunities.