The little things of life

Some things stay in the mind because they seem like something which should be found lurking in a novel as a particularly telling apercu where the reader will say to himself, “My God, yes, that’s it!”

A past colleague of mine seemed to attract unfortunate events as if fragments of misery were magnetically drawn to his steely negativity. Incident would pile up on incident in a ridiculously unrealistic rickety tower of misfortune wobbling perilously on foundations of risible unhappiness. His weary sadness (invariably wreathed in pungent cigarette smoke) should have attracted a vast quantity of heartfelt sympathy from his acquaintances and especially his friends but compassion fatigue had become the default response and sometimes it was hard to suppress a smile. This was not out of callous disregard for his situation, but rather because it was all too easy to look on his life as one out of a rather overwritten sensationalist short story.

One time when, as usual, his personal life; family life; professional life and simple casual living all seemed to be in the usual state of chaos, he came back to my flat for a drink and a chat. It was one of those times when the function of a friend is really just to sit there, refill the glass and listen. He was by no means stupid, so most of the ‘solutions’ to his impossible situations would have occurred to him, my function was to give him the opportunity to speak. And speak he did. His misery was palpable and of that sort of overwhelming negativity that would have made virtually any positive remark on my part crass and inappropriate.

After listing his current series of miseries he said that he almost felt submerged by their quantity and complexity and the lowest point in his response had been a day previously when he, like many before him, had taken refuge in the one place where a sense of quiet fortitude can be achieved: the loo. He being him, his evacuation was accompanied by a meditative and consoling ciggie and he felt better at the end of his time on the seat. And then he pulled the chain.

“I flushed,” he said, “and one turd didn’t go. So I waited until the cistern was full and flushed again and still it didn’t go. And I almost started crying. Because it was the last straw.”

As an example of the pathetic fallacy it’s almost perfect; distasteful, but perfect. It’s that final embarrassing detail which is simply not acceptable, because it forces itself on your attention as a perfect metaphor for your life. Well, his life at that time anyway. The image has always stayed with me because of the perfect exasperation that my colleague used when describing this low point. I’m still waiting for the moment in my first novel at which this image will be the mot (or phrase) juste!

I was reminded about this little moment of everyday life when I was looking for something to have for lunch. As we have not been to our local market for organic fresh produce, I was forced to delve into the recesses of the freezer in the hope that I had salted away some interesting morsel that I had forgotten about.

The freezer in the kitchen has little mystery, but what is lurking in the freezer in the porch, God alone knows. So it was with trepidation, yet anticipation that I decided to navigate the lower depths of this frozen cornucopia. The second freezer is tastefully hidden away behind a wooden door which is rarely opened. When it was opened today I discovered that the freezer door had been left slightly ajar and the machine had tried to freeze the surrounding atmosphere, with the result that extruded wedges of ice poked out from the sides of the door. Chunks of ice had filled up the spaces in the baskets and I idly wondered just how much electricity had been wasted on the Sisyphean attempt of this brave little piece of electrical equipment to solidify the interior of the porch!

This, like floating excrement, is the stuff of ‘the final straw’. From past experience I know how superfluous ice can have the same consistency as high tensile steel when you try and cut through it and its tenacity when sticking to the metal surfaces of a freezer makes superglue look like Pritt (a particular teacher-like simile there!) I have wasted many hours sitting patiently outside a freezer compartment with a bowl of hot water and eventually succumbing to frustration and attacking the ice with a knife.

Unlike my ex-colleague, things did work out and the extraneous ice broke off with alacrity, almost as if I was clearing the frozen stuff by tearing along the perforated lines of weakness; ice fell away almost in response to intention rather than full frontal attack. As disasters go this one was cleared up in double quick time.

The turd, as it were, flushed first go!

Now for the rest of life to follow.

Please.