All Hail The Planet Of The Cockadoodles

weDnESday tHe 11^th of DeCeMbeR 2015.

PaRt DEux

I’m on a Section 3. That’s possibly a rolling concurrency, six months at a time. I’ve had the same pyjamas on for four weeks. Intruders into my home have put cigarette burns in them. I didn’t even notice. Can’t even remember if I was in or out when it happened. Or in the pyjamas when it happened. Remember one of the first rules of Gangstalking 101: Treat your home as a perp walkway. Luckily, I’ve just been awarded some unescorted home leave time so I can pick up a freshly laundered change of clobber. I’m going in a taxi next week.

(They’re only taking me as an excuse to get into my flat and perform an Occupational Therapy assessment. Am I able to boil an egg? Can I toss a bleedin’ pancake? These are known as executive functions.)

It used to be important about looking the part when pacing up and down the one lengthy claustrophobic corridor on the ward, or ‘Walking the Green Mile’ as we call it. I’ve decided against wearing anything even mildly designer lately. I never had a choice anyway. The retro labels I appreciate from ‘way back when’ aren’t available in my size, or, if so, only online. The affordable fashion that fits is limited to Sports Direct, and it comes mainly in the form of Slazenger™, which is the cheapest of the cheap. A mere £23 for an adult tracksuit. I don’t mind it, I own some actually, but it’s categorised with brands such as Londis™ and Donnay™.

Personally, I would prefer something like Champion™ or Gola™ or Penn™ or Le Coq Sportiff™. I’ll never have Fila™ or Sergio Tacchini™ or Lacoste™. You know the score…“We dreamt of a cardboard box.” There’s always someone better out there though, is what I’ve learned. That’s sweet blessed relief if you’re feeling swollen headed and self-conscious about being the best dressed Devil in the room.

If like me, on the other hand, you’re robed in sweats from the local supermarket, aiming for a look like a Christian in knitwear rather than a gangster with a shooter, or even better the local charity shop, then feel free to ignore the latest vogue traits. Incidentally, the best shorts I ever owned came from a charity shop. Nike basketball efforts. Red or dead. White swoosh on the side.

The food would be great if I wasn’t a veggie. I’m trying to swerve the main mammals we normally consume, because I think they rule in other dimensions, like Caesar in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (2011), except they’re pigs and chickens and cows. I see them in my dreams. They stand up tall on bipedal legs as Generals in fraternal regalia with dock-off heads. They ask me by-the-by questions such as, “When was the last time you saw my brother on a plate?” “Has my brother left a bone in your throat?” and this cracker, which suggests that they have either been to or already reside on our planet (perhaps, even more frightening, we currently reside on theirs), “Have you shat out what remains of my beautiful brother down your porcelain drains lately…drains coated with Mr Muscle gel that costs more than the price of my stun-gunned, skinned, butchered, pan-fried brother? And what’s more, the rest of my family and heritage to boot? Have you, eh, eh, have you shat out my brother down your drains?”

With a bacon sarnie in hand, no apt response exists.

 So yes, ladies and hippopotamuses, I’m avoiding beef, pork and poultry in fear of meeting their ancestors on the Astral plaIn. The clues are in those movies. Don’t the chimps want to enslave humanity? I can’t be wholly sure, but I think I might have witnessed a chimpanzee riding horseback with a machine gun on the cinema poster. Or was that on the Plain? Either way, I’m not eating his brother with tartar sauce and garlic mushrooms. Or anyone else to do with him for that matter. Not even with condiments far more appealing than tartar sauce and garlic mushrooms, such as salt ‘n’ pepper this that and the other. The same goes for Man’s best friend in China, in case I ever go there, and in case they ever make a movie about it. All Astride The Planet Of The Canines, or something. No, mademoiselle, from now on, I’m sticking to roasted vegetables in a baking tray at 200ᵒC, softened with Olive oil and seasoned with enough spices to make the Colonel jealous. Nothing more.

ENDS