Psychic SatNav

Yesterday pulling out of the layby I felt the grin spread wide across my face as I chuckled away. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mr S quietly shaking his head in disbelief, which of course made me laugh louder…

I don’t know how you did that? I didn’t answer and thought back to our conversation the day before or maybe the day before that? I don’t know… Time is hard to keep track of these days, it feels to bend and contract at will placing me where I need to be one way or another… I thought back to Mr S standing next to my desk. My empty clean desk that had somehow stood in stasis and remained cat and clutter free for maybe a week, maybe a little more… Prior to that it had been some monstrous jenga pile of things to do that grew on a daily basis taking over more and more of the room, rendering me immobile and trapped by overwhelm, not knowing where to begin, until eventually I galvanised into taking a stand and taming my chaos. My S says he doesn’t mind my mayhem, he doesn’t see it as messy or dirty or untidy but as strangely comforting to be surrounded by what he refers to as intellectual clutter. This always kind of surprises me but I figure that he’s mostly OK with it because it doesn’t overspill into the square footage of what he considers to be his space in the room. Maybe if I stacked high piles where he stretches his legs out then he’d be more disconcerted…

Anyway… The desk was abnormally clean and clear… He stood by it, hand on hip, frown on face. Hmmpf! I don’t think I even know you anymore! I’ve spent all week waiting to see what you’re up to and nothing! Nothing is happening! I don’t know… You used to do things! Now, you don’t draw, you don’t paint, you don’t write, you don’t even do tarot… You only do what normal people do.

I resisted the urge to laugh at the idea of being a normal person. Every person who I’ve ever met, who professed to be normal, has been a hodge podge pick ‘n’ mix of all kinds of almost unimaginable madness… I resisted the urge to correct him on the doing nothing front. I’ve been doing things… But he hasn’t seen them and because he hasn’t seen me doing them then obviously they didn’t happen. This is the reason I only shower or clean my teeth when his lordship is out of the house. He insists I haven’t washed since the early 90’s. In the early 90’s I would insist that I had washed and stand there puzzled as he would ask when did that happen? At some point I stopped answering and would instead mumble Does the Great Wall of China exist? Hmm? Hmm? You haven’t seen it so obviously it doesn’t… Then he’d mumble away and we’d volley back and forth with mumbles of fuckwit! No, you’re a fuckwit! You’re a fuckwit! You’re childish! No you’re childish, you’re a babba! Until one of us eventually tired of our game or got distracted or hungry. The question What’s for dinner? (or fancy a shag?) tends to terminate 99% of arguments… Instead I cut him short and told him Yes you’re right! I don’t do anything anymore. I quit! OK! I QUIT! No more art, no more writing, no more tarot, MAGIC NO MORE!

Back to the layby… Driving through the arse end of the middle of nowhere, I was cheerfully ignoring Mr S’s comments that I drive like a rally driver (it is best to ignore them as when I thank him for the compliment he likes to explain that no compliment was intended and he meant that I drive too fast and then I have to tell him that no I don’t drive too fast, in fact I’m driving slower than usual for his benefit as he only ever drives diggers and tractors and anything over 20mph feels like warp speed to him. I’m doing a sedate 60 which to me feels like a dawdle… Blah blah blah you’re a babba! No YOU’RE the babba! Blah blah de blah fuckity blah!) The skies are clear and bluest of blues, the fields wide and open, rolling out green to the horizon. I notice a layby and laugh as I recognise the parked up Gypsy caravan. Well fuck me! It’s a friend who I met up with a week ago after months and months of trying to circumvent lockdown restrictions and navigate crossing paths… I spy a dirt track to the left just after the layby and spin in and around to go back and knock knock my nomadic neighbour. She’s surprised and happy to see us. We don’t stay long as I’m not really a drop by unannounced kind of person though in this case it felt as though it would have been kind of rude to just have tootled on by…

Driving on with the layby and the gypsy caravan turning into diminishing dots in my rear view mirror, I still chuckle away to myself Hey Marko! That was pretty cool don’t you think? He fixes me with his steely blue eye So… You quit? So what kind of magic was that? How did that get weaved? I wink my green eye at him Oh no! That’s not magic! It’s much more simple than that! He asks me what I mean and I fail to hold back my smirk as I tell him All roads lead to Roma!