Robert Garnham – Page 7 – Robert Garnham

Torquay 2, The Other Team 2 – A Poem About Torquay United FC

Torquay, 2 – The Other Team, 2

Three hundred or so low guttural individual voices
Combine into a cohesive whole, a chorus of
Feral anticipation as these custard coloured titans
Skip on to the pitch, the first among them kind of
Punches limply through a paper hoop
Emblazoned with their team sponsor’s logo,
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost,
Three half-hearted palm slaps and then the paper gives way,
These athletic specimens of masculinity and matching socks,
Shiny blue polyester shorts a-gleam under the spotlights,
Back slaps and star jumps, half-hearted jogging,
While the opposing team, who must have had an
Awfully long bus ride, kind of slouch on to the field,
Mooching along the sides of the pitch like slugs around lettuce.

I’d brought a book to read assuming there would be seats.
Instead I was pressed up against the lanky frame of an
Ever so friendly thought unusually potty-mouthed
Scrote of a lad whose replica custard coloured shirt
Had last year’s sponsor, McClintock’s Polystyrene Coving Ltd.,
And who suggested at top column that the home team
Might like to consider breaking the fucking legs of the opposition.
Someone then tried to start a chant going,
‘Oh we do like to beat them beside the seaside!
We’re gonna beat you by two or three!’
But it kind of got drowned out
To a chant of ‘Put them all in intensive care!
Put them all in intensive care!
Put them all in intensive care!
Captain Ollie’s got great hair!’

I have come with a friend who’s there for the football
But also to show me the football and he
Made a kind of grimace when I said I’d brought a book.
The home team did some warm up exercises.
‘They’re dancing!’ I said, ‘it’s all a bit camp, isn’t it?’
Number 32 is just my type, bleach blond hair, stubble,
Long legs and snake hips.
‘Coooo-eeeee! Over here! Yoooo-hooooo!’
My pal said, ‘He’s on loan from Bournemouth’.
I said, ‘That’s okay, I’d give him back in one piece’.

The stadium announcer extols the virtues of both teams
And attests to the veracity of
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost,
And the game begins, number 32’s elegant fingers splayed
As he dribbles the ball, like he’s a ballet dancer,
Or a gymnast balancing on a beam, though even
The home team audience yells that he’s a useless
Time wasting tossbag who gets the ball and does fuck all,
Go back to Bournemouth you useless waste of space.
He’s got lovely eyes.

The ground rumbles and thuds as they race from one end
To the other, kicking up clods of grass and winning
The applause of the audience who shout encouragement,
These lads in custard who aim at the goal at the other end,
Someone misses a sitter, someone else scuffs it,
And then the ball goes in the corner and two opposing players
Prance and dance around it like Torville and Dean.
My eyes kind of wander off to the other side
Where twenty or so or the away team supporters chirrup
And you can just make out the faded lettering of
Last years sponsor showing through under a new coat of paint,
McClintock’s Polystyrene Coving Ltd. Is Better Than Any Competition.
Only the word ‘tit’ is still showing.

My pal has already told me in advance
The skill of number 10, whose speciality is
Less the sublime and precocious nature of his craft,
More his knack for falling over at just the right moment,
Now he goes down like a sack of spuds and the
Audience erupts, apparently this is a good thing,
He’s allowed to aim a ball at the keeper and boom,
In it goes, I almost spill my cup of tea
As I’m jostled and the lad next to me flings
His arms around my neck, jumps up and down, the
Tea oscillates as I breathe in his Lynx Africa antiperspirant,
I must say I enjoy it a lot.
And now I want number 10 to fall over again.

Wouldn’t you know it, he does, never fails to disappoint,
Fortune smiles twice in the low setting sun,
Achilles in his death throes, Icarus mid melt,
Our hero is downfallen and rolling in the mud like a hippo,
The ref’s cheek bones inflate as his blows his whistle.
Boom, scores! The audience is enraptured once again,
Another clingy embrace of Lynx Africa,
I’m a cuppa carrying eucalyptus and he’s my own personal koala,
Number 32 looks down wistfully as if jealous, I hope,
Oh, I hope, of me and my new found tame delinquent
Who sips a surreptitious beer from a paper bag and
Chinks against my half spilled Darjeeling, cheers!
Caught up in the joy of the moment I attempt to start a chant
Based on the third movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
But it doesn’t take hold.

Really, I’m only here for my pal who’s brought me along.
This is his culture and I’m an interloper.
But I want to show that I understand life
Beyond the cliche, broaden my mind and experience
Every nuance of our shared cultural history.
‘We’re winning ‘, he says during the interval
As we queue for pies sold from a shed
Next to the unoccupied press box.
‘Well, they are’, I point out, ‘We’re just watching’.
I’m taking him to a drag show next weekend.

And then the announcer wants us all to sing happy birthday
For Little Liam, whose favourite player is number ten.
And Little Jimmy, whose favourite player is number ten,
And Little Jack, whose favourite player is number ten,
And he reminds us that we can all vote for the
J. Arthur Bowyer’s Synchro-Boost Houseplant Compost
Man of the Match, which is usually won by number ten.
‘I’d like to vote for number 32’, I say, perhaps too loudly,
And everyone around me laughs and says how funny,
They love my sense of irony.

Two more goals soon after the interval.
Perhaps the audience has tired itself out,
I’m the only one who seems excited, and my new friend
In the McClintock shirt hardly seems inclined at all
To repeat his usual celebratory hijinx, no doubt
Enervated by his enthusiasm and the two litre bottle of cider
Stuffed down the front of his trackie bottoms,
And when the ref calls a halt to the show I pat
My pal on the back and ask whether four nil in some kind
Of club record.
It was two all, he says, they switched ends.
They did what?
Why didn’t the announcer explain this
Before I got excited over nothing?

Oh, this communal kickabout, this colossal crowd clapping
This unified oneness this matey definitely not homoerotic bonding,
This celebration of the hunter’s skill this
All-encompassing rough and tumble this slippery sport a spurt on the turf
With spurious curiosities this worship of the physical
This proof of prayer this spectacle this weird excuse
To suddenly bellow ‘Nice tackle!’ and no one bats an eyelid
This playing out of certain urges but would they ever let me
Join in? No, probably not, and number ten has got mud all over him.

What did you think?, my pal asks
As we file like clocked-off factory workers
Into the adjacent streets, not that he’s interested really,
Immediately he then adds, shall we get some chips?

I think of number 32
Isolated
In the dressing room.

Cul-de-sac : A Poem

Cul-de-sac

No sense of closure from that dream last night.
You were back and dancing sublime and you said
That those who live in cul-de-sac places
Feel nothing but anger when the dreams refuse to come.

You would never have been so philosophical in real life,
Though we both lived in dead-end places,
Cul-de-sacs leading nowhere and bungalows of derision.
There’s no place to go when there’s only one way in.

I’d like to be more adventurous and
I'd like to take chance.
I’d like to live, but just being with you
Was adventure enough, and you said that you needed more
Than love and security, and that defined our difference.

Only the one way in, and one way out, and you felt
Hidden away from the world, and your dreams were on a
Larger canvas, a widescreen for the soul,
You said my focus was too narrow, that I was

Easily satisfied with the status quo, which is to say,
The comforts of a life hidden from potential harm.
And yet I’d dream the same dreams as any damn fool,
And I’d write them in a notebook, closure or not.

And now those very same dreams exclude a man
Who never sought finality. I look out at my cul-de-sac,
Hidden off from the main road where dreams often die,
Narratives which end far too neatly for my tastes.

Just for a minute I’d like to fall asleep and dream
Of neat resolutions, and maybe from time to time,
You’ll pop up and say hello, and wave, and we’ll be
Ever so cosy in our cul-de-sac, with the world calling,
But we won’t answer, and we’ll both be laughing.

No sense of closure from that dream last night.
No sense of closure from that dream last night.

‘Roswell was an Insurance Job’ : A Message from a Space Alien for the Human Race



Greetings puny earth people.
I come in peace.
Take me to you leader!
Actually, maybe not,
I’ve seen him in action.
Take me to the most
Significant person,
According to your Earth transmissions
Take me to Rylan!

I am Zignor,
Of the planet Pupaluvious 5,
Which orbits a star
Which until recently was called
PUV 621R
But
Thanks to someone on your planet
Buying its name as a fiftieth birthday present
It’s now called
Barry Jenkins.
All hail Barry Jenkins!
May death come quickly to his enemies.

I arrived just after lunch
And I shall now attempt
What appears to be your common greeting
As it was the first thing said to me
When I arrived.
‘You can’t park that there, mate’.

I have come to spread a
Message of peace
And if anyone says I haven’t then I’ll
Punch their lights out.
I saw your planet from
Across the vast emptiness of space
While lying in a field on Pupaluvious 5
And my first thought was,
Oh, I’d love to go there
And my second thought was
Someone’s nicked my tent.

Pupaluvious 5 has eight moons.
You’ve only got the one.
Half of it was in shade tonight.
I suppose
It’s just a phase it’s going through.

Your puny planet is
Ripe for alien invasion.
We just don’t want to.
It’s a sleepy backwater
With terrible parking.
It’s kind of the solar system’s equivalent to
Newton Abbot.
And every time we visit
We feel we have to have a damn good shower.
As I say,
It’s the solar system’s equivalent to
Newton Abbot.
It smells a bit.
Newton Abbot.

I suppose on your planet
I’m known as an ET.
Oh look, I heard someone say just now,
An ET.
Someone else said,
What’s ET short for?
And he replied,
Because he’s got little legs.

I offered to take him
To see Jupiter.
He replied that if he wanted
To see a gas filled giant,
We’d visit his Uncle Darren.

But here I am,
I come in peace.
Here I am
Don’t call the police.
I’ve travelled far
In an interdimensional zone
On a spaceship made for one
I was very alone
I tried telepathy on Donald Trump.
All I got was
The engaged tone.

I leave you now, my interstellar friends.
Once again, sorry about those
EarthLink satellites I hit on the way down.
Roswell was an insurance job.
Let me finish with this saying
From my home world,
‘Flooga zappy looppa-looga’,
Which roughly translate as
‘Geoff, your
Tentacles are showing’.
Doreen,
Beam me up, Doreen!

Yo-Yo : Ruminations of an Accidental Poet – Collected Essays

Yo-Yo: Ruminations of an Accidental Poet, published by Puddlehopper, is now available to purchase! Telling stories from fifteen years as a performance poet. Festivals, fringes, fleeting appearances on TV, filming, faffing around with props, flopping at slams, it has it all! Essays from Write Out Loud, Chortle, Litro Magazine and and Torquay Museum’s lecture series, and some written specifically for this collection. Plus one new poem! Details on how to order this book will be revealed shortly.

Here’s the blurb:

In 2008 Robert Garnham thought he’d give performance poetry a try, having never heard of it before. What followed was to be fifteen years of crazy poetry adventures in all sorts of different venues. These collected essays describe, with humour and warmth, gigs in every part of the UK (and further afield), shenanigans at music festivals, angst at the Edinburgh Fringe and every conceivable type of poetic misadventure.

‘As Robert Garnham has been a huge influence on me as a comedy spoken word artist, I read this collection of essays with great anticipation. It didn’t disappoint! A wonderfully entertaining read’. (CLIVE OSEMAN).

You can order the book from this link:

https://robertgarnham.bigcartel.com/product/yo-yo-ruminations-of-an-accidental-poet

Bouncer

Robert has the chance to be on prime time TV! What could possibly go wrong? A comedy poetry show about not becoming famous.

Join performance poet Robert Garnham for his new solo show, Bouncer. When Robert is asked to perform on the UK’s biggest TV talent show, he dreams of fame and fortune and never having to leaflet in Edinburgh again! But of course, these things never go the way you want them to go . . . An hour of storytelling, poetry and comedy about fame, and hope, and dreaming.

‘Playful, warm . . Funny and always surprising’. (Write Out Loud)

‘Wise’. (Word NYC).

‘Clever and entertaining’. (Barnstaple Theatrefest).

‘There’s warmth in his whimsy, it’s sturdy not flimsy’. (Matt Harvey)

‘Witticism, wordplay and wistful romanticism’. (Dandy Darkly)

On a cold, January evening, I caught a train from Devon to London. I was looking for some sense of magic in the air, a barely-perceptible tingle as if fortune were tickling my conscience and smoothing the way to a stardust future. But the train was cold, and dinner was a chicken tikka pasty I’d bought from the convenience store next to the station.

The countryside was hidden in darkness. Beyond the reflection of my own face I could make out tiny villages, clusters of lights in the middle of nowhere, lonely cow barns lit up against the frost, and I thought, do any of these people also dream of everlasting fame?

If you enjoy this video, feel free to pop something into my tip jar: https://ko-fi.com/robertgarnham

Bouncer

If you would like to see a short documentary / video diary about the process to learn Bouncer, this can be found here:

Rekkuds

This is a poem about a man who’s obsessed with his record collection. Taped live at Exeter’s Taking the Mic, November 2023. I hope you like it.

Rekkuds

Rekkuds

I like my rekkuds
I’ve got one or two
Playing my rekkuds
Is something I do.

They’re mostly jazz,
The rekkuds I play.
Whenever I listen
The world melts away.

I went to the rekkud shop and I said to the chap in there, I said,
I thought you liked jazz?, and he said, I do like jazz,
And I said, if you like jazz so much,
Then how come you ain’t bought any of these rekkuds?

I like my rekkuds.
33 rpm
I go home at night
I’m surrounded by them.

I went to this party and this bloke says to me, got any
Kylie Minogue?
I said, bugger off with your Kylie Minogue.

I like my rekkuds.
They’re mostly jazz.
I play them loud
So I can hear them
When I’m having a wazz.

I went to the hardware shop the other day and I bought a bucket,
Just a plain ordinary bucket, and when I paid for it,
The bloke behind the counter looked at my bucket
And he said, ‘Enjoy’.
How the bloody g hell am I meant to enjoy a bucket?

I like my rekkuds.
Of that I’m quite certain.
I play Frank Sinatra in the shower.
I face the vinyl curtain.

I saw a friend of mine, I asked him what job he had now,
He said, beefeater. He meant the restaurant but I said, oh,
You mean the Tower of Lunnon? Nobody laughed.
Why didn’t you laugh, I asked my mates, you miserable lot.
They said,
We would have done, if we’d have known it was funny.

I like my rekkuds.
I left a Thelonious Monk rekkud in the car.
Someone broke in
And added two more.

I treat my body like it’s a temple.
Shame it’s been
Converted into a Wetherspoons.

I like my rekkuds.
I like this poem.
I’ve made it to the end, for once.
Must be some kind of
Rekkud.

An Unexpected Phone Call – An extract from my show, ‘Bouncer’.

Hello, here’s a three minute section from my show Bouncer, which will be available to view online from November 1st. I hope you enjoy this!

An Unexpected Phone Call – An Extract from ‘Bouncer’, by Robert Garnham

You can see the show trailer here

Tractors. A poem.

Poem

It’s not the countryside, he protested.
Just an enclave of the city.
The actual city. London, he said,
Like I had to be reminded which city.
It might look green but we got that
Big city vibe going on,
Urban infrastructure, neon, Oyster cards.
What about all the tractors?, I asked.
What tractors?, he said.
And at that moment, a tractor chugged past.

That’s highly unusual, he said.
We don’t often get tractors here,
Because this is the city.
I’m as shocked as you are.
Chug chug chug chug chug went
Another passing tractor.
There goes another tractor, I said.
I didn’t see one.
Are you sure it wasn’t a double decker bus?
And then another tractor chugged past.

It’s the pulsing throb of metropolitan energy I like,
He said,
Looking wistfully at a cow shed.
And a tractor chugged past.
You can even see Canary Wharf
If you go on the roof
And then climb into a hot air balloon
And go up and bring a telescope.
It’s right there, Canary Wharf,
That’s how urban this place is.
That thatched roof gets a bit slippery if it’s
Been raining.
And then another tractor chugged past.

The traffic is so bad, he said.
The other day I ordered a pizza.
The Deliveroo cyclist took nine hours.
He had to sleep on my sofa.
His big Deliveroo box frightened the hens.
Hens?, I said.
City hens, he said.
And then another tractor chugged past.

I thought to myself,
(Because you can’t think to other people),
I thought to myself,
I’ll let him enjoy his delusion,
For geographically he may be nearer Yeovil,
But at heart he’s a city boy
And he’s got that city life
And he’s got that city buzz
And sure, he swears blind that the sign on the bus stop
Which reads Farmers Market Every Tuesday
Is actually graffiti in rhyming slang for
Darren Is A Tosser
In a new kind of rhyming slang
That’s so modern that it
Doesn’t even rhyme,
But he’s a city boy.

And then another tractor chugged past.
And another tractor chugged past.
And then two tractors chugged past.
And then a combine harvester chugged past.
And then a tractor chugged past.
And I asked,
What’s with all these tractors?
And he said,
I don’t know, it’s weird, isn’t it?
Let’s go and make out in the turnip field.

Zach – A Poem from my show ‘Bouncer’

Hello,

Here’s a poem from my show, ‘Bouncer’. It’s about identity, and not feeling like you fit in, and not being called Zach.

I hope you like it.

On How I Became a Clown

On how I became a clown.

I suppose I've always been a little bit clumsy. Affecting a demeanour each day of professional detachment, a manner almost sullen were it not for those moments in which human discourse were necessary, affecting an amiability, an openness, an expression of eager understanding and a willingness to compromise, only to have my belt suffer a sudden and catastrophic malfunction and my trousers fall around my ankles. A hand outstretched for a businesslike greeting, a shoe accidentally scraped against the skirting board, a sudden lurch sideways into a pot plant. Oh, I do apologise! And then later on, noticing the skirting boards around my office marked and scuffed by the numerous other times that I have stumbled.
Hey, hey, your flies are undone. Again.
And due to my body shape, I concede that my trousers have always been a little bit baggy.

The trill of the alarm clock had interrupted a dream in which I was trying to get a giraffe to go up the stairs of a double decker bus. The giraffe had been stubborn and no amount of tugging or enticing could tempt it up to the first floor, and once underway, it got wedged firmly, its fat buttocks blocking the stairwell, much to the consternation of my fellow passengers. It's the usual recurring anxiety dream. The long neck of the giraffe allowed it to peer up to the top deck, grinning like a bastard, while I pushed and shoved and swore from behind. Buzz buzz buzz buzz! I got up, showered, shaved, made some toast and pondered in the coming day, only to glance at my watch and discover that it was four in the morning. And then I recalled that the trill of the alarm clock had been a part of the dream. For the giraffe and I had been returning from a trip to the shops where we had purchased an alarm clock.
I set to work at my desk, organising various work-related files on my laptop and trying not to think about my giraffe dream. I watched as the sun came up and lit the neighbouring houses a brilliant red, secretly resplendent as it rewarding me and others like me for getting up so early. I stopped for a few moments to look out at the sky, feeling if only for a short while the majesty of the planet in its eternal rotation, this celestial dance of time and fate, when the alarm clock sounded, this time for real. Buzz buzz buzz buzz! Had anyone been with me, no doubt, I would have at least given a smirk or acknowledgement of the humour in this, but as I was on my own, the only emotion I felt was one of deep annoyance. I got up from my desk and I switched the alarm clock off. The only comfort came from the fact that the new trousers I was wearing were significantly roomier than had been my previous pair.

I was never
The class clown.
When I think of this
It gets me down.
The popular kids
Would mess around.
But me?
I wouldn't
Make a sound.

I had a meeting with my boss today. I've written down everything that was said and I've made it into a short theatrical piece, which I call 'Bulbous'.

SANDRA stares at ROBERT from behind her desk.

SANDRA - I suppose you know why I've asked you here.
ROBERT - To be honest, no, I don't.
SANDRA - I've had an official complaint from one of your colleagues.
ROBERT - Oh?
SANDRA - It's about the meeting you chaired yesterday, on Effective Time Management.
ROBERT - Yes, yes, I'm so sorry that it overran.
SANDRA - No, it's not that.
ROBERT - What . . what is it?
SANDRA - (Sighs). Robert, is everything okay at home?
ROBERT - Yes, absolutely.
SANDRA - And you're not drinking heavily, or anything?
ROBERT - No. In fact, I hardly drink at all.
SANDRA - The complaint was actually about your appearance. Did you realise that your flies were undone the whole time?
ROBERT - No, I didn't.
SANDRA - So the message of the meeting, in which you were meant to instil in your colleagues a certain business-oriented professionalism, would probably have been received unquestioningly had you not got your foot stuck in the waste paper bin.
ROBERT - Yes, that was rather unfortunate.
SANDRA - And when you tried to pull it off, you sat on a desk, and the desk . . . Collapsed.
ROBERT - Again, I apologise.
SANDRA - And your nose. You see, Robert, it's becoming awfully red, and bulbous. That's why I asked about the drinking.
ROBERT - As I say, I can only apologise. And I shall make an effort to act from now on in a more businesslike manner.
SANDRA - Thank you, Robert. Please, for me, see that you do.

ROBERT gets up from his chair, shakes SANDRA's hand, then stumbles sideways through a glass partition wall.

Walking home through the silence of the park, I could hear a soft squeak, squeak, squeak with each footstep.

‘I've just had it with clowns’, Josh said. ‘I need a man I can respect’.
We'd met online and he suggested we have a date at that new cream flan and custard pie restaurant that had just opened in the middle of the town. It seemed the sort of place where nothing could go wrong. The seating was comfortable and so was the decor, warm and inviting. We sat at a table for two at the rear of the premises.
‘That is very important to me’, Josh continued. ‘Love, yes. Love is up there. And physicality, of course, but respect. Respect is the most important of them all. It seems to me these days that everyone is a comedian, so you get that sense, too? Where's the depth? It's all artifice, isn't it? It's like we've become avatars, covered in layers of glitz and showy nothingness’.
‘You can depend on me’, I told him. ‘I treat each moment with absolute and utter seriousness’.
‘I just don't know why people feel the need to fool around’, he said, ‘in every sense of the word’.
‘I think people just want to be noticed ’, I reply. ‘That's what's happening in this modern age. We all seem to want to get a kick out of making other people uneasy. The nuance of yesteryear is gone. Subtlety is missing from all of our lives. I blame the internet and social media. People can't even be bothered to wait for the punch line, any more. They want immediate gratification, whether it be sexual or comedic’.
‘I can tell’, Josh said, ‘That you are a thinker’.
‘I try to be’.
I looked at him, and he looked at me. I could see the small candle on the table between us reflected in his eyes.
‘Do you ever feel tempted’, he asked. ‘To become like all the other men? I mean, brash, and obvious, and only in it just for a laugh?’
‘No’, I replied. ‘I try to play the long game. Strip away the surface and this world that we live in is a very serious place. And how else might one approach the act of living itself, but through the contemplation of philosophical and existentialist inquiry? In such a way, I forsake the easy option and the expediency of a cheap laugh in order to probe the searing heaviness of our own manifestation’.
‘You know what?’, Josh said, ‘I think I've finally met a man who I can respect’.
At that moment the cream flan and custard pie conveyor belt around the serving desk suffered a sudden malfunction, sped up, and propelled its load, one after another, at such an angle and velocity across the room as to connect squarely with my own face, one after another in a perfect rhythm to the accompanying laughter from all the other customers. By the time the eleventh and last cream pie had been delivered with a forceful splat, and I was scooping the filling out from my eyes, Josh had long since gone.

I never realised before how small my bicycle was until I glanced sideways at my reflection in a shop window, my knees out at a crazy angle, dwarfed by the buses, the cars, the lorries.

b. I never realised quite how tatty my old jacket had become, so tatty that I tried to draw attention away from its tastiness by putting a plastic yellow flower in the lapel.

c. And I shouldn't have gone swimming and then dyed my hair. The hair dye had a chemical reaction with the chlorine from the pool and turned my hair bright green. Still, what can you do?

d. And as I filled in the official documentation online to tell my work colleagues my preferred name and pronouns, my computer’s predictive spelling changed my name from Robert to Parsnip.

e. Sandra, my boss, has for some reason pulled me from delivering a seminar on Modern Business Etiquette.

With the power of his intellect and his encyclopaedic knowledge of contemporary stand-up comedy, my school friend Hasan could reduce the entire class into fits of laughter. And the laughter would drive him on, and he'd say something else that was funny, and the class would laugh some more. But Hasan was canny, he'd leave his best material for the end of the sequence, leading us up blind alleyways of silliness before delivering his punchline. Boom. As a result, this rather nerdy individual became one of the most popular people in school and I must admit to feeling rather jealous of his command of a room.
My teachers would always tell my parents at parents evening that I was always serious, unsmiling, intense. They said that I wouldn't join in with the other kids, and would bury myself in my work. Perhaps they were worried that something would give, that I'd snap one day and have some sort of life-changing episode, go beserk and tell the other kids exactly what I thought of them. Humourless, is the exact word that was used on more than one occasion. But I carried on in much the same manner and took my exams.
I left school with average marks.
Hasan became a marketing executive for a company that manufactures airline meals.

To be mocked, and come out fighting with humour, is never a position in which I have ever found myself. Steady as she goes has always been my motto. I have rarely left myself open to ridicule by using the simple tactic of blending in to the background. And during those moments in which I have found myself in the limelight, I have adopted the simple strategy of being as intense and as dry as I possibly could.
‘You're too intense’, Steven had said to me, on what was to be the last night we'd spent together.
‘Just because I don't go down the street, laughing hysterically . . .’.
‘It's not that. It's more your tendency to over analyse everything. We can't even watch television comedies because you point out that certain things would never actually happen’.
‘All I was pointing out was that in real life, Tom would simply catch and eat Jerry . . ‘.
‘You see! You're too much of a realist. In all the time that we have been together, I never once heard you laugh. It's all buttoned up inside of you, isn't it? That's where you keep it. It has to be somewhere’.
‘Life itself is the ultimate ridicule’, I pointed out.
‘What does that even mean?’
The two of us are silent for a while.
‘I'd just like to find’, I tell him, ‘A well adjusted and content tarot card reader’.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘A happy medium’.
Steven thinks about it for a few seconds.
‘OK. So admittedly, that was quite amusing. But it's too late, Robert. I'm sorry, but it's too late’.
Steven bent down and picked up his suitcase, walked through the door, and slammed it shut behind him.
The oil painting of a clown on the wall above the sofa wobbled for a bit, then fell off and landed right on top of me, my head tearing through the canvas, the frame of the picture now hanging around my neck.

10.

Emerging from the supermarket on the corner, the busy street glistening with a damp drizzle which fell from the overcast sky, smudged neon into the road surface. I stood there in my jacket, my loose fitting trousers, my green hair, my Parsnip name badge, my squeaky shoes, my lapel flower. I decided that I would give up on trying to understand the world, and how good it felt! I didn't need Steven or Josh or even Sandra, I didn't need any of them. Life is filled with organisms and mechanisms too complex ever to make sense of,
A small, battered car screeched to a halt right next to me and a gentleman in baggy, multicoloured clothing jumped out. Then another, then one more, then two more, then six of them, seven, twelve in all, until I was surrounded, and without saying anything I understood that there was a home for me.

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