This
morning I awoke to a naked man lying prone, on his back and staring
straight up at me. Huh? Where was I? In an upper bunk hanging over
the side which in my haste to check whether my companion was asleep
or the verge of waking meant I instead saw rather more than expected?
Well, I suppose that would a logical (and the most obvious)
conclusion, as would be (if you drew it) that it would be plausible
to see a naked man first thing rather than, say, in the afternoon.
Yes,
I quite concur, but we weren't actually in the same room, or for that
matter under the same roof. Nor did I know upon first seeing his form
that he was a he because to me it just looked like a pink body and
one devoid of any features or distinguishing marks; even the face was
a pink blank as if eyes, nose etc. had been peeled off or had yet to
be situated. Similar to a cop show where the body, and the position
it's been found in, is outlined in chalk except in this case it was
coloured in, in one shade of pink, a slightly-too-much-sun tone.
What
I did think was:
1.
why would anyone (unless drunk or homeless) choose to sleep stretched
out atop a bank of industrial bins,and unclothed too, when it
wouldn't be the most comfortable of spots? Inside a bin or the ground
would be preferable. Even better, a row of chairs or a bench, and of
those there were aplenty. Why and how come will become clearer later.
2.
And why did it seem strangely flat...was it fact a pink bodysuit?
My
initial assessment done, I should tell you, without my glasses when
everything seems more blob-like than sharp and as I drew back the
living room curtains to a new day and to my regular view: an emptied,
save for the seating and a few shrubs, pub garden. So a body wouldn't
have been entirely out of the question, but foul play?
Some
people at this point might have reached for the phone and dialled
999, hopefully because blessed with better sight their eyes only
confirmed what their mind already thought: it was a human body, but
with my sight being what it is I decided to locate my glasses before
returning to the scene and making that phone call.
This
was quickly done, and the full scene revealed: a deflated naked man,
of the blow-up doll and hen party kind, with dark hair and facial
features and a smattering of black chest hair, who looked happy
enough lying there, abandoned. I imagine he was grateful to have
escaped a horde of clutching, pinching hands and being waved aloft.
Imagine
if the Police had been called out to that though? Turning up sirens
blaring with plain-clothes investigative officers and a forensic
team.
Or
me racing down in my pyjamas to check if he was breathing; were there
injuries? Better the latter than the former I suppose. I would have
laughed at myself (once my heart had calmed) as I did when my vision
had been restored to 20/20, provided, of course, I hadn't taken the
six short flights of stairs, short-sightedly, and had my own
accident.
Later,
when I checked to ascertain his whereabouts he had been removed, and
was now instead of lying flat across the bins crumpled up behind
them, in a foetal-like position. Later still, he was still behind the
bins but further scrunched up like a used Greggs bag. I almost pitied
him, for this abasement, as if he was deserving of more respect. A
decent throwing-away. Or at least a more sensible one. But then the
pub I overlook isn't often that.
I've
been meaning to bring in Gustave Flaubert's friend and literary
conscience, Louis Bouilhet, also referred to by Flaubert as his 'left
testicle', though other than that nickname how he's relevant I don't
see; the thought however has continued to nag, largely because of his
rumoured remark to a self-conscious girl: 'when the chest is flat,
one is nearer the heart.'
I
wonder if that's somehow also true if the body's entirely flat,
pulsing and breathing but flat like a washboard, as well as when it's
without life or just a different level of it. What is the heart after
all? An organ that keeps us alive and/or a spiritual core that makes
us who and what we are but is hard to describe.
Ever
the philosopher, almost disapprovingly so when myopia's the cause.
Picture credit: Elementary Cosmogony, 1949, Rene Magritte (source: WikiArt).
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
