Hairballs

Mister Grieves

The day in question had begun like any other...

When the sweetness of his dreams had receded irretrievably, and the bitterness of existence could no longer be postponed, Mr Grieves reluctantly blinked open his eyes: semi-darkness. He dragged his head out from under the pillow and squinted moodily at the half-light – neither brightening nor darkening – in the room: bloody dismal! Rain again, no doubt. Pulling the cotton wool an inch or two from his ears he trained his ailing senses, as well as his age would allow, on the bedroom ceiling, searching for any noises from upstairs. Quiet, for now. Good. At least he might manage his morning cuppa before the usual bloody racket started up again and set the cup rattling around on its saucer like a pigging whatchamacallit. He tucked the yellowed cotton wool bits back under the pillow – waste not, want not – and lying supine beneath the blankets took a minute to get his bearings and gather his wits about him.

Pigging music! Blaring into the wee hours as usual! It was worse again now than ever it was. It's a wonder he managed any sleep at all. If you could even call it music. It was just bloody noise. And him up there howling along like a bloody banshee. Day in, day pigging out it went on, screeching and bloody bawling. Like a pigging punk rock soundtrack to his life. He didn't mind a wee bit country 'n' western, and he was even quite fond of yon Lulu, but this was bloody ridiculous! Whether he was watering his plants, or pottering about in the scullery, or just trying to get a read at the bloody paper there was never a minute's peace. Half the time these days he didn't even need to switch on his hearing aid because he had to have the telly so pigging loud that you could make out every word without it. Not that there was anything on worth watching nowadays, mind you. It was all that bloody reality TV. It looked bugger all like any reality he had ever encountered. They should bring their cameras round here sometime. He would show them pigging reality. It was getting so you were scared to leave the house. Bloody teenagers hanging about in gangs outside the shops. Drinking that bloody Buckfast. It was like running the pigging gauntlet whenever you needed a loaf. And the language! Always effing and blinding. The lassies were worse than the laddies. They should bring back national service. That's what they should do. Teach the buggers some discipline. Do them the bloody world of good. That said, mind you, you could hardly blame them. The modern world doesn't have much to offer for the young ones. How can you expect a young man to get excited about spending the best days of his life sitting in one of yon call centres? Phoning up pensioners like him all day bloody every day and trying to sell them stuff they don't need. That phone was never pigging done ringing. And that's if they're lucky. Jobs these days don't last a crack. Places opening and shutting all the time. Getting shunted from pillar to post. Never knowing from one day to the next what's in store for you. It must all seem a bit pointless. At least in his day they had hope, what with the war effort. One great goal. Everybody mucking in. Nowadays it was every man for his-self. He blamed the Tories. But yon New Labour shower weren't much better. Aye, it was maybe neither wonder that they were up there every night battering their brains out with drugs and loud music. Christ knows, he might even have been inclined to do the same himself, if he'd known back when he was their ages that this was all he'd have to look forward to. And on that low note he heaved himself up out of bed.

'Still and all,' he muttered, 'there's no excuse for inconsideration.'

Routinely, he slid one foot then the other into his baffies by the bedside, righting, as he did so, the bumfled legs of his jammie bottoms, and lifted his dressing gown down from off the wardrobe door. Donning it over his semmit, he drew it tightly around himself to keep in the heat – a penny saved is a penny earned – and, knotting its belt at the waist, shuffled gloomily, via the bathroom, through by to the sitting room.

So began another weary day.

Taken from the novel Debaser