It’s Time… Pt27

But it’s gonna be… Path

‘‘I’ll be making my way back to you babe with a burning bout of gout
‘The Spanners – first pint’

Postie Prim and his Black & White Dog pave the dots

The best way of doing nothing is to keep busy

Take zis man outside and shoot him… very hard.

It’s written in my notebook so must be true. The path to impartiality is riddled with twists and turns, jolted by beams of joyous light and dog shit. It won’t be Cherry’s, I have bags.

Cherry’s been eating people for 26 episodes now and her fine dusting of black and white fur must be leaving clues, ‘They’re on to us’, I tell her. ‘Be cool’ she growls, the gnarled pro. ‘They’re just Police standing on the corner’. ‘Every corner?’, ‘It’s match day, Saturday, City centre, of course they’re on every corner. They’re not onto us. Keep driving.’

The day circled another sun and is ready to turn in. One last round of houses to deliver in the sticks and home. No upsets today. In dusk’s fading light we’ll cover our tracks. Fallen leaves, the tree’s heroes, are laden by a cool autumn’s drizzle. ‘No one will know we’ve been here, there or anywhere’. ‘I’ve been everywhere man, north, south, east and west man’, perks a common blackbird perched on a low branch. Woof, she’s gone. Cherry snuffles a feather from her nose. ‘The police aren’t onto us.’

A handful more letters. I deliver listening to BBC Radio 6. Giles Peterson’s Brazilian jazzatovial tunes easing the feet. ‘Police have found a series of connections over missing persons Mrs. Peaworthy, Mr. Blaintree, Mrs…’ the news clear as a bell on DAB digital at No.21, when it suddenly drops out. ‘Keep delivering’ barks Cherry. ‘Assumptions. There is no trace. No evidence, except in those bags you carry around.’

We finish our route back at No.86 and continue to cover our tracks on the way back to the depot; across the bridge, past the railway tracks, over the lake, up the down, down the lane, through the tunnel, beside the ginnel, in the ginnel, what the fish is a ginnel! In the mist… ‘You still there Cherry?’ Somewhere in the mist a Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town rumbles. Cherry is stood next to me, a black figure shifts in the mist, we shift the other way. Out of the mist we turn right and end up in Camberwick Green, damn, wrong era, wrong location, we turn back, the night turns in, one last lost drop, His majesty’s Royal Mail must get through, a dog yaps between the gate and door, the dog must get through, it’s me or the dog… ‘Argh, yer wee bastard dog’, it’s taken my calf, the whole calf, argh, now the whole leg, the whole leg’s gone. I prize my severed leg from the Jack Russell’s jaws and fished a copy of Durban’s Bread I keep tucked in my shorts turn ups and beat it with it. It winces like a vampire on a sunbed. Then eats the book. Damn Jack Russells. I throw my severed leg and for a second the terrier spies. I cease my chance. Mail successfully delivered. The dog back to the yap. Cherry looks on at the gate and tilts her head. We go home… I put my leg on backwards and walk in both directions. I fix my leg. We go home.

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This is now another bit

Back at the ranch; Cherry had a friend over for a sleepover. Her first ever. She read him Sylvia Plath’s Lady Lazarus, ‘I have done it again…’ Ollie her young friend is disinterested, full of beans and spends the next 24 hours avoiding Cherry by running up and down the stairs, while Cherry stoic, continues, ‘The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth…’. Protein thoughts fuelling her words. Could she really become a cannibal? Has it really become this dog eat dog world. Ollie finally sleeps. Cherry ends her recitement and lights her pipe. The atmosphere stifled on an unnerving calm.

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In other news I got exactly .00 at the petrol station. My closest before was .03, the farthest .16. I celebrated with an oven baked sausage.

Back at the ‘office’, a mosquito as fat as a house landed on the bathroom wall, a mosquito in Brinny, North West Blighty. What was a mosquito doing here and surviving, had I brought it with me, in my luggage? , We’ll never know because it was so fat it was easy to squish.

Floods in Crete and Phuket. Perhaps that’s why the mosquitos are fleeing, millions of them on discarded flip-flops, wearing ski jackets, ‘It’s our only hope boys’. Head t’north.

I joined a wood burner and seasoning group, it’s great, they jibe anyone who asks a question to do with wood burning and seasoning, ‘Is it ok to stack logs on top of your stove to help dry them out?’ ‘Jeez, what kind of flip-flop did you fall off? Are you some kind of retard, why did you join this group if you don’t know that?’ – It’s an American group.

Still meticulous about rinsing your empty cans for recycling? Have to get that last morsel of dog food clean before it goes to get clean. Will the Tuna Can Police come raid your house if there’s a fleck of flake on the bottom dimple groove? They’ll never find us, Cherry barks. Keep busy doing nothing.

Eventually all paths get old, just look at David Jason…

Somewhere a hyper-tensioned yap abruptly stops. A gentle breeze paw’s on a fallen sky. Glints of silvery specks patch a wooden gate. In dawn’s light a fine dusting of black and white fur unwittingly wait for a Police connection.

Till next time folks… keep ‘em peeled
Pip pip, ding-dong and ticketyboo
Keep it turning, keep it wheel

Prim

It’s Time – But It’s Gonna Be… is brought to us by Durban’s Bread
Also with our good chums Chow Pet Foods

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