Boredom
A series of short pieces by Ms Alisha
He was bored again. Bored rigid. Bored senseless. Bored stupid. Bored, bored, bored, BORED. He'd already counted all of the paperclips hiding in the desk drawer (48), all of the sheets of paper in his file (31), all of the fingers on his right hand (details were a little sketchy on that, though).
The words didn't seem to be flowing as freely today as they had on previous days. He was
stalled on a press release, probably because it didn't actually have a subject to base it
on. That made it a bit difficult. Not impossible - just down right improbable. Perhaps, he
mused, if he had a Bambleweenie 56 Sub-mezon uncertainty field generator, and a really hot
cup of fresh tea, he could generate one out of thin air. He already knew just how
improbable it actually was.
He looked around the room, hoping that something exciting would happen. He waited,
patiently at first, then with a growing urgency, for the wall to crack into a million
little pieces, and was vaguely disappointed that it hadn't. Not that he would have been
very happy if it had - but it would have made a change. Change, now that would be a nice
thing. A change, he had been told, was as good as arrest - or was that a rest? Difficult
to say, in the highly uncertain times that his mind lived in.
The room was, as rooms go, pretty crap. Not even a good, solid faecal bolus type crap -
more the runny, dribbly crap. It had a desk, with a hideous shade of orange formica glued
to the top of it, a chair covered with a brown cloth that clashed horribly with his
trousers, and a whole stack of bare grey walls, akin to something out of Prisoner In Cell
Block H. He'd toyed with the idea of putting up a few posters, but had decided against it
- it would probably ruin the perfectly good tone of oppression that the office seemed to
generate.
He wondered how Ms. Alisha was. The last he'd seen of her was her foot, protruding from
under the quilt, as he'd left for work. Following the incident with the wig, he'd forced
her to put them on some glass heads he'd bought. The first night, he'd awoken with a
start, and thought that the room was being invaded by particularly hirsute aliens. Since
then, they'd been consigned to the spare room - along with Alisha's frocks, boas, and
other assorted paraphernalia. He'd nearly bundled her in there as well, but thought better
of it.
The transition from living alone, to living with Alisha, had not been a particularly
smooth one. She had a dreadful habit of shaving her legs, arms, and chest with his razor -
leaving it rather blunt when he applied it to his face prior to going to work. She drank
all the milk, and then put the empty carton in the fridge. She drank. He'd come home from
the salt mines, and find her elegantly slumped over his computer, champers in one hand,
half smoked Sobranie in the other, and the X-men cavorting across the screen.
Still, it was never dull. They never actually fought over things - but there were periods
of heavy silence, dark looks, and sighs that spoke volumes about subjects too tedious to
mention by name - such as using almost all the toilet paper, and leaving only one
sheet on the roll. Christ, he'd lost track of the times that he'd been caught by that.
He'd started leaving a few sheets in the back of the books he read, just as a precaution.
She was learning, though. She now knew the difference between buffet, and all-you-can-eat.
About $20 a head, and you had to wear a decent dress. She didn't quaff any more, either -
no more wet ears, filled with champers. Now she sipped from a flute, remembered to pull
the hemline down on her skirts, and not sit with her legs apart. And she'd given up the
rather silly idea of being a go-go dancer. He'd convinced her that their was a limited
audience for performers who were lacking in co-ordination, and the only rhythm she'd
possessed happened to be her heart beat, but even that wasn't constant.
He'd taken her to see the latest State Theatre Company production the night before - The
Floating World - and it was rather good. They'd stayed the full length of the production,
unlike Joyful And Triumphant, and Pulcinella: Eremophella, both of which she'd hated. He'd
rather wanted to see the end of Joyful, but was too tired by that stage to argue with her,
and so left peacefully. But she'd enjoyed The Floating World, even had a crack at writing
a review of it for GT, until she came across someone else's in the previous issue. And
she'd buffeted everything in sight, first - whilst elegantly sipping wine at a rate of
knots.
They'd encountered a magic wine fairy in their travels. He wasn't sure how he'd come up
with that idea - something to do with Terry Pratchett - but it had pretty quickly evolved
from a passing remark, into a major piece of modern myth. He wished he'd pulled the wings
off the one last night, because he'd suddenly developed a powerful thirst for a wee drop
of Chardonnay, just to take the edge off his growing boredom.
It was expanding to fill the room, as if boredom was a gas of some sort. Perhaps he could
trap some of it in a vial, and have it synthesised. It could become some sort of new
designer drug, leading to glazed eyed junkies wandering aimlessly down the streets, asking
people if they could find nothing for them to do, just a small taste of a mind-numbing
task.
What could you call such a drug? Ecstasy was out, for a start. Dull. Two tabs of Dull. Lay
some D on me. Well, it was a start. He'd get research and legal to look into it. Later,
when he was not quite as bored.
He toyed with his tie. He was particularly pleased with this one - he'd had to order it in
from Sydney. It was black, with two images of Humphrey Bogart on it in shades of grey, and
went nicely with his new trousers. Alisha had said that they made his bottom look
"pert", which puzzled him, as the computer's dictionary told him that it meant
"bold, brazen, assuming and impudent". He'd thought it was some sort of
compliment, but was left with some doubt. She probably didn't really know what it had
meant.
He wondered what would have happened to her, if he had not offered her a place to live. He
knew that she'd had a brief stint with an escort agency - perhaps she would have turned
tricks again? Living in some cheap hovel of a room, not eating, only drinking to numb the
pain of loneliness. Servicing faceless men, as they fumbled with her dresses, eager to
experience something different.
It was a dreadful image, one which his mind conjured up with no prompting. He'd never
actually asked her about that period, and wasn't likely too. It wasn't something of which
she'd been particularly proud, but when she'd been thrown out of home by her father, she
had to find someway of supporting herself.
She started off picking up men in the Ed, or at the Mars Bar, but had found that it was
too dangerous. Then she'd been approached by a girl from the agency, who told her that it
was safer for her to work only the tricks that the agency supplied. At least they'd be
known quantities, and a guarantee of cash.
He first met Ms. Alisha at Bean's Bar, where she'd been taking part in an AbFab
"Patsy Stone Look Alike" competition. He'd been incredibly impressed by her
similarities to a young Joanna Lumley, and her voice was pretty close to the original. He
hadn't realised at the time that this wasn't a case of life imitating art - it was just
her life. She'd always worn a beehive, smoked like a train, and drunk like a fish. Patsy
was just some upstart TV character to her.
He'd given her his card, and told her that if she ever had any problems, to drop by and
see him. Two days later, she had turned up on his doorstep, suitcases in hand, and told
him that her landlord had kicked her out of her apartment. She never said why this had
happened, and he could only guess at reasons, most of which were just pure fantasy anyway.
It was supposed to have been a temporary thing - she'd stay with him only until she could
find another place. But he'd gradually grown accustomed to having her around, and now,
despite everything, he was glad that he'd decided to let her stay on a permanent basis.
The phone rang, and, his reverie broken by its tones, he went back to work.