The Nose

It started with the nose. A simple thing really. He placed the comical appendage upon his own nose and couldn’t help thinking of snowmen. All it took was a carrot and two balls of snow were magically transformed into a mythical being. Of course the snowman required eyes and a mouth, but these could be sourced nearby. Or they could be drawn on. The carrot nose was where it was at and Julian knew this as he wore his new nose.

That he could now look himself in the mirror was a miracle of sorts. Commencing with a furtive glance, he saw something beyond that which had always greeted him at the mirror. No longer was he Julian the Failure. A qualified professional accountant who had somehow lost his way and lost his spark. Never identifying the one wrong turn that made a world of difference, but understanding that was all it took. Suspecting that the wrong turn was his mother’s. That she’d made the wrong choice for him and it had stuck. Gotten him stuck in a world that little room for grey and boring men.

He saw the way women looked at him. Which was to say that they didn’t. There was nothing of worth as far as they were concerned and all he could do was agree with their appraisal. Sometimes he thought that it would be better if he was invisible to himself as much as anyone else. Instead he was acutely aware that he was taking up room and stealing air. An unwanted impostor who had a negative effect on the proceedings.

The nose wasn’t an improvement as such. It was the opening chapter of a story that Julian wanted to pursue. But first he needed to attend to his name. If there was to be difference then that difference had to be labelled accordingly. Julian closed his eyes and wished himself away. He did this often these days and it had become a habit he’d readily embraced. He entered something like a dream state. Only these were the dreams no one ever remembered.

When he opened his eyes he removed the nose and discarded it. This was not the right nose. The nose was not his. He knew exactly the nose he must find. Had seen it in his mind’s eye and it had spoken to him. Told him what he must do in order to be.

Julian was not aware of the smile he wore as he went about his business. This was the first time he had worn this smile and it did not belong. And yet it was perfect for what he was becoming. It flickered like a badly tuned TV. Soon it would be transmitting loud and clear.

Booting up his laptop, Julian searched for everything that he needed. A once prudent man, he now paid for a subscription so that the delivery would arrive the following day. Even then, the wait was too long and he knew he would not sleep. Could not rest until it was done.

Laying in his lonely bed that night, he stared into space but only saw the ceiling. Another frustration in a life grown mouldy, “I just wanted to be happy,” he whispered into the unsympathetic darkness.

Thoughts of elusive happiness harried him. Nipping him here and there. Sucking his energy like mosquitos with an endless thirst. He knew he was no different to anyone else. Not really he wasn’t. Now it was time to make a change and bring some joy into the world.

He was tired when he arose from his bed. Spending a moment at the sink. Bracing himself against it. His hands gripping the porcelain as though to fracture it. Wanting to tear it from the wall and bring a spout of surprise chaos to a bathroom that was spick and span but still managed to make him feel unclean. His exhaustion was a stain. A bad joke. Where was it when he turned his bedside light out? He’d done everything required of him. Exercised, read, tried to conjure calming thoughts. Visualising a barefoot walk along a deserted beach. But then his mind had hijacked the proceedings.

Why is the beach deserted?

Where’s everyone gone?

Are you trespassing?

You shouldn’t be here.

The sand is a problem.

You never remove it all.

You know how the sand irritates your feet when it gets into your shoes.

This was all a mistake.

Julian had ceased attending to the fact that his inner voice was his mother’s voice. As though she were haunting him from a grave that was all wrong as far as she was concerned. Wrong location. Too cramped. She’d have preferred a cremation despite the fact her will recorded that her last wishes were that she be buried. Julian had pitied her neighbours as she’d been lowered into that final hole. They couldn’t move. An eternity next to her was a hell that didn’t bear thinking about.

He'd wanted to cry. He’d not do justice to today thanks to his depleted state, “story of my life,” he muttered to his reflection whilst avoiding eye contact. The odds were always stacked against him and he made sure that was the case. He’d smirked darkly when he’d come up with his superhero alter-ego Self Destructor. That was his superpower. Something he was actually good at. If only he could find a way to use this power for good.

The stout and robust knock at the door shook him and nudged him upwards in one strange and disorienting movement. There was a confidence to that knock. A foreign sound that was visiting Julian’s abode with some purpose.

The lady at the door wore the garb of a delivery worker, but Julian saw a good Samaritan bearing gifts and could not help but return her smile. She faltered and almost dropped the packages, but in his excitement, Julian did not register the change in her weather. All he saw was a bright future. A break in the clouds just for him. Never mind however many minutes of fame he was due, he’d take the sun shining only for him for a few minutes as it heralded a change in his fortunes that was so well overdue.

Placing the packages on the dining table, Julian fought the urge to tear into the boxes indiscriminately like a spoilt child at Christmas with no care as to who had bought them their gifts. Julian was better than that. He had manners. And manners made the man. He was yet to find out what they made him into, but when it came to manners, he intended to keep the faith.

Making a cup of tea was the order of the day. A cup and saucer. Julian was no mug. This was one of his little in-jokes. It had been a long time since it had made him smile, but today he practiced that smile of his. The boxes were providing him with a source of hope and skirting that hope was something like the potential for joy. He knew better than to pursue it though. Selfishly chasing happiness never ended well.

After sipping his tea for a while he organised the boxes. Saving the best until last, he began opening them. This process was neat and efficient. He used one blade of the scissors to cut the tape holding the boxes together and reveal the contents. Putting packaging in the correct bin as he went along.

His initial unboxing afforded him a cursory visual inspection of his purchases. The smallest item remained in a thinner box. A Russian doll package within which was the centrepiece. Holding each of the items up, he examined them at length. Finding them fit for purpose. That smile drifting across his face unnoticed.

Julian took everything upstairs and laid the items on his bed. Visions of a slender woman placing lace lingerie upon the bed assailed him and he stifled a sob at that impossible dream. Only would he see such things on a screen as he watched a film where characters led successful lives and dressed for each other. Creating packaging for a desirable, in-demand brand. The few selling to the many. A dream factory with no quality control, no rules and no regulations. The worst nightmares were dreams that did not fit and would never come true.

He ran a bath and climbed in. Sighed and climbed back out to find his book and pad wet foot prints on the landing and stairs as he went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. He stood there naked and tried not to feel the shame of it. Couldn’t remember the last time he had chosen to be unclothed like this. The fear of discovery. The embarrassment of being seen was too much. Always too much. He marvelled at how something could be too much when it was worth so little.

Returning to the bath was a travesty. It just wasn’t the same. The water less welcoming and that bit less warm to the point of being tepid. A lukewarm greeting was somehow worse than a cold one. Stuck in the nondescript, he struggled to focus on the snakelike letters on the page of his book. There were no ladders of success. The words only dragged him down.

Placing the book back down he took a drink and felt a familiar urge to use the toilet. His approach to the simple act of bathing was found lacking and he closed his eyes and submerged himself under the scant layer of bubbles. In this Ophelian pose he wished himself away.

Now the daydreams of what is to come rise up within him. Floating to the surface and beguiling him. The smile resides upon his face as he walks through a dreamscape that he knows will become real. This is more than a passing whim. This is no holiday. There is redemption in the transformation that will take place. When he surfaces, he is far less Julian than he ever was. Room is being made for the great adventure ahead.

It is dark. He is not quite sure how this came to be, but finds that he is glad not only of the passage of time, but also the coming of the dark. He dresses in this darkness. This is fitting. There had been a desire to relish the sight of what he has chosen to become, but in the event he barely glances at himself in the full-length mirror in his bedroom. He already knows what he is. There is no requirement for affirmation. Now there is him and what he must do.

The plan for this night is simple. He does not need to go through it or rehearse. For once, he is a creature of feelings and everything feels just right. He enters the arena and prepares his performance. Returning to that supine pose, he is more relaxed now. In his element. He awaits his cue without the feeling of waiting. What he does feel is the nose upon his face and the nose imbues him with something he has sought all his life; joy.

Tonight will be different.

Tonight he will make a difference.

*

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The poem is not the property of the poet. Once it is released from the captivation of the poet’s mind, the words take on a life of their own. Meaning is bestowed by the reader and the world the reader inhabits. Life is an interesting cauldron of possibilities. The ladle plunges into the bubbling liquid and brings forth a different soup each time. Boring is an invention of denial of the life that bubbles and pops all around us.

The man who was Julian, lays in a state of utter calm. He knows there will be a moment and this is his moment. A moment to shine. His time to fulfil his childhood intent; to bring joy to the world.

Jim is tucked up in an all too big bed. A bed that was once too small. The diminutive figure that used to lay beside him and take up more than her fair share of the bed has long since gone, but not once has Jim considered changing the bed for a smaller one. Not once has he encroached upon her side of the bed. Some things just are. Especially the sacred elements of life that hold us in place and prevent us from losing our tenuous grip on the fragile reality we have so painstakingly built around us.

After half an hour of reading yet another crime novel, Jim stirs. Jim’s favourite genre is crime. In this case, favourite means that he will not read anything other than books about crime. He does not see the point in changing a winning formula. Once you find gold, you mine it and you keep on mining that rich seam for all it is worth.

Jim stirs because he is at an age where sleep matters far more than it ever did and he is also at an age where he is aware of his organs working more effectively when he is in a prone position. They go to work on the liquids he has imbibed and move them to the portal of expulsion. He ignores this function at his cost. He has tried all the forms of ignorance only ever to come to the same conclusion; he needs a piss before lights out. More specifically, he must allow his internal factory workers to complete this shift as he reads and then load the product of their labours into the toilets, or the union will create one hell of a hullabaloo and he will not sleep until he has negotiated successfully with them. Of course, this does not guarantee a full night’s sleep. Nothing does these days. Still, it’s better to start the way he means to go on and that means paying a visit before he attempts to enter the land of nod.

Tonight will be different though.

Tonight is one of those interesting times that life likes to throw at you from left of field.

Jim’s laboured and deliberate movements to arrive at a seated position at the edge of the bed are matched by other movements on this particular night. These movements catch his eye and leave him speechless for a moment.

The man who was formerly Julian hears Jim’s movements and he matches them in a carefully choreographed set of actions. Despite the carpet and his clothing, he turns and slides from under the bed as though on well-oiled wheels. Slipping forth like a slippery eel so that he is looking up at the unsuspecting Jim and bestowing that disturbing smile upon him.

“Oink! Oink!” cries Pig the Clown at his unwitting audience of one.

Jim’s eyes grow comically wide and for one wonderful moment Pig the Clown thinks that he has succeeded in bringing delight to the old man. This is everything he could have hoped for in the maddening silence of the grand reveal.

Jim feels something catch in his throat. He cannot speak. He cannot breath. His eyes swim and he is floating in a world that did not exist just one second ago. With a force of will he returns to himself and as he does he finds his feet without meaning to stand.

“You bloody idiot!” he is shouting the words, but barely registers them. Does not know where they came from.

Pig joins Jim in standing. A ballet dance move that should not be possible. The small eyes above the oversized snout observe Jim as though through a microscope. Time slows to allow everything to unravel.

Jim is clutching his chest now, “Idiot!” he gasps, and that is his last word as his surprised heart bursts in his chest in an act of worker rebellion. Sod the pension, this heart is downing tools and will work no more. The old man is dead before he hits the floor before an equally surprised Pig. Piss spreads out from the crotch of his pyjama bottoms. He never did get to pay a visit before lights out.

Pig is frozen now. This was not how it was supposed to be. This was the Great Beginning. Pig was to bring fun and laughter to the world. This was the start. Never was it supposed to be the end.

He gazes down at his failed performance and he remembers the story of the Great Clown Pagliacci. A sad and broken man despite the joy and laughter he bestowed upon the world about him. He was the antidote to his own depression, but he never found a way to self-administer the medicine.

Julian had wanted to remove a little of the darkness from the world in the hope he would be all the lighter for it. Now he suspects that will never happen. Not for him.

This was the last roll of the dice.

Shit or bust.

He shakes his head at the ignominy of it all and takes his mobile phone from his oversized clown trousers, “sorry Dad,” he whispers as he brings up the rarely used phone key pad.

His finger hovers over the nine, but he pauses. Calling the police is the right thing to do. But he’s always tried to do the right thing and look at where its got him.

OINK! OINK!

Pig the Clown nudges Julian aside and explores the soup of possibilities before making a choice that will define the rest of his life.