Swirling just beneath the tightly controlled surface, making far more noise than the babble of socially acceptable mouth-woofs we are permitted to make in any given situation, a fractious army of disarrayed thoughts continually dares the face to say something catastrophically stupid. Every transaction is fraught.
You may be gazing at a strong mechanic as he speaks, drifting in and out of his words, watching his dependable hands - or simply responding to a kindness on the street. It barely matters. The urge to do something profoundly regrettable is an ever present danger:
....and then I just melded this thing to the other thing and removed the broken metal thingy with my strong and capable oily hands and put in a new brake light and sprayed some RPX 2000 all over the big bit and I was wearing this magnificent blue boiler suit all the while. So that’s everything taken care of now and she‘s running like an absolute dream.
Can I call you “dad”?
What?
Is it okay if I call you "dad"?
I heard what you said, you crazy freak, now get the fecking feck off my forecourt.
Okay, okay. I’m going, I’m going. Jesus.
Well go faster.
Yes, yes. Sorry, daddy.
I heard that.
Now obviously, of course, you keep a lid on these things and you hold the wildly inappropriate stuff at bay. But it’s there, isn’t it? Never trust anyone who claims to always speak their mind. Their very freedom should alert you to the fact that they’re lying. (Unless you’re paying a visit to prison or the dribble factory, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever meet such a creature.)
Excuse me! You there! Excuse me! Yoo-hoo!
Who? Me?
Yes, sorry, yes, you dropped some money.
Oh. Oh goodness me. How very honest and kind, thank you, thank you so much.
Ah, pff, phewy. I’m just glad I caught you....
We should go on a trip together! You and me! I can see it all now. We’ll dress up as nudists and fuck each other better in a series of desolating motels as the police and our worried families give chase. We’ll play Pergolesi full bla....
What?
I said we should go on a trip together and that I could see it all now. Then I said....
I heard what you said, you crazy freak, now get the...
Wait! Stop!
What the hell is it now?
You used exactly the same words that daddy used earlier. He’s a mechanic today.
I know. He told me.
What?
Daddy told me.
But he’s n....what?
I’m a golden wish-fish and daddy whispered everything.
Okay, now you’re just starting to give me the creeps. Get the hell out of my stylised blog dialogue, you imaginary freak.
Crikey. That turned ugly fast. But you need to be careful with these things, for sure. There’s just no telling where it all might end. If certain rogue elements of your imagination have minds of their own.....well, you could soon find yourself in some rather serious trouble. (Never mind the trauma of bumping into the rogue elements with minds of their own from another person’s fevered imagination – as constructed by those elements operating outwith your imagined control in your own. Deary me, dizzy dizzy.)
No, better to simply write it all down and then claim to have an interest in surrealism - should the police ever find your notebook. (Never even hint to An Outsider that you feel comfortable with the notion that these things are all true and may very well be happening in a multiverse of parallels. Never do this thing. Only ever mention this fact to yourself, if you mention it at all. And make sure you’re feeling calm when you broach the subject.)
But yes, those people who say that they always speak their minds? They’re lying. And if they’re not lying, oh help us, then it’s a terrible thing to have to entertain the notion that these words they speak do, in fact, represent a comprehensive verbalisation of every thought they’re having. This is too crushing. I mean, is that it? Certainty is a valuable prohibitor of thought, right enough, and the people who tend to make such claims (“I always speak my mind, me, and tell it like it is”) do tend to seem pretty certain of their own views....so, my goodness, you just never know.
Either way, clamber straight back inside your own head when you run into one of these literally limp literalists – and start taking notes. This is where the good stuff goes down and where we may chance to touch the obliterating infinities of our better angels.
