Stan’s birthday
Stan Brown was in the new conservatory admiring the windows he had just polished with his microfibre cloth.His 82nd birthday was coming up and Mary,his stunningly attractive yet irritable and over educated wife had insisted on celebrating a party and had already baked a hugewhole orange cake[see internet for recipe]He heard a sharp tapping on the door.There lay Annie their next door neighbour spying through the key hole.
“Are you on your own?” she queried tersely.
“No, but I’m suffering from existential anxiety” Stan lied politely.
“Well,I just saw Mary on her second hand but excellent Raleigh shopper bike going to the market or the Charity Shop.”
“Well,I have the cat here”,he spontaneously whispered loudly as if he were free associating for Freud himself
“Let me in,and make me a coffee” “She’s a queer one” the cat Emile thought inconsolably.”where’s my Carnation cat milk?”
“Real or phantasy?” he answered suavely yet civilly.”Won’t it wash off your brand new coral lipstick from Chanel of Paris?” “no to mention your factor 60 sunblock.”
“Bleedin’ hell!” she murmured romantically. to herself,”How does he know it’s Chanel?Is he a spy or what?Is he in M.I.7?”
Stan got some instant coffee and debated whether to add a little LSD to add some mysticism and magic to their morning!No,a breathing exercise would be cheaper he concluded after 39 minutes of obsessiveanxiety
He sat down in his favourite old wooden Habitat chair.
“Did you know Habitat is going b..b bankrupt?” she brightly yet surreptitiously stuttered turning pink with happiness and the menopause.
Suddenly Annie sat down on Stan’slap and began to kiss his right eyelids.
“Careful,my angel!” he muttered.
He was savouring the annoyingly uncommon pleasure when the chair fell to pieces as it frequently did at such times. throwing the elderly but versatile couple down onto the new Mary Quant patterned pure NewZealand lambs wool carpet.Suddenly they heard the peal of Mary’s bicycle bell.Shortly she walked into the room.carrying 78 bags of groceries for the bithday party.
“What is going on now ?”she murmured seductively.
“I’m so sorry,Anne,please accept my apologies,he has this thing about chairs.It’s a fetish,I believe,according to Sinaldo Floyd.””
“Have you got your mobile?” shrieked Stan agonisingly,”I can’t get up.”
“What cannot stand up must forever remain lying down” As my old philosophy tutor at Cambridge used to say,muttered Mary.
“Why,that’s bit extreme,” said Anne uneasily.”MY tutor said “Who cannot speak must forever remain silent.”
“Oh,who was your tutor?” “Elizabeth Ansconbe!” Anne admitted furtively.”Mine was Iris Murdoch!” called out Stan!
Later than soon,slightly, they heard a silent siren.It was the emergencyambulance.
Dave,the paramedic bounded into the room.
“It’s this chair” said Mary urbanely.”Can you mend it for me?My husband can’t manage without it!”
“Anything else,madam?” Dave queried anxiously.
“Any coal to fetch in,tins to open,blocked toilets?”
“Later maybe.”
Dave looked at Anne.”Your eyes look like two deep pools in the Caspian sea.”
he whispered.”Are you on another creative writing course?”she quipped urbanely.
“Yes, we’re on eyes at the moment,what is that eyeshadow you have on.” “This is called winter teal” She admitted uneasily.
“Did you know I’m a transvestite?” he admitted happily her.”Yes”,she replied dishonestly.Anne like to give an impression of omniscience owing to her ontological insecurity and her quizzically lacking theology.
Unfortunately that very frequently gave men the wrong impression.
Mary cried out to Dave,”Get on with it,my sweetie!” So he took out a big tube of glue from his jeans’ pocket and set to work on the chair.
“Oh,dear,Stan looks a bit odder” “!No,he looks prime to me.” “Is he an integer?!” “No, he’s a transcendental real number” “He’s a number all right.”
“Never mind,we’ve just got new wheelie bins so I’ll put him out with the rubbish,”
Mary joked on hearing Anne’s remarks to Dave.
But Stan was not yet dead.He merely had fallen asleep.
He dreamed of his days at Oxgridge University studying illogic and unreason with Rudolphina Catnap,the famous philosopher.Oh,happy days!
Dave made the ladies some Ceylon tea in the fabulous oak kitchen with its pure linen curtains in raspberry beige. and its black enamel sink with matching double oven and microwave.”Why no halogen?”Iris Murdoch might have asked.
“What is a human life,”he pondered.He was studying logic aas well aswriting.
He began to tremble like a leaf inthe wind to use a fresh new cliche.
“Help” he called,”I’m having a panic attack.Hurry I’m dying“
“You can’t have a panic attack,” shouted Mary.
“Paramedics heal themselves.”
“Does God heal those who heal themselves he wondered as he lay under a pile of broken china?”
“Where’s the blooming tea ? called the women politely.
How my heart speaks 