AFTERMATH: Nocturne

As you may know, the first 22 episodes of this blog are the text of the book, 'How To Become A Crack Addict' (Jan to April 2013).  From that point on, it is the inimitable musings of yours truly, Benjamin of Turnham Green.  Today's entry is possibly a bit surreal, so I promise you that tomorrow's thoughts will be really realworld and incisive, the kind of thing you'd like to hear from a wise'n'experienced drug-worker, or the normal person in a twelve-step meeting.

NOCTURNE

One good thing about not using so many drugs is that I'm getting my teenage vocabulary back.  I can begin blog entries with words like 'Nocturne' without feeling too guilty about it.

It's ok to imagine a wheelchair-bound harlequin parked up at your window, whispering old weather-forecasts in various tongues.  It is also fine to imagine the harlequin rising from his throne of wheels and skating forth on slats of Dairylea, seemingly produced automatically as his feet touch the ground.

Of course, you'd think the Dairylea would lack solidity and slickness to function as a ski-like means of self-propulsion, but we as a race have much to learn.  One thing I do know is that Laughing Cow would not work, so please do not imitate the harlequin under any circumstances.

On another note, we who have nurtured our impatience with various quick fixes to the slow break of our lives, know well the virtue of slowness.  The harlequin outside my window was once as plain as an envelope, but now, either rolling around in his throne of incapacity, or skiing on his Dairylea slats, is always seeking the next big thrill, the next big-top to awe with his own inimitable brand of gaudiness.

His whole act is mime, which makes you hate him before he's even opened his mouth, which he never will.  He gestures, flat-handed, at panes of glass that aren't there, juggles grenades invisible flawlessly, smokes transparent cigarettes until he mock-dies of complications.

Then, years later, at a minor-celebrity paraphernalia auction, two rancid squares of Dairylea are put up for sale in memory of the much-missed Grenadier of Gaud, the debilitated harlequin.

And that's pretty much all I have to say today.