Suicide - The
Risky "Reginald Perrin" Manoeuvre
by Ian Hutson
My
Clothes formed a neat cairn just above the
dead seagulls, plastic bottles and used condoms
of the Kentish high-tide mark, with my Wallet,
Watch, Keys and Hubble-Spectacles
organs hidden safely from thieves under the top
layer. Body, Mind and I
wobbled out to the surf and waded in. Neptune and
Poseidon could fight over us in the English
Channel - after we’d been ground to a paste
between shipping traffic.
My
Mind is a friendly stray dog. It wanders
freely; I don’t keep it on any sort of leash.
Whenever I sit down on a park bench Mind comes up
to me, tail wagging, nose damp and cold. Mostly
we communicate via Frisbee throw and fetch.
Mind
and I try to talk to Body, but Body never listens
to either of us. Body grew up entirely without us
having any say in his configuration. Body, dear
benighted, squishy, adult-sized baby Body just
issues incessant, gurgling demands: eat; eat more;
sneeze; fart; sit down; fall down; sleep through
alarm clock; need Aspirin; need haircut; need
shower; need sex with a supermodel (but would
“make do” with anyone). Body makes
promises that it has no intention of keeping: use
the stairs to your thirtieth-floor office and
we’ll feel fantastic afterwards. Body is never
responsible.
We
unhappy three totter through life like vaguely
acquainted derelicts wandering across a public
park. Body roots through life’s bins and
vomits alongside trees; Mind picks fights with
other strays and chases political or religious
joggers. I’m left to do the feeling
mortified. We so rarely communicate directly
or work simultaneously to the same plan.
I
worry about them both. Mind will surely be lost
if it keeps wandering off into daydreams and Body
hates me like a teenager, vegetates whenever it
can and behaves like a dying swan if exercised.
I’m not the sum of my parts; I feel quite outnumbered
by them. Whenever we’re carpeted in front of
some new Government campaign to reduce
haemorrhoids, happiness and heart-attacks Body
sniggers ‘yeah, that is so not going to
happen’ and Mind just waxes lyrical on
conspiracy theories.
At
this point in my Reginald Perrin-esque
suicide my reverie was interrupted by a rare in-body
experience. I ceased making my suddenly curiously-ineffectual
auto-pilot swimming movements. I was churning
sand like a turtle coming ashore.
Mind
seemed to be present, but only to say ‘I told
you this wouldn’t work’. Body, goose-pimpled
and bloated, was complaining of exhaustion and
the taste of shipping-diesel and herring-poo. We
were all wearing seaweed and a crab for a wig.
Damned if I wasn’t lying prone on the
beaches of some Hell, shrivelled, naked,
sans spectacles and sans legal documentation or
so much as a farthing.
Eyes
weren’t certain, but the blurred boots of a
Gendarme appeared to be tapping the sands next to
Nose. Honestly, you wouldn’t believe how
easy it is to go viral on Twitter, FaceBook,
YouTube and the BBC. Bloody Mind had
forgotten to warn me of the Channel currents and Body
had never before so much as hinted at
cross-channel swimming abilities. Merde!
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