The Cthulhu Tree

One of the trees on the street below my window looks exactly like Cthulhu, spreading his tentacles over the road. A nearby streetlight catches one particular outgrabbing branch in a glisteny sort of way. The wind ruffles the leaves, and a street-sweeper whooshes by; Cthulhu shivers and exhales. And then some great dirty packbawky lands on that one streetlit branch, and it's just a tree again. A tree with birdshit on.

Across the street, two windows are lit up. One contains two teenagers brandishing samurai swords (probably Nerf ones, but it's hard to tell from this distance, and me with my specs gone missing.) The other has a trio of diners, eating something drippy out of bowls. My hunger tells me it's French onion soup, slimy with Gruyère cheese, and with chewy baguette heels to soak it up. I don't like onions, but I like onion soup. Or I did when Mother made it, anyway. I've never dared order it in a restaurant. It might taste all oniony, and it'd put me off forever.

I can't see either of the nudists tonight, not the computer one or the skinbag one. They've both got their blinds open, though, as per usual. I don't like them having their blinds open. It gives them too much scope for surprise appearances. One could be checking for them: "Nudist A...clear! Nudist B...cle--oh, dear God!" You sort of relax, see, when you think they aren't there, so if one of them popped up out of nowhere, it would be double-horrible. You'd be looking right in his window, bold as you please (not that cornery-eyed way you do when you think you might actually see something), and--bouf! Full frontal Skinbags!

The worst, of course, is when you're staring at someone, and then you realize they're staring right back. You can't look away in embarrassment, because that confirms you were, indeed, having a look. You've got to shift your gaze slowly--imperceptibly, sort of thing--by degrees. You've got to slide it off like a jellyfish down a marble staircase: sloooooorp! The staree recognizes your coverup for what it is, of course--and you know he knows, and he knows you know he knows, and so on and so forth, but appearances must be kept up. At least this way, if you should happen to run into your starebait at one social function or the other, you can at least pretend you're only blushing from the wine. Watching you drinking your soup? What nonsense! What possible interest could I have in--oh! I see. You're the one with the eggshell-coloured walls, aren't you? I love that shade. I was admiring it. My flat's got exactly the same one. Oh, look at us--we're paint buddies! Fancy!

I don't know how the telescope people manage. There are two of them (that I've noticed) in the building across the way, both with their scopes pointing downwards. Having a telescope that isn't facing skywards is like an open admission of perversion. Oh, these looky-loos!

At street level, an enormous woman in a yellow hat floats by on an electric scooter. Her hair is puffed up so high that the yellow hat isn't on her head at all. It's riding a giant teasy-head hair pillow. It must be pinned in--otherwise, it would fly off, for sure. Hats need something solid to hang themselves on. Hair alone is too whooshy and loose. The precariousness of the hat bothers me, and I look away.

The Cthulhu-tree slaps at the air.

The packbawky bounces up and down, but doesn't let go of its perch--whee! Whee! Whee!

The window with the samurai kids goes dark, and the onion-soup-eaters clear the table. One of them goes into an adjoining room, and the apartment lights up with TV-flickers. The whole city's flickering, come to think of it. I can see more television sets than I can people.

For all my worritting, the nudists do not appear, and nobody catches me staring.

The lady with the yellow hat glides off stage left. The hat does not fall off. Pins are most certainly involved.

In the Rat's Nest, I feed raisins to Rat B. She drops half of them on the floor. It's been a pleasant evening, when all's said and done.