As I stood there stooped over almost double under the weight of drenched clothing gazing down with raw

bleary eyes at countless twirling cataracts of icy rain cascading from my face onto shoes so ruined I knew Id never wear them again my mob as usual seemed to be finding it immensely difficult to overcome their notorious inertia for answering the door.

Then suddenly there was a brilliant flash and to my intense shock something unseen seemed to be standing beside me wordlessly communicating the mindboggling information something monumentald just been done to me as a result of which the worldd never be the same again and for a moment I actually experienced an upwelling of something akin to elated pride until it occurred to me pride about what? At which point it suddenly dawned on me if I allowed the informational influx to continue it was inevitable Id find out hence filled with panic stricken dread I now became seized by the idea I must at all costs prevent that happening and blessedly our Julie now abruptly opened the door and gave me such a look of intensely sustained curiosity I found myself momentarily unable to move off the spot until I suddenly recalled what Id been in the process of tryno avoid at which point I immediately scurried to sanctuary in the hall observing to Julie the imaged just flashed in my mind my head was on fire and the way she was kept staring at me like that was genuinely making me wonder whether it really was. I even found myself tentatively patting about the top of my head just in case.

But Julie now quizzically tilted her head to one side and emitted such a gleefully fiendish musical titter I wondered out aloud what the joke I was missing out on was hence she now explained from the moment shed opened the door Id seemed

somehow different to her and when I didnt as I ALWAYS did immediately ask whether Sarahd called or even simply headed straight for the phone this only seemed to confirm her suspicions. You sure youre alright?

I dont actually know I said and now told her whatd happened on the doorstep and how shed interrupted the proceedings just before the delivery of the denouement but when she now pulled a mock apologetic face I assured her her arriving on cue like that was literally the equivalent of the Cavalry arriving to save the day at the end of all those black and white cowboy films the BBC used to force feed us as kids on Sunday afternoons because Id had this distinct sense whatever it was Id been about to learn it was most definitely something I didnt wano know.

But as far as she was concerned me not wanting to learn or know ANYTHING was merely all the more proof there really was something different about me and I had to confess it was something which bugged me too especially since if I didnt know whatever it I was tryno avoid finding out why was I behaving like I secretly did? Then there was the business about the phone and Sarah calling shed pointed out. What was that all about?

But when Julie now informed Sarahd actually already called twice this morning both our naturally very expressive eyebrows simultaneously rose far higher than even normally they did when I now heard myself admitting at that precise moment I was intensely aware for the first time since Id met Sarah I felt so completely detached and remote from her I actually felt utterly indifferent whether shed called or not.

In fact I continued something seemed to be feeding me the warning such detachment persisted in for too longd eventually become irrevocably permanent and leave me forever after incapable of caring whether Sarah lived or died and the peculiar thing was even though my heart seemed to jump in my chest as if itd just received a violent electrical jolt at the thought I could ever even feel that way about ANYONE never mind Sarah I nevertheless felt so terrifically intrigued by such a development somewhere deep inside me I could feel this sort of cold chuckle to the effect maybe some day the joked actually be on Sarah and shed be the one whod simply end up never hearing from me again rather than the other way round as from time to time she liked to warn med happened with people in her past.

Ooh! That IS cold! said Julie genuinely shocked.

Isnt it? and I continued how somethingd now just suddenly wordlessly conveyed to me the idea the mental and emotionless states I was currently undergoing were the result of me apparently being under the influence of certain supposedly high level mystical states which apparently confer on the recipient an intermittent sense of perfect serenity at being released from all human responsibilities and obligations together with an irresistible urge to indulge in ceaseless contemplation of certain somethings or others I couldnt quite find the words for.

But that as I pointed out was where whatever was pumping me full of all this info lost me because if the urge to do all this contemplating was so bleedin irresistible then why the hell was I now suddenly aware for the first time in my life of a very pronounced resistance in me to having a rock which was how I normally

contemplated or meditated as I sometimes styled it a practise whichd developed out of this peculiar binary pulse thing Id come into the world with whichd literally compelled me the moment I was born to curl up in a beetroot coloured rugby ball shape and begin rocking backwards and forwards for hours on end causing my crib to bash into all the other babies setting them off wailing like sirens finally forcing the demented nurses to turn a blind eye to the rules and put chocks under me which may evenve played a part in why Ive continued rocking right up to the present day resulting in every poor bastarding cot pram bed couch and these days armchair Ive ever occupied being quite literally rocked to bits.

And Julie knowing this had to admit Now that really is weird! adding You might start feeling a little bit more normal if you remember youd've normally asked me Dad to make you a cup of tea by now and it also might help if you think about changing your clothes and drying your hair things which until shed pointed them out I hadnt even noticed myself failing to do.

And thats when it suddenly hit me with the utmost clarity from the very first moment Julied let me in some part of me too well concealed to be directly observabled been pulling every trick in the book to distract my attention from anything even remotely likely to put the idea in my head of having a rock yet instead of immediately becoming all fired up to defy this seemingly traitorous aspect of myself I now merely remained in my new remote inordinately phlegmatic verging on the docile frame of mind observing with detached dispassionate curiosity how I now didnt order the first of an endless sequence of cups of tea churned out on an industrial scale for

me by me endlessly obliging Dad and didnt change into me favourite slob-mode uniform and didnt once question the fact how deeply out of character I was behaving.

In fact other than being mildly intrigued I was completely unarsed by how thoroughly pleased with itself the traitorous part of me seemed to be with how easily itd manipulated me into accepting the new order which no doubtd appear unnecessarily harsh if not downright heartless to anyone without the capacity to understand the higher though in the end theyd eventually all see it was for the best.

However I was momentarily jolted out that state of mind when I now observed myself not only joining our Julie and me Mum in the living-room a part of the house hardly ever visited by me during the day but witnessing myself never much of a watcher of TV at the best of times following with great interest whatever point Julie was up to in that particular days batch of her innumerable daily reruns of her beloved South Pacific video.

And if anything proved something really rather odd WAS going on with me then that right there was it because nothing on Gods Earth shouldve had me more tearing out me hair by the handfuls than the thought of having to sit through yet more run throughs of Nellie twatting Forbush and South bastarding Pacific!

Yet there I was fully conscious of the sheer unparalleled egregiousness of me the worlds greatest hater of musicals sitting in the company of Julie the all-time hater of Match of the Day blithely watching Nellie Forbush wash men out our hair without so much as a flitter being knocked out me. Even my normally highly animated hands

remained strewn docilely in my lap instead of turning me bald and worse I was experiencing this strange sensation that was making the corners of my mouth turn up almost as if I was actually enjoying the bloody thing and when a scene came on screen which screamed at me to deliver a killer zinger I now merely heard myself observe Ooh I never realised before just how extraordinarily clever and skilful these things actually are causing both Julie and me Mum to slowly rotate their heads Exorcist style and stare at me in stunned and thoroughly suspicious silence as though they simply hadnt been able to believe their ears sustaining the eerie atmosphere so long in fact it shouldve been embarrassing though I now merely blithely continued The music the words the acting the choreography the direction the way they all dovetail into each othereverythingeven the way the cameraman frames the shots so the light and space create or contribute to the comic or romantic ambience or atmosphere of each sceneeverythings put at the service of everything else

Me Mums eventual response was merely to lower her deeply arched eyebrow then shrug and turn back to Nelly only for her eyes to start glazing over again inspiring her to once again pluck from the floor below her the tired looking Agatha Christie paperback which she'd tried to escape into so many times before and Julie to continue regarding me somewhat warily out the corner of squinted eyes as though expecting me any moment now to reveal I was playing some horrible practical joke on her though I now merely wittered on I was gono say theyre done with such precision and elegance these things theyre almost like classily made high end very expensive Swiss watches but theyre actually far more organic than thatmuch more like actual living breathing things encouraging her to begin enthusiastically regaling me with how thisd been precisely why her light opera companyd decided to do the thing in

the first place with her in the role of Nelly and the amazing thing was I actually seemed to mean every word so much so in fact I actually felt a peculiar gratitude to the traitorous part of me for initiating me into the world of musicals by way of keeping me away from rocking at which point the idea suddenly popped in my head maybe the traitorous part of me wasnt really responsible for me sitting through South bastarding Pacific at all maybe something else was and the traitorous part of med merely made the best of a bad job by encouraging my fascination with the film by way of maintaining its overall strategy I must be kept away from rocking at all costs.

And the moment I allowed for that possibility I now realised Id only been pretending to be oblivious to all these innumerable incessantly probing almost imperceptible pulsations-cum-scintillations pounding on the trembling walls of the blissfully empty citadel which only moments agod passed for my mind.