Cobwebs and Blancmange
I had invited myself to stay over at a girl’s apartment. I don’t know why. She was a girl I used to like at school. I couldn’t remember spending the night there, I just remember when I got into her bed I saw that all around it was surrounded by cobwebs, little spiders and flies. On arrival there was a little show for me actually; a blue and red insect was enveloped in a little web that went upwards at the foot of the bed like a tube. It looked like a ghostly pitcher plant. Before I could take the time to mourn the insecticide, I noticed it start to sway and shake, and I was waiting for the wily arachnid to appear and engulf it at any moment, you know the way they do- get all on top of it, paralyse it with a bit of venom, wrap it up and then suck up the insides. But there was no spider, and the ladybird just waggled and waggled its way out then bust out of the web and flew off, increasing in size as it did so. I watched as it flew out of the door. It may have been missing a few legs, but at least it was free. It would have been all right now. Maybe.
I had dreaded staying in that little single bed, surrounded with cobwebs. I thought, I’m going to ask her, ‘does all this not bother you at all?’. Then I must have gone to bed at some point, I don’t remember. I woke up and entered the kitchen to discover it was painted yellow. Her partner was there. I knew she had a new partner, but I didn’t know it was a chick. Funny how people just turn into lesbians sometimes. I just went along with it.
I approached the yellow cupboard to make myself some breakfast, with my towel wrapped around my waist. For some reason the only thing I noticed in the cupboard was a shot glass of yellow and pink blancmange, which I grabbed immediately, with a small bottle of milk.
Is that even how you make blancmange?
Is blancmange even particularly suitable for breakfast?
I felt pretty comfortable, like I could just stick one of those Jonas Rathsman mixes on, Elements, and then just dance around the kitchen while I did my thing to some nice, funky, colourful techno.
I thought I’d say good morning, and ask ‘are we all right?’
Her response- ‘You do realise I play rugby for Oxford?’
It was a killer that one was. I broke into awkward laughter, ‘why would you say that?!’
She didn’t know how to answer. I noticed she was quite an attractive blonde girl. However, all was not well- she had been indoctrinated, she was wearing a dark blue hoodie that was probably one of those ‘University’ brands, or a leaver’s hoodie from one of those private schools that make their students feel like a million dollars purely because their parents are stuck up enough to send them there. She was one of those who wasn’t up to her own life, she was defeated by herself at every turn. Life is like a video game, and some people simply aren’t good enough, so they only get so far, and get killed on the same level, by the same monster, over and over and over again. It must be so demoralising, but they carry on trying.
She definitely had a horse.
‘I just wanted to make that clear.’
This one hated me, absolutely hated me. She must have told her everything about me. This one probably had very good reason to be skeptical about me, but contemplating rugby tackling me was extreme. I realised my blancmange was only slightly increasing in thickness with the milk I added, so I kept adding more and achieving the same awful results.
‘All right to jump in the shower after I’ve made breakfast?’
‘Another shower?’
‘No,’ said the unfamiliar lesbian.
‘No worries.’
‘You used my towel yesterday didn’t you?’ asked the girl whom I used to be so fond of those many years ago.
‘Yeah,’
‘I bet it stinks now!’
I thought to myself- ‘why would it stink if I used it to dry myself after showering?’
They kept quarrelling with each other about things. I could only hear murmurs and groans. I didn’t listen, but then she spoke to me.
‘Stay in my bed last night did you?’ she snapped.
‘Yeah I assumed it would be okay?’
‘Well it’s not,’ I remember that stare. I tried not to look back, lest I turn to stone.
‘So how do you make blancmange, does it just set eventually or does it go in the microwave or…?’
‘I’m fed up of this,’ the Oxford lesbian stormed off, grabbing the keys to one of those Fiats that all girls of about that age seem to drive. She looked distressed, but deep down you could tell that she relished making a scene. It was probably her greatest form of self expression.
The remaining one then groaned from the kitchen table, all stressed and in her pyjamas. She had a series of application forms in front of her and you could tell she didn’t understand what any of them meant. She’d have been better off tearing them to pieces. She ended up sweeping them off the table onto the empty chair opposite, then started groaning again.
‘Do you ever think about getting a life?’
‘Well that was awfully abrupt of you.’
‘Well, do you?’
‘Isn’t it a bit early in the morning for questions like that?’
I looked down at what I was doing in shock. I left the shot glass on the side by the fridge, and had since acquired a butter tub full of more blancmange, and was adding beetroot to one side. It turned into a beet coloured mess, but I was persevering. It was frightening.
She was getting animated now. She was clearing undergoing an identity crisis. I wish I knew who I was sometimes too.
‘I cleaned up your room for you. There were cobwebs everywhere, and spiders corpses and God knows what.’
‘I don’t care!’
I paused for a brief period, sighing at what I had created on the work surface. The horror. The unprecedented purple and yellow horror. I sighed.
Everything was so yellow, so horribly yellow all of a sudden. The walls, the floor, the ceiling.
‘You really have transformed into a very miserable and nasty person haven’t you?’
