Isn’t it odd how Saturday nights can turn out.
There we were, Gill and I, sitting outside burning my mother‘s bird-table as you do. The red wine was good. It was a peaceful night spent putting the world to rights and watching the flames in the fire-bowl. I know it’s not very eco-warrior but there’s always the current-carbon and global-dimming argument to help you feel a little more self-righteous. (There are far too many hyphens in that last sentence, I’ll try to keep it down from here).
The peace was broken only by that late night alcohol infused sound of red wine hiccups. Once Gill’s hiccups had started that was it, they just wouldn’t stop. There they were, butting into the conversation for the rest of the night.
We climbed into bed, Gill hiccuped yet again and looked at me in exasperation. There was only one thing for it.
I stared fixedly into her eyes in that well know 80’s Wolinsky style and said with authoritative overtones, “You might be surprised to discover that the gap between your hiccups just seems to get longer and longer and soon you might find that you forget to remember to notice that you ever had hiccups in the first place.” There was no way I could have floated that sentence past her so fluently were it not for the Budweiser. “There you go”, I said, “all gone”. You could hear the scepticism and doubt behind the hope.
We looked at each and waited. And waited. The next hiccup simply did not come.
Now explain that one to me. How on earth could that have worked? No trance. No induction. No complicated healing pattern. Just one semi-serious sentence of wishfully woven words, with a good bit of accidental time distortion and amnesia thrown in for good measure. I understand the theory.
According to the sceptic in my head, it should never have worked. But it did.
Once that sceptic in me starts to believe, the world will be the crustacean of my choice. After all, why restrict the future to Oysters.
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