He imagined himself shimmying up one of the many drainpipes of a grand house. Leaping from the roof down to a bedroom windowsill
He thought he was a Christ, he wasn’t but he wished he was because being Christ – ‘a’ or ‘the’ – was a great deal more interesting than being Jonathan Craig Brewster Baynes of Whitchurch Avenue. Jon wasn’t mad in the sense of insanity, he was simply bored. Very, very bored looking out of the bedroom window, looking along the hollows of Whitchurch Avenue.
The church at the northern end of the avenue was haunted by the ghosts of a 16th Century nun and monk who had been executed for love. They were buried just outside the grounds, their souls leeching as one into the River Whit. Everybody knew that. Everybody knew that since they were four or five years old. It was an old man’s, dull story by the time you hit 20 years old. Christ, or Jon was 32.
The pub at the southern end of the avenue used to be haunted by alcoholic men.
Jon sighed deeply and looked at the house opposite. Partially concealed by a beech tree, which was denuded by the season, it was almost exactly the same as Christ’s.
The only major differences were that Christ’s door was black not red. Christ’s had no curtains in the windows, there were blinds.
The house opposite was inhabited by students, quiet ones. He was on nodding terms with two of them. It was a nice neighbourhood, most of the burglaries happened about 500 metres away. Most things happened 500 metres away.
Jon or Christ imagined being a burglar, dressed in black, off to steal from the posh; to steal romantic gifts, to teach the nobs a lesson. A sleek burglar, handsome burglar. Not a desperately lonely drug addict in search of something, anything, to sell to feed his habit, help him forget his life.
Jon imagined himself shimmying up one of the many drainpipes of a grand house. Leaping from the roof down to a bedroom windowsill, hanging on by his fingernails, hauling himself up and levering the window open with a specialist tool he’d designed himself.
He rapidly, silently and with great muscularity pulled himself into the room. He crouched down and scoped out the room with his superb night vision.
He collected all the jewellery, and left his iPhone with a great collection of music. From the window, he flicked his business card (the Jack of Hearts) onto the sleeping beauty. It landed perfectly on her forehead, causing her dream to take a romantic turn.
He efficiently and rapidly made his exit with animalistic muscularity. He dropped from windowsill to windowsill and then to the ground before sprinting off to his powerful motorcycle and off into the night.
Back in the real world, he continued looking out of the window.
Shortly he was joined by his massive tabby cat, ‘Shorty’, who had woken up and needed company. Shorty was a rescue cat who had grown in just a few weeks from fluff-ball into room conquering giant with no sense of personal space or cat reserve.
Shorty may as well have been a dog. He growled at Christ, who tickled him under the chins before returning his gaze to the Avenue where two students were having an argument beneath the denuded beech tree.
“Well, Shorty, it looks as if they’re having a set-to over there.” The cat growled and slapped Christ on the cheek as playfully as it could.
Two students were yelling at each other. Each one was skipping from foot to foot, trying to prod the other in the chest.
Neither Christ nor Shorty could hear what the argument was about.
“Whatever it is, it’s got them well and truly riled up”, Christ told the cat, who nodded and purred at the sight of such cute conflict.
The problem for the students was that one of them was a gangly six feet three and a bit tall while the other was touching five foot. Most of their argument was getting lost in the space between. This didn’t stop them attempting to slap each other in the doggy-paddle style familiar to those unfamiliar with punching.
Christ looked away. He imagined himself as the peacemaker. The man of wisdom and consoling sentiments. Two sides to every story. Look at this from the other person’s point of view. In the great scope of history, is this really worth all your energy and all this violence?
The next sound was the cat-flap slamming shut as Shorty left the building.
Christ returned to looking out of the window into the avenue. Winter birds, magpies (they never seemed to leave) flitted from bare branch to bare branch. A small car drove towards Churchend. The wind got up, then calmed down, the slamming of the cat-flap indicated the return of Shorty.
Hours passed. Hours were yet to pass. Jon turned the television on: Hitler, Hitler, Cooking, Quiz Show (Winston Churchill, Arsenal, Star Trek), afternoon soap (slap, kiss, weep, fall), a movie (requited love), a based-on-a-true story movie (slap, kiss, weep, fall, brave battle with spinal injury, god, wedding, bliss), sport, sport, sport, cooking, sport, Hitler, alien pyramid builders, gossip, news, news, news, sport, sport, sport.
As Hitler was giving a badly subtitled speech, the students came out of the house. They were holding hands and had changed into different hats: knitted vaginas.
The wind picked up, blowing the mulching leaves around the dank puddles. The vicar cycled along the road, on his way to the pub, the sun set behind the beech tree.
Christ turned around and wheeled himself into the kitchen. Two hours to go until someone arrived to help him bathe and go to bed.
“It’ll get easier”, he told himself before returning to his imagination.
