Roachville

Next morning I got on with Mega Pets’ translation. Now and then, I came across sentences such as ‘anti-histamine pills for puppies allergic to toddlers’ or ‘this varnish will ensure that your bird’s claws do not chip’ and I felt nervous about humankind’s future. But overall I didn’t let such nonsense get to me and I made excellent progress. After lunch, dullness and the early afternoon lull combined forces and hit me hard. My rhythm was gone. I tried to plough on, sentence after sentence, word after word, but their meaning dissolved as I typed the letters. To make matters worse, my next-door neighbour began to mow his lawn. The giant mosquito buzz made me feel on edge. Visions of flying axes planting themselves with a neat ‘tchock’ in his back invaded my head.

I stuck on some PJ Harvey tunes to distract me. ’Dear God life ain’t kind, People getting born and dyin’…’ – but it didn’t help. Trying to chase away the bloody images of my mutilated neighbour, I stretched in all directions and looked through the window. Like the day before, pollen floated by in slow motion… I needed to get some fresh air. There was nowhere I had to be, but maybe I could go to the garden shop in St-Werburghs. I could have ignored Vi’s advice, but if I didn’t go she wouldn’t stop nagging me and maybe she was right, I was depressed. So I spun around on my desk chair and ejected myself towards the door. On the way out, I picked up my beige cord jacket, which after all these years, was still my favourite piece of clothing in the world, even though Bek didn’t think much of it, but let’s face it, he had zero sense of style. And I got into my car.

I plugged in my phone and chose ‘Something Wicked this Way Comes’ by the Herbaliser in order to maintain the botanical theme of this late afternoon.

I felt bad about taking the car instead of the bus, but I cancelled out the guilt by reminding myself that we were all made of atoms and soon we were all bound to die and disintegrate, so who the fuck cared?

I drove down the motorway with the music at full blast. I sang along as loudly as I could and rejoiced in the fact that I didn’t have to work from nine to five any longer. I had nothing against routine – in fact, I swore that routine was the only way to achieve greatness – but spending so much time with people I hadn’t chosen affected my mental well-being. Right now I’d be staring at Joanne’s moustache, wondering why she’d never done anything about it. Did her mother ignore the moustache and it became like an unspoken monster that nobody mentioned in her house, although she got bullied at school? Had she thought of waxing it, but never got round to it, until it was too late to do something about it and she’d never kiss a boy or a girl in her life and now she was a spinster who’d concentrated all her frustrated passion into medieval music? I’d come up with all sort of scenarios as to why she put up with her moustache, instead of doing something meaningful. And it’s not that I hated my colleagues, but I had always longed for more freedom. And at least I had achieved that in my professional life.

The road into the city was pretty much empty at this time of day. I left the motorway at the St-Werburghs’ exit and drove past the park, under the railway arch to finish in the dead-end of hippie-land, where there was a tidy space waiting for my car.

It didn’t take long to find the plant shop called ‘Macondo’s Garden’. A beautiful black dragon was painted around the shop window, which displayed a profusion of luscious tropical plants. As I pushed open the glass door, a wave of damp warmth and peppery smells hit me. I walked through an exotic dark rainforest, along a sandy path taking me around the shop. The intense humidity brought back memories of tropical jungles and I unzipped my jacket. There were no visible fans blowing hot air or dripping water. I was surrounded by plants of all sizes and shapes and I wouldn’t have known I was in a shop if it hadn’t been for the price tags. The walls were nowhere to be seen and the ceiling was barely distinguishable. Although I didn’t want to, I thought of Mac and our year-long trip in South-East Asia a few happier years ago.

I walked on, brushing past the green and occasional red leaves. My eyes got used to the dark green light and I spotted geckos, iguanas or such like creatures, half hidden by the thick foliage. Once again, the discreet price labels let me know they weren’t real. I kept going, and as the path took a sharp twist, I found myself facing the most striking wooden sculpture. Like a novice mesmerised by the saucer eyes of a powerful guru, I stood rooted to the spot. As I studied the exquisite object in more detail, my throat turned to pebbledash. The statuette was made of some sort of red wood and its small face was dominated by fierce protruding eyes. The rounded belly was balanced on a small plinth and six main branch-like limbs deployed in all directions. My breathing became laboured and my surroundings wobbled as if I had stepped onto an unsteady ship.

‘Hi there!’ a voice said, breaking the spell. I stumbled, trying hard to regain my composure.

A man was smiling at me.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘You seemed kind of… hypnotised.’

‘Y-yes,’ I blurted out. ‘I was just looking at this dragon-thing and, um…’

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ he helped me out, staring at it in turn.

I nodded, lost for words. Time slowed down as we studied the small wooden statuette.

‘It’s not been here for very long.’ He broke the silence. ‘It’s a type of seahorse, called a leafy sea dragon… I’d had never heard of them before,’ he added, widening his eyes.

I wanted to say that I hadn’t either, but my tongue was tied and all I could do was shake my head. He said a few more words about the rare endangered leafy sea dragons, but I wasn’t concentrating. How could it be that I had dreamt about this very same creature just yesterday? What kind of a coincidence was that? It was hard to focus on the information coming out of his mouth and confusion overwhelmed me. At the same time, I didn’t know who he was or where he came from, but there was something about him. He looked about my age, in his late twenties, with strange-looking eyes. I tried not to stare for too long but I could see they were different from each other. In fact, one was blue and one was grey. Like me, he had funny teeth with the front ones on top of each other and I liked them a lot, just as I liked the cheap blue flip-flops that went well with the long grey shorts and the brown t-shirt.

‘I’ve just put it on display yesterday morning. I thought it would be at home with the rest of the creatures.’ His laughter sent shockwaves through my ribcage and I smiled without recovering the power of speech. My face felt as if it was suffering some sort of temporary paralysis; all I could do was to keep gawking at him like a simpleton.

‘You’re the first person to notice it. Or at least to mention anything about it.’ He turned to me, his razor face gone serious.

Amazing – how could nobody notice this incredible object? Or maybe this was the dragon that Vi had been talking about. There were so many coincidences, my mind reeled, but I couldn’t tell him about the dream. He would think I was a liar or a complete lunatic.

‘How strange… I mean that no one has noticed it,’ I said finally. He didn’t offer a reply and I was tempted to run away, but the little statue’s overwhelming presence was beckoning to me.

‘Is it for sale then?’ I went on. ‘Because I can’t quite believe how incredibly beautiful it is. Where did you get it? Where does it come from? What wood is it made out of? How old is it? It looks old...’ Terrific! I had gone from idiotic mute to complete blabbermouth.

‘Well…’ He gave me a funny look and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘That’s a lot of questions and to be honest, I’m not sure…’ He turned towards the dragon as if for guidance. ‘I just got it a couple of days ago... and I don’t even know if I want to sell it...’

‘Oh, that’s a pity.’ A surprising pang of regret hit me right between two ribs.

‘But you know, what I could do,’ he said, ‘I’ll take it down from here and I’ll keep it for you, until I know for sure what to do with it. How about that? I know it sounds a bit strange...’ He trailed off, uncertainty painting a pretty picture on his face.

‘Well, it’s up to you.’ I wasn’t sure myself where this was going.

‘Maybe, if you don’t mind, I could take your details and call you back when things are a bit clearer.’

‘Sure,’ I replied, as if all this was just completely normal and boring.

We walked to the counter at the end of the sandy path and I wrote down my details.

‘I’ll try and call you soon.’

‘Okay, I have to go now,’ I lied. I would have been quite happy to stay in this miniature jungle, but I didn’t know what else to say. I took one last look at the leafy sea dragon, smiled at the blue-grey eyes and left.