Timesnot

First-time fatherhood is world-changing.
That’s what Alan Hillier was discovering with every day that passed. He’d been determined not to screw this up. He’d done his level best to read up on what life as a new dad was going to be like, and watched on with a mix of fear and wonder as his wife grew with a new life inside her. Their daughter. He’d had honest and frank conversations with old friends in the pub about what to expect, how to be ready, and what he should do at all costs to avoid invoking the wrath of his now superpower-strengthened wife.

He was pleased with the job he’d done in the nursery. Kara, his wife and mother-to-be, had been very specific about what she wanted in their former guest room. With a peaceful pastel colour scheme based around a shade of mint green, she’d shown where she wanted shelves so that they were conveniently located near to plug-points for nightlights, for the baby monitor, and for the Alexa speaker so that it could pipe in soothing white noise. She’d thought of everything, and her level of organisation was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Right down to the tiniest of details. He was more than happy to get out his Bosch drill and do as he was told because she had researched everything and knew precisely what she was doing. Besides, he wanted to feel useful, and escape the occasional nagging feeling that he was removed from things while Kara cooked their baby.

He had done his bit though. Aside from the books, the chats and the DIY, there was a newer, bigger car on the drive. Gone, with much reluctance at first, was the 1984 Volkswagen Golf MK1 GTi. He’d wanted one since he was a kid, and it had been his pride and joy. But with the onrush of fatherhood came great responsibility, and with that, in turn, came the admission that they needed a bigger, more grown-up car. He looked thoughtfully down at the drive from the nursery window, where the replacement, a second-hand petrol blue VW Golf Estate, sat gleaming in the afternoon sun. It had taken a little getting used to at first. Alan had felt that he’d caved in a little over the car, but driving home from the hospital with Kara and their newborn daughter Adele changed all that. He’d never driven so carefully, or felt so safe. German engineering where you need it most, or whatever the advert for whichever product had said back in the day.

The thing he’d been most afraid of though, more than even the thought of nappy-changing, was the prospect of helping baby Adele if she got a cold and had a snotty nose. When Kara had first explained the process, a few weeks before Adele was born, he’d thought she was taking the piss. “Seriously, Alan. It’s a tube you stick in the baby’s nostril, and then you suck the snot out with your mouth. Don’t look at me like that. They can’t blow their noses yet, can they? Not at that age. Google it. It’s a thing.”

He did Google it. It was a thing. And, because Alan had a tendency to only trust German products when it came to the important jobs, he’d immediately ordered a NoseFrida Nasensekretsauger online from Germany. He’d no idea who NoseFrida was, but when the package arrived and he took a look at the cute cartoony illustration on the front of the plastic case, he had to admit that she looked like she knew exactly what she was doing.
Sure enough, once he’d clicked the case open, there within was a plastic tube, a set of four sponge-like filters (to stop any mucus from being swallowed), and an adapter for each end. 

And then, deep in the night a week or so later, it happened.
“She doesn’t sound good, Alan,” said Kara into the dark. “Listen.”
He’d listened. He’d agreed. There was a gurgling sound in Adele’s breathing as their tiny daughter slept. She was in a cot in their room, so that they could stagger into bleary action when called upon.
“Well, go on then.”
“What?” 
“Your turn. Get your tube out.”
“No fucking way, Kara. You’re coming with me for this one.”

So, in the pink glow of their night light, and with poor Adele laying on the change table terrified at the new and unwelcome sensation of having her brain syphoned through her nostrils, Alan and Kara pulled it off and sucked it out. And, a quarter of an hour later, with a tube full of stringy snot and an oddly satisfied feeling between them, the new parents followed their daughter in drifting back off to sleep.

But, where could you possibly go from there? That was the question Alan was musing over now, still staring down at the family car on the drive below from Adele’s nursery. His daughter’s cold had thankfully passed in the following days, but the Nasensekretsauger now sat dormant in her nursery, awaiting NoseFrida’s next mission. He’d been pleased with how well he’d handled things over the last few weeks. As with the poo fear, Alan had dealt with his demons by addressing them face-on. 

He went over to the dresser where the apparatus lay, and as he stared at the tubing a thought seized him. What would it be like if he tried it on himself? What would it feel like? What would happen?

Instantly, Alan was overwhelmed with a feeling of unexpected but rampant fervour. He would do it. He would do it here and he would do it now. With his wife and daughter downstairs and a flutter in his heart, he grabbed the tubing and held it up to the light of the window. Yes, it was clean and yes, it was ready.

Without a second thought he breathed out to empty his lungs, put the plastic adapter between his lips, gently eased the other end of the tubing into his right nostril and, giddy with excitement, sucked inwards. 

There was something akin to an explosion inside his head. With his eyes suddenly clenched tightly shut for fear of them bursting out of his skull, he saw only sparks in the darkness. He staggered forward, reaching out for the dresser to break his fall. He grabbed something and clung onto it tightly before fearfully opening his eyes, but the light wouldn’t come. 

Nothing made sense. His eyes were able to transmit to his addled brain that it was now somehow night time and that he was looking out from a completely different window to any that existed in their house. He was also aware of a noise that sounded exactly like an elephant trying to climb out of a cement mixer. Furthermore, his untubed left nostril informed him that the thing he had managed to grasp onto seconds earlier was a polythene bag full of Adele’s shitty nappies that he’d been intending to take outside and put in the bin. 

His head still pounding, he was able to make out a small antique wooden desk to his right. On it sat a candle in small brass holder, its flickering glow casting enough light for Alan to also spy a dark blue uniform jacket draped roughly over a chair. Brass buttons glinted in the candlelight. He was also able to see a small desk calendar that rather worryingly read “1888” in gothic script. He stared for a second, without comprehension. What the fuck? he thought, while behind him it sounded as if the elephant was very close to escaping the cement mixer’s clutches. 

It was at this point that Alan heard the voice.

“Ja… oh ja… oh, Alois…”
The cement mixer ground to a shuddering halt, and the elephant, along with Alan, held its breath.
“Nein Klara,” spoke a breathless male voice, with a note of malice that set the hairs on Alan’s neck rising. “Du weißt, dass du mich nie so nennen darfst. Sie sprechen mich nur mit Herrn Oberoffizial an.” 
Alan stood stock still with his back to the voices, not daring to move a millimetre.
“Es tut mir Leid,” apologised the first voice, female, full of fear.
“Es tut mir Leid, Herr Oberoffizial.” came the snarling response. Slowly. Each syllable calculated.

Then came the scream. Hers.
“Ein Mann! Suchen! Ein Mann!”
The scream caused Alan to yell in shock and spin about to face the source. In the dim light he could see a bed, where sat a terrified young woman, pointing at him with with one hand while clutching a bedsheet to her chest with the other. By the bed stood a naked man, much older, with the most bizarre moustache Alan had ever shared a room with. It bushed out away from his face, like two blasts of black smoke fired from his nostrils to form two hairy clouds. Alan also noted that the man’s chest was partially covered in shit from the nappy bag he’d accidentally hurled in surprise moments prior. 

Now the old man began to advance on him. His angry penis, shining in the candlelight, glowered at Alan from beneath the rounded barrel of his stomach. 
“Verlassen! Verlasse jetzt mein Haus!”

Alan, panicking, looked quickly from left to right for the swiftest exit. In doing so, the loose plastic tube hanging from his right nostril whacked him in the opposite eye, reminding him that the snot sucker was still attached. The old man leapt at him, growling. Alan had just enough time to place the adapter between his lips and, scrunching his eyes tightly shut, he sucked with all of his might.

***

He had no idea how long he’d been out.
Alan came to on the floor, his face to the carpet. He opened his eyes slowly to let the tiniest amount of daylight in, before a whirl of panic hit him. He sprang to his hands and knees as fast as he could, his eyes now fully open, alert. The vision of an angry and naked old man charging at him, brandishing a wilting post-coital penis, was seared into his immediate memory.
But he was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Alan was greeted by peaceful, soothingly pastel mint green walls. Adele’s white wooden crib stood by the wall, a mobile of eagles and hamsters floating above. Home.

He let forth a sigh of relief, and was aware once more of the plastic tube hanging from his nose. The Nasensekretsauger. Without thought or worry for his nasal lining, he yanked it free, threw it to the floor and groggily stood himself up.

“What the fuck is that?” 

On the drive below, instead of his petrol blue VW Estate, sat something that looked like a capsized boat on wheels. An orange capsized boat. 
He heard Kara enter and, leaning her head over his shoulder and nuzzling up beside him, she planted a kiss on his cheek.
“What are you talking about?” she said, mockingly. “That’s your pride and joy, your 2016 Austin Maxi Patriot. You’d been wanting one for ages so that we’d have more room for Adele.”

“Eh? But where’s the Volks–” he began, but never finished his question. He turned to face his wife, who was dressed in a fitted black military uniform, with an embroidered union flag on one sleeve and some other form of insignia he didn’t dare look at on her left chest pocket. She looked rather sexy in all kinds of ways he didn’t enjoy. Brass buttons glinted in the sunlight.
“Come on,” she said. “The Glory Parade starts in fifteen minutes, and we need to get Adele in her uniform. Hurry up.”

As Alan, suddenly short of breath, stepped out of the way to let his wife past, he felt the plastic adapter from the Nasensekretsauger crack and break under his shoe.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons