Muddypuddle

© 2012 David Jasmin-Green

Walter Pigeon wandered aimlessly around the neighbourhood that he had spent almost his whole life in. He had always loved the town, particularly the vaguely bordered chunk that he used to call his own. In the past he might have marked the edges of his sprawling, indefinable patch with trickles of pungent, dark yellow piss, but he had lost his mojo, his piss had lost its potency and the marking of territory didn't seem appropriate any more.

The town had changed - rather drastically, Walter feared. He felt like an ousted tribal leader, a crippled former monarch wandering in rags around the ruins of his once great kingdom. In his brief (or maybe not so brief) absence from normality the higgledy-piggledy streets that he used to think he knew like the back of his hand had altered, the town had contorted tortuously into a nightmare negative of itself while his back was turned. And it wasn't the only thing that had changed. It seemed to Walter that his whole life had turned upside down and inside out overnight, it seemed like his once enjoyable existence had conspired against him and become an occasionally shrieking but more often infuriatingly silent lie.

Even the undulating landscape surrounding the town, which formed a patchwork backdrop whatever direction you gazed on a reasonably clear day, looked different. When the invalid left the house for the first time in several weeks just a couple of hours earlier (a home, nay, a grinning, gap-toothed skull or a covetous cobwebbed mausoleum, his demons whispered) he had half expected the hills around Soddom and Gomorrah rolled into one twee, sickly sweet fairy cake to be bathed in glorious sunshine reflected from God's golden chariot - if it was a sticky fairy story spider web that had covertly entrapped him surely he had reached the point in the plot where the one and only all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful God was about to swoop down and rescue the poor, misguided sinner and carry him off to an eternity of bliss in heaven – but instead he found the hills around Muddypuddle bleak and colourless, rain-lashed and decidedly ominous.

“Muddypuddle. Muddypuddle. Muddypu – that's not this shit-hole's real name!” Walter snapped. “Actually I've been out of the house several times since I fell ill,” he corrected his muddled train of thought, “but only to see a never ending queue of doctors and therapists. I was accompanied by my missus on every single occasion, and this is the first time I've had the bollocks to wander out alone. Thank God for the NHS, 'cos I wouldn't have paid a single one of the so-called professionals I've seen; in my opinion those bastards have made a right pig's ear of me - they've fucked up my mind considerably more than it was fucked up in the first place.

Jean has been my rock, my saviour, my only hope. Poor dear, she has another kid to look after now apart from Alan and Alice, our ever squabbling teenagers. What would we do if Jean crumbled and fell to pieces like I have? Or, heaven forbid, what would I do if she left me? She keeps telling me that she loves me no matter what, she keeps saying she married me for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death us do part, but I'm not sure if she really means that. Perhaps she's secretly plotting to flee to greener pastures, and a greener pasture than ours wouldn't take much finding.....

If my memory serves me correctly, the first time I was forced to leave my not so comfy cotton wool lined nest I was dragged kicking and screaming into a world I all of a sudden saw as terrifyingly hazardous, a world I perceived as a living, breathing suburb of hell. Now that was a curtain-twitcher if ever I saw one.

They're going to put me away, ha-haar!
They're going to put me away.
I'm tapped, I'm puddled, I'm anxious and grey,
they're going to put me away, ha-haar!
They're going to put me away.”

*************************

“The hills have eyes,” Walter growled under his breath as he laboriously placed one foot in front of the other. “Them thar hills are studded with twitching, bloodshot, ravenous, mutant mother-fucking eyes just like in the god-damned film.

I'm not stupid, you know, I've temporarily mislaid the name of my home town, not lost it completely. Same thing with my own name, I guess. The missus and kids call me by my name countless times every day, and it's not Walter Pigeon, I can tell you that much - but I'm damned if I can remember what it is right now. It's a side effect of my medication, or so I'm led to believe; it's a temporary mental glitch and my thoughts will rediscover their old, well-worn pathways in time, it's a fault in my cerebral wiring and my addled brain will eventually resolder its organic circuit board given due care and attention. And, of course, insane quantities of highly toxic drugs with freaky, mostly frightening side-effects. Whoever heard of a bloke called Walter sodding Pigeon? Mind you, I suppose the notion of a bemused Walter Pigeon stumbling aimlessly around a town called Muddypuddle is as good as any other in the extensive annals of fact cleverly disguised as fiction. Who am I, God? Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? And what am I doing here? Pray tell, boss, 'cos I haven't got a frigging clue.”

Maybe the nuclear warheads of his unknown enemy had struck his beloved territory a plenty while he was out of action, Walter mused. Maybe even his favourite haunts in the once beautiful countryside surrounding the nameless town he lived in were poisoned with cell mutating, mind-bending, brain blasting, sterilising but ultimately cleansing radiation. His home ground, ground zero, had become alien and soulless and infinitely dangerous while he suffered his longest day, a seemingly infinite waking sleep, but of course mankind deserved to be wiped from the face of the Earth because mankind was inherently evil.

*************************

Walter had always gone out of his way to smile at passers by, strangers even, and he was always willing to chat with anyone in a chin-wagging mood, but over the past few weeks he had stayed at home licking his invisible wounds and avoiding contact with everyone outside his immediate family. Some terrible calamity that he struggled to understand had befallen his mind, and he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed or smiled.

“The doctor knows all about my malady,” he grunted, “so ask that fucker about its subtle ins and outs rather than silly old me. My refusal to openly acknowledge most of my malfunctions doesn't mean that I'm not ill. Never mind, doctor Foster who went to Gloucester in the pouring rain and fell in a puddle right up to his middle and never went there again said I'll eventually get better as long as I continue taking a nasty, reason bending orange and green pill in the morning and a tiny white capsule at night like a good boy, as long as I get off my bony arse and start living again a little bit at a time. Probably, anyway.

But perhaps in phase two of my existence my chin will never wag again. Maybe it's grown too old and weary, maybe it's diseased and gangrenous and about to drop off, maybe it has as much wag left in it as a dead dog's tail. Perhaps Jean's had the local undertaker measure me up for my coffin while I slept a deep, dreamless non-benzodiazepine hypnotic induced sleep and God is at this very moment fluffing up a cloud for me and polishing my harp or Satan's set aside a nice, comfy armchair with built in manacles for me beside the fire. Whatever, I couldn't give a monkeys any more.”

He couldn't face trivialities, especially niceties, Walter told himself. He hadn't left the barren sanctuary he once called home to be nice, he had left the house because his body was seizing up and he desperately needed some exercise. Once he felt a bit more sure of his feet he could start walking Tank, his stout Staffie Rottweiler cross, again. Heavens, the poor thing hadn't been further than the back yard for goodness knows how long. Tank kept looking at Walter with his pleading hazel eyes. How do you explain to your dumb but nevertheless loving ginger mutt that you're physically and mentally incapable of giving him the exercise he craves?

Walter had barely made it halfway down street when he was accosted by Mr. Wiggins who lived in the scruffy corner house, the one with the filthy, nicotine stained net curtains and the peeling chocolate and beige hallway that looked like it hadn't been decorated since the nineteen thirties. The old timer asked so many awkward questions that Walter blurted out a hastily concocted lie about a close relative being struck down by a particularly aggressive tumour, then he shuffled away muttering to himself as an aggrieved relative might mutter if he was feeling sufficiently emotionally frazzled.

Some twenty minutes later he spotted Mrs. Braithwaite, his nosy next door neighbour, coming out of the Post Office, and he reacted as if he had stumbled across Old Horny himself. He loped across the road in a dead straight line like a deranged gibbon on a tightrope and disappeared around a convenient corner, pretending that he hadn't heard the over-loud hellos that she bellowed like an amorous lady bison (which she somewhat resembled). As soon as he was out of sight he sprinted down Caldwell street at an improbable speed considering his aching, wobbly legs. His gallop was boosted by the fear that the abominable woman was scuttling after him as fast as her stumpy legs could carry her, and he hoped to God that she wouldn't knock on his door when she spied him sneaking back into his house later that day. No doubt the interfering fat moo would ask skip-loads of uncomfortable questions, and if she did descend on the threshold of his humble abode like the angel of death itself he prayed that he would be fortunate enough to see her coming and brave enough to hide for as long as it took her to get bored and fuck off back home.

*************************

It had been drizzling on and off for the last couple of hours and there was hardly anyone around. Walter was wearing a waxed Barbour hat and coat, so he wasn't really bothered about the rain. The soles of his boots were leaking and though he hadn't walked particularly far his feet and his knees were aching like a bitch. Though Christmas was just a month away the weather was surprisingly mild, so he didn't mind getting wet.

He kept telling himself that the dull ache following as much gentle exercise as he could manage in his debilitated state was preferable to deep vein thrombosis, which was one of his major fears since he fell ill, because he had spent most of his time lounging in front of the TV in his pyjamas watching a selection of mindless programmes that he could barely remember once they had finished. The discomfort of going out had to be better than the incomparable horror of fretting himself silly over money (or the lack of it) and a series of less tangible problems in a cold, empty house while Mrs. Pigeon was at work and the squabs were at school.

“I've stared at four enclosed walls for long enough,” Walter grumbled. “It's time to cease my relentless tomb building, it's time to step forth into the post-apocalyptic world, as grey as it appears to my weary eyes, radiation or no radiation. It's time to conquer my fears one small step at a time and seek the sunshine after the rain. If the sun ever shines again, that is.

I wanna see the sunshine after the rain,
I wanna see bluebirds flying over the mountains again.
I wanna see the silver lining shining at the rainbow's end.”

*************************

Walter as so entangled in his deranged, mostly bitter but occasionally encouraging thoughts that he failed to notice the slouched figure marching determinedly in his direction beneath an orange and green cagoule exactly the same colour as his dreaded pills, a garment that was several sizes too big, and an infeasibly large, bright yellow sou'wester. The little man was wearing lurid purple sunglasses, but Walter wouldn't have spotted those beneath the sou'wester even if he was looking where he was going (which he wasn't). The man was hugging the wall as he walked and studying the footpath intently, apparently trying to avoid stepping on the cracks between the paving stones. Walter was concentrating solely on putting one sore foot in front of the other, which blocked out the improbable looking stranger until the two of them dramatically collided. Immediately after the impact Walter raised his arms spastically, looking like a tranquillised toddler in a pre-school drama class pretending to be a tree waving its branches in a light breeze.

“I didn't expect that,” Walter couldn't help saying as he battled a compulsion to dance vigorously, to wave his arms above his head seductively and throw playing cards in the air like his partially correct recollection of the dancing silhouette of the woman in the opening credits of Roald Dahl's Tales Of The Unexpected, a nineteen eighties TV programme that vividly invaded his mind. “Why hasn't that been re-run while I've been ill instead of endless repeats of Only Fools And Horses, Mythbusters and Jeremy bloody Kyle?” he grumbled. Eventually he looked down at the fallen stranger.

Walter had knocked the diminutive individual onto his bottom, and the moment he hit the pavement the man's sunglasses flew in one direction and his sou'wester in the other, at which point his unusual physiognomy was revealed to an indifferent world. Well, to the hurting, confused but slightly hopeful tree-man who for some reason thought of himself as Walter Pigeon, because no one else was looking, and even if someone was looking they more than likely wouldn't have given a toss.

“You're a bear,” Walter said matter of factly. “You're a hairless, albino, pink-eyed bloody bear. What are you doing here? Are you some sort of pan-dimensional being from a parallel universe?”

“No I'm not!” the bear man roared, scrabbling across the wet, deserted road on all fours utilising a sideways crab-like gait to retrieve his sou'wester, which a sudden gust of wind had claimed. “I'm neither a pan-dimensional being nor a bear. And for your information I live right here in Muddypuddle – at number twenty nine Providence Street, if it's any of your business.” As soon as he retrieved his hat the creature put it on, pulling it down tightly over his huge ears. Deciding that the gait of a crustacean was too clumsy, perhaps, he ran on his hind legs to pick up his cheap plastic sunglasses, which he slipped on to protect his sensitive eyes from the low winter sun, which had chosen that very moment to peep out from behind a bank of dark cloud for a minute or so. Then he stood there with his arms folded like a lemon, squinting at Walter in indignation. “In future, kindly look where you're going, you lanky dick-head,” he said.

“Oh yes you are,” Walter said. “A bear, I mean. I saw you, and despite the cocktail of drugs that my doctor has poisoned me with for reasons I'm not entirely sure about I'm convinced that I'm not mistaken. You can hide your face as much as you like, matey, but it won't change the fact that you're a bear. You have big teddy bear ears, a protruding muzzle, a wet, black nose like a dog's nose and a mouthful of wicked looking teeth. Go on, you might as well admit it.”

“Shan't!” the heavily camouflaged bear said. “Even if I was a bear I wouldn't admit it, because this is hardly a bear friendly place, is it? Shit, the coat of arms of this godforsaken hill settlement features a bear and a ragged staff, and we all know what that signifies. The descendants of the monsters that drove the brown bear to extinction of this country still walk around with bull blooded dogs, dogs that would no doubt revel in baiting a bear - which, as I've hopefully explained, I am not.”

“You must be a burr, then,” Walter chuckled, thinking fondly about his little ginger dog, who would probably be up for a spot of bear baiting if it was on offer despite his placid nature.

“I am not a burr – why insinuate that I'm a sticky bud? - or a bear, I am a human being!” the bear yelled. “Oh, all right then, I'm a bare-nekkid bear otherwise known as a bare bear. There, I've come clean. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

“I will not,” Walter said. “I gave up smoking ages ago, shortly after I was made redundant, in fact, which was when my missus informed me that I could no longer afford to smoke. Or eat an occasional Chinese; a takeaway, that is, not a Chinese person. I can barely afford to bloody breathe nowadays, never mind smoke.

I'm Walter Pigeon, by the way. No I'm not - it might sound daft, but I can't remember my real name. Walter Pigeon is the name I'm sort of getting by on in the strange, Temazepam tainted world I find myself trapped in. Actually I finished my course of Temazepam a couple of weeks back, I'm on a milder tranquilliser and a serotonin booster now, but I think the Temazepam is still swimming around in my bloodstream. To tell the Gospel truth I reckon that it's irreversibly twisted my brain..... Actually I prefer not know what I'm taking, because if you worry about the side effects of the shit the doctors pump into your system you'd go stark, raving mad.”

“I see. I'm Ted E. Bear, pleased to meet you, I'm sure,” the bear said, performing a curious half bow, half curtsey that Walter took to be the common greeting in La-la land or wherever the bear came from. “Those mind-altering drugs are no good to you, you know, my friend. You want to get off them as soon as possible, or you're history – you'll end up in the rubber room of a psychiatric hospital painting thick impastos on the walls with your own turds. I had an uncle who was put on antidepressants by some malicious quack because he had a breakdown after his wife left him, and he ended up believing he was a turnip. Or maybe it was a swede or a mangold-wurzel, I can't remember. Anyway, uncle Greg would have spent the rest of his life buried up to his neck on his allotment between two rows of King Edwards if we didn't rescue him. You don't want to end up like uncle Greg slowly mouldering in rich, deep loam with a selection of unusual bacteria feeding on your knacker-sack, do you, Walter? You have to get a grip. Somehow you have to find another way to cope, and sometimes the most unlikely sounding ways are the best..... Wasn't Walter Pidgeon a Canadian actor?”

“I dunno, Ted. The name's familiar, which I guess is why I unconsciously selected it, but I'm not sure where I dug it up from. Maybe I saw a film with Walter Pidgeon in and for some reason chose him as a role model..... What does the 'E' in Ted E. Bear stand for?”

“I'm not sure, I can't recall mama bear or poppa bear or even Goldilocks telling me after she stuffed her face with my porridge, busted my chair and crapped in my bed. It's probably Engelbert, Ebeneezer, Enid or something even more embarrassing.

I'm going on a picnic, a Ted E. Bear's picnic especially for follicularly challenged closet bears. I know you're not a bear, not even a closet bear, but do you want to come along? You won't have to wear a bear costume or anything like that.”

“I don't see why not,” Walter said after a long pause during which Ted could almost hear the cogs whirring in his new acquaintance's skull. “Mind you, it seems a bit cool and damp for a picnic, and I can't say I fancy sitting in a muddy field on a flimsy folding chair sipping stale, tepid tea and half-heartedly munching on limp ham and cucumber sandwiches, soggy tinned salmon vol-au-vents and chocolate éclairs reeking suspiciously of fish. There wouldn't even be any ants or wasps to spoil such a picnic, so it wouldn't be much of a challenge - and I have a sneaking feeling that it'll probably rain on your parade. Where were you planning on going?”

“It never rains on my parade,” the bear replied, puffing out his chest. “I know of a secret glade in yonder hills on the magical island of Albion somewhere between the triangle formed by the coordinates of Gog, Magog and Kinder Tor, which isn't giving much away - walls have ears, you know. There's a little wood there called Tomorrow where the sun is nearly always shining and it hardly ever rains. I like it there, Walter, and I reckon you'll probably like it too. Are you game, or are you a great, steaming pussy?”

“I've always fancied myself a bit of a pussy,” Walter said, a vague smile playing on his lips, “but that doesn't mean that I'm not game. When I was a kid I ached to go to sea in a beautiful pea green boat with an owl of all things, but then I grew up and eventually I grew weary of this life. I suppose a bare bear is every bit as good as an owl – I guess you'll have to do, Ted. You will bring me safely home afterwards, of course.....”

“Of course, that goes without saying. That's that sorted, then. What a wonderful pussy you are, you are, what a wonderful pussy you are. Oh, I very nearly forgot to mention that my boat isn't pea green. And it's not so much a boat as a purple paddle steamer. I sincerely hope you don't mind that discrepancy – I hope it doesn't bugger up your grand psychological expectations.”

“Of course I don't mind,” Walter said, looking at the purple paddle steamer rising and falling on the overeager briny at the end of the dock that had suddenly appeared at the junction of No Hope Avenue and Scrapheap Street. “And I don't think it buggers anything up. I hope not, anyway. I hereby drop my foolish pretend surname and rename myself Walter Raleigh, and I change my occupation from failed tailor to explorer.”

“Jolly good, Sir Walter. I name this ship Renewal, in honour of your second childhood,” the bear said, smashing a bottle of Thunderbird wine that he conjured from an inner pocket on the purple paddle steamer's shimmering hull. “Raise the anchor, boys, chuck a few Newcastle Browns in the fridge and get the bacon and eggs on – I do believe we're ready to rock!”