Skunk
laughs aloud as his cascading piss bubbles a layer of froth in the toilet bowl,
and he manoeuvres his penis to spread this over as much of the colouring water
as possible.
ache1
(shouting through from the bedroom): WHAT?
as
if this laughter may have as its root something of which she should be aware.
ache1:
SKUNK? WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?
She
crosses from the bed and raps gently, a mock threat tattooed out upon the door.
ache1:
HEY IN THERE! HEY SKUNK! WHAT’S WITH ALL THE PISSING?
Skunk:
I’M JUST TAKING A PISS
casting
back to times when taking a piss was never just taking a piss, when it felt a
life-or-death attempt at holding off until he had enough urine to expel as
would foam up the entire surface area of the bowl-water, then a race to see if
he could pull up his little pants and trousers, be zipped, buttoned and belted
before the initial flushing mechanism gave way to the filling of the tank,
which he does now with ease.
When
he exits, ache1 is back sitting on the bed with the duvet up around
her shoulders. She yawns and yawns again in that hard and infectious way
Brother Skunk cannot help but replicate.
Skunk
(yawning): You know ehm, when antler
tipping
his head in a shallow nod towards her stomach
Skunk:
gets here I’m going to
and
then breaks off to laugh out loud, unsure whether to continue.
Skunk:
When antler gets here I’m going to tell her tha-
ache1:
Tell her or him
the
baby’s gender unknown to them both this early in the pregnancy; (ache1
will refuse the information all the way to term, dying insensible to the sex of
the child that will die with her.) for now the content of her womb exists only
in abstraction, and not as the physically growing and quantifiable weight she
will be carrying through the days of the next nine months.
ache1:
So, what? What is this you have to ah, to impart to our offspring?
Skunk
feels the morning still sour in his mouth and rises for the bathroom again, and
his toothbrush. ache1 follows, still cloaked with bedding. She sits
on the bath’s edge as he stands at the mirror wherein he watches her reflection
yawn, which again he echoes.
Skunk:
Okay
rolling
his eyes back into his head and again:
Skunk:
Okay, here’s what I was thinking, right... Imagine how eh, say... Okay, imagine
we tell antler that all, that all
searching
for and grabbing at the first word he can think of for excrement that isn’t the
word excrement itself
Skunk:
dung is a living thing
ache1:
I don’t think I want to hear this.
Skunk:
No no, listen to me, listen. Okay. Say we tell her
ache1
(sighing): Or him.
Skunk:
that dung
ache1:
Skunk don’t say dung. Say...
thinking
ache1:
..say poop.
Skunk:
Okay, so say we tell her that every poop
is, that each of them is a little animal
ache1:
CEASE!
Skunk:
and that when you go to the toilet you’re actually giving birth to
ache1:
SKUNK! Jesus Christ Skunk, have you
making
with this an exhibitory gesture towards her loins
ache1:
Exactly which part of you thinks that I might have any interest, whatsoever, in what you’re saying right
now? Hey! What are you
Skunk:
Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I don’t...
and
in this he is sincere enough, but it runs on internally anyway, silent.
Skunk: Wouldn’t that be the
ultimate twisting of someone’s mind, that if you told them their poop was a
little living creature, and it came out alive, and the only reason it died was
because we put it straight into the toilet, into the water, and that drowns
the, the ehm, these little things? So it’s this, it’s this little
living thing that has its own poop and everything. Can you imagine that, what
that would do to someone if that’s the way they were brought up? Jesus, if you
told a kid that, they’d probably stop using the toilet altogether, and build something
like ehm, like a rabbit hutch or something, and put their poop in there, and
try and feed them lettuce and stuff.
He
reaches for the little toothmug crowded with his razor, the toothpaste, and
their two brushes.
ache1
(the situation having now lost even its hint of humour): Hey, you know
something?
regarding
him in the mirror as he starts to manipulate the tube of toothpaste.
Skunk:
Wha-
ache1:
There was a guy used to go to my school? Who kept his razor and toothbrush in
one of those
pointing
at the toothmug
ache1:
and one morning he, well, he was off school for a while and what had happened
was that he’d, you know ah, he’d woken up one morning all
fluttering
her fingers in front of her eyes
ache1:
you know, gunked up, sleepy-eyed and he went for his toothbrush but he picked
up the razor instead and put his toothpaste on that, and then he stuck it in his mouth.
Skunk:
Oh yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that.
He
heads the brush with paste, turns on the tap.
ache1
(rising and heading back to bed): Can you imagine that? Imagine the squeak of the blade across your teeth before it
sinks nice and thick into the flesh of your gums? The soft flesh of your gums?
Her
reflection bares its teeth in the middle distance, back in the bedroom. Skunk
pushes the door closed at his back with a foot.
When
he is done with brushing his teeth and
shaving (albeit with some defiance), she is again sitting on the bed wrapped in
the duvet.
He
throws some words at her, only half angry
Skunk:
What do you want?
Nothing.
Skunk:
Hm?
Pause.
ache1:
Bring me the head of John the Baptist!
Skunk
smiles.
ache1:
NOW!
