A productive morning by Andrew Joshua Kerr, espresso

Lying curled in the darkness, he tried to resist the temptation to hit snooze. No, he thought, turning onto his back and kicking away the bed covers. Today is going to be different. Today I’m going to succeed.

            Ten a.m. was far earlier than Doug usually got out of bed. Normally it was more like dinner time.

The cluttered room seemed strangely unfamiliar to his bleary eyes. Piles of books stood like miniature models of Babel, though some were more like Pisa, complete with ashtray battlements manned by old dog-ends with filter-tip muskets.

Every surface that was not piled high with books or ashtrays was strewn with pieces of paper in various sizes and states of repair, scrawled with notes and ideas and lists of 'Things To Do Today'.

The sunlight that streamed in through the narrow window caught every mote of dust thrown into the air by the discarded bed covers that knocked a Pisa into a Babel which, in turn, sent its full contingent of dog-ends to infiltrate the carpet.

‘Damn!’

Doug threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood up amid the wreckage of his bedroom. He'd clean up later. It was time for breakfast.

He looked around for his dressing gown. Where had he put it? Normally it lived amongst the pile of dirty clothes at the foot of his bed.

He began to search through the sock-rich deposit of t-shirts and jeans. Then he remembered. Hadn't he begun to do some laundry a few days ago? Had he succeeded? If so, what had happened to it?

The vision of clean clothes made him smile. Today will begin with clean underwear. He tore open the top drawer of his cupboard. “Ah.”

He had definitely not succeeded in doing any laundry previously. One lone sock stared up at him from the white drawer, its tutti-frutti colours highlighting that it was not even one of his own.

Oh well, he thought, closing the drawer. He left the room wearing only the off-white boxer shorts he had slept in and the day before yesterday's black socks.

He walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle. Bacon and eggs and a cup of tea. Today will start with a good breakfast. He opened the fridge and removed a half-full packet of smoked bacon. It was two days past its 'Use By' date.

Doug looked at it. Little rainbow ribbons glistened when he moved the packet from side to side. It was as though someone had treated the surface with a thin layer of petrol.

He sniffed the packet. It smelt like smoked bacon. He turned on the hob. The frying pan was already there, pre-lubed with the congealed grease of a previous day's bacon sandwich.

Doug took a table knife from the sink, wiped it on his boxer shorts and wrote his name in the white fat. Once it had melted, he put the remaining rashers of bacon into the pan and turned back to the fridge for the eggs.

‘Damn!’

There was nothing else in the fridge except an almost empty tin of baked beans that had developed a downy fuzz and a cucumber that had entirely abdicated any semblance of structural integrity and was now trying to spread itself as far as possible in directions that, presumably, it could only have dreamt of in its solid form.

Miles away, the kettle clicked off the boil. Even though he knew the answer already, Doug re-scanned the interior of the fridge.

‘Damn!’

            Reassess, Doug thought, looking into the frying pan at the bacon that was almost ready. No milk. No eggs. He scratched his chin and the solution came to him.

‘Sandwich,’ he said to himself, nodding. He opened the bread bin and removed the contents.

Three slices of green-blue, dusty bread and a ginger-nut biscuit. Oh well. At least I have a biscuit. He popped it into his mouth.

‘Eugh,’ he said as he swallowed. ‘So that's why no-one keeps biscuits in the bread bin.’

He reassessed again. It was a beautiful day and he needed to do some shopping. So, the only thing to do was, therefore, to do some shopping and enjoy the beautiful day. Doug smiled to himself and began to ponder the problem of where his laundry might be.

The washing machine, of course.

Doug nearly laughed out loud at the obvious logic of it. He knelt down and opened the port-hole door. A smell reminiscent of freshly cut turf met his nostrils.

‘Damn!’

 He felt the mash of sodden clothing. Why hadn't he hung the load outside to dry after the spin cycle had finished last time? Oh well, he thought, setting the machine to 'Fast Coloureds' and closing the port-hole door. It would be clean again by the time he returned from the shops with breakfast. He switched off the hob, went back into his room and uncovered a curry-stained pair of blue jeans and a Rolling Stones t-shirt that he had worn all last week. Then he headed outside into the sunlight. 

            That was a narrow miss.

            Doug congratulated himself as he side-stepped the large dog turd that lay just outside his front door. As he walked past the coatings factory at the bottom of the hill, he waved to the handful of workers that were having a cigarette outside the gate.

“Good morning,” a large lady in blue overalls called over. “Good morning,” Doug called back.

            It’s actually morning! He mentally congratulated himself again.

As he walked towards Yazeem's Corner Store he thought, Today would be a glorious day for a walk in the park. He paused at the door.

If truth be told, he really wasn't all that hungry. “The park first, then,” he said to himself. “It'll give me an appetite.”

He walked down the cobble-stone short-cut, past the ruined graveyard and entered the park, thinking about nothing in particular. The little stream glittered beside the path and Doug was only too happy to enjoy its distracting reflections as he walked along.

To his right, a black poodle was doing its very best to run through the symmetrical gardens carrying a stick nearly as large as itself. Doug smiled.

Those poor tulips, he thought, as he reached the fork in the path.

The duck pond was outside in the spectacular sunshine but the hot house was itself spectacular. All those cacti and living stones and avocados. Not to mention the carnivorous plants.

Doug had briefly kept a small collection of Venus fly-traps and pitcher plants by his kitchen window before they all succumbed to hypo-hydration.

He sat down on a bench to mull over the possibilities. Suddenly, a great cloud rolled across the sun and opened itself out into a sheet of rain. The breeze picked up enthusiasm, hoping to be promoted to wind. Doug suddenly found himself cold and soaked through.

Oh well, that solves that.

He stood up, put his head down and made for home at a hasty saunter.

            Once he was in through the door he put the kettle on.

‘Damn,’ he said as he remembered he hadn’t gone to the shop yet.

‘Damn,’ he said as he looked down at the half cooked bacon in the frying pan.

‘Damn,’ he said as he looked from the washing machine to the window.

‘Shit,’ he said as he went to take off his shoes and noticed the faecal footprints that led back to the front door.

‘I'm going back to bed.’

About the author:

Bio:

Andrew Kerr is a Belfast-born writer living in Vietnam whose short fiction explores humour, memory, and the small absurdities that quietly shape everyday life.

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