Story: 'The Carrot Man'

Two men sit in a darkened room, glaring at each other across a table underneath a single bare lightbulb. We observe from a shadowy recess to one side.

The man on the left puts on a glove puppet, which resembles a talking carrot in form with a big tuft of green sprout. He mimes the carrot jabbering away while the man on the right looks confused. Eventually the confused man rummages under the table and withdraws what seems to be a large metal block and two drum sticks which he uses to achieve a metal drum rhythm on the block.

Puppet man is angry at the interruption and lack of attention and stands up, thrusting his chair back behind him.

"Carrot hater!"

"No, man, I just prefer to play the cube."

From the recess it seems obvious that the men are quite insane. There's only problem though, as we're the patients and they're the doctors.

--

Today is Saturday, and as with all Saturdays, there are things to be done. Mostly today's thing to be done is to write the introduction to my paper and that is hard indeed. Distilling a chapter's worth of reading into two or three pages at the very most is complicated especially when there has been reading since then! However, it is coming together, which is surprising to me somehow.

Intermixed with that writing is some reading, namely the novels 'The Caine Mutiny' and 'Contact', the latter of which is finally nearing its close after an extremely interrupted and intermittent effort. It seems to be very good, but I somehow lost touch with it about a third of the way in and had to make a concerted effort to get through an obstacle, which could either have been of my own invention or a problem in the narrative. Also bubbling under is still 'The Specialty of the House' short story collection which is excellent. I just have a problem with short stories in that they're really tiring whereas novels are engrossing. Oh, 'The Glass Key' is in the pile too, as a testament to Dashiell Hammett and his invincible ability to write stunning prose.

Oh gosh, if I finish reading 'Contact' I'll need to write a review! That would be a really hard review. The kind of review that busts you into numerous pieces and sees you being washed out to sea in a conflict between the benefits of single stranded narrative with a clear scientific vision and a strong personal need for complexity and interweaving plot strands. We'll see what happens. It's certainly very different to the movie with the dreaded Matthew McConnaughey and more welcome Jodie Foster.

<moves 'Contact' to bottom of pile, then back to top and finally to its original place in the heap>

Now, back to the fortnightly viewing of 'Zulu', which really only seems to get better!

Oliver.