Danny's Navel Adventure

anonymous, without any real soul or useful purpose, ten minutes ago there‟d been three of us in the office, yet whatever I knew about Albert and Barry it was as though they‟d never existed, except in some dreary dream I‟d had during a very disturbed night of weary sleep. But the peace was nice, and as the phone was unlikely to ring, it rarely did after four on a Friday afternoon; I settled down into my mock black leather swivel chair and pondered my navel once again.

With my shoes off and my feet resting on the edge of the table without much of a care in the world, I leaned back with my hands clasped around the back of my head. I thought of the coming Saturday night and the invitation to Jack‟s party, and although I was never one for going into town for any reason unless I had to, Saturday morning would be spent searching for something amusingly stupid that I could give as a present. What that was to be I‟d no idea and probably wouldn‟t until I came across it, and if I didn‟t there was always the fall back to a bottle of spirits, boring but sensible because Jack liked his tipple every night of the week.

The effects of the wine had begun to wear off a little, and I felt less muggy headed so with nothing better to do I drifted back into the land of love. It was still an enigma that had no answer, and gently patting my tummy knew that I‟d never been in love. Every time I‟d had a relationship and uttered the words “I love you” it was as though the words were hollow filled tubes with nothing solid holding them together, something had always been missing but I‟d no idea what it was, and being male had never thought to ask “what?”

I wondered if love was actually a genetically female thing, because my mother clearly understood it even though she‟d never spoken about it or given me any sort of hint as to what it was: apparently mothers don‟t teach their sons about love, except a mother‟s love, which is entirely different to the love between a man and woman. Monica, deep down, even though she was forever larking about and treated life as a series of comedic adventures, knew what it was because she‟d sometimes felt the despair, anguish and heartbreak that comes with end of a serious love affair. Francesca lived a life that saluted the unknown joys of love and its ups and downs and relished it for it brought her joy and made her feel oh so alive. I, on the other hand, had simply walked through the countryside and missed everything there was to see, because I‟d never bothered to open my eyes, and failed to feel the warm, soft, gentle breeze of a glorious late spring day, because I remained densely wrapped up in the heaviest of my deep winter clothing.

A wave of sadness came over me, for some inexplicable reason my body shivered involuntary, as though someone was walking over my grave, and the world seemed very empty. I stretched, leaning back in the process and the chair decided to keel over in protest. In trying to prevent the inevitable collapse I reached out and did no more than grab the pile of papers closest to me. The papers merely did what they always do in a crisis, flew and scattered in every imaginable direction known to the compass; falling backwards, and unable to steady myself, my head collided with the wall to the back of me. On reflection being drunk, or at least half cut, softened the blow and had I been fully compos mentis my head would have exploded in pain on impact, as it was it merely felt like Mr. Johns, my old geography teacher, smacking me across the back of the head with