I suddenly felt an illness creeping up on me unawares. When I noticed the first jolt, a question went through my head as to the nature of the illness. One from within or out? The next thing that went through my head, a split second later, was an exocet missile of a brain tumour.
"You don't look at all well, ducks," said a little old lady who sat knitting near me in the pub. I was a local and, being in my usual seat underneath the moose-head trophy on the wall, everybody knew who I was.
"God, whatever's the matter with Mick?" said one.
'Too much of the bent arm, I dare say," said another.
"Blimey, Mick's gone all peculiar, and, look, the top of his head has blown off," said yet another, with a degree of surprise in his voice.
The pub landlord had by now left his favourite spot behind the bar where the optics gleamed and most of the money changed hands. He scowled at the mess on the carpet. Apparently it was quite all right to litter his precious carpet with beer-swill and dog-ends, but my headful of slime was unacceptable.
"Clear that up, Mick!" he snorted.
I could not budge an inch and stared sightlessly straight through the landlord as if he were dead. The pub was pulled down not long afterwards, to make room for St Paul's Cathedral - the one which they describe in the history books. My son's examination course left an opening for its construction sometime between 1650 and 1712, in case it later became a catalyst in the onrush of reality. But as it didn't, my son, like everyone else, was unaware of the Cathedral's existence until at least another window of opportunity presented itself on the night of the Millennial Lottery. I told him that St Paul's Cathedral was an epitaph to my book, a book that died even before I wrote it - as if one existence could salute another non-existence across the intervening realities.
"Why didn't you write your book, Dad?" he asked me.
"Because I had my head blown off in the First World War."
The landlord returned behind the bar, smirking as he pulled pints watered down with the produce of his own benders. The dear little old lady was gathering up what looked like a curdled cat's cradle of an exploded mind and she forthwith proceeded to stir it into a dome shape with her needles. My son sat grinning in the customary place under the moose-head. So, everybody thought it must be me. Meanwhile, Mick was building clouds.
(Published 'End of the Millennium' 1997)
