Everything Must Go

We think that we’ve got problems now.

The stars will one day disappear,

not all together – one by one.

Their lights will be no more, their names

forgotten. Everything Must Go!

the cosmic closing down sale signs

will not proclaim. Which star will be

the last to die in this doom-fated

universe? Earth’s? No. Ours will be long

be gone before that final light

succumbs, along with all the others,

to the heat death of eternity.

An old, tired, now dead universe,

so ancient that the noughts which mark

its age will be too numerous

to count. A near infinity

of zeroes, to signify nothing.

War and Peach

I misread War and Peace as War and Peach,

a side-effect of reaching middle age

(and being absent-minded with regard

to the whereabouts of my reading glasses).

I pick the book up, and, with outstretched arm,

begin to read. I’ve always been quite wary

of books known for their length; if measurement’s

the thing, the word we’re looking for is weight.

A weighty tome, as if the words convey

gravitas, when, in truth, they’re code for ‘few

people – if any – ever read this book.’

But back to War and Peace. Part One (it reads):

War. Part Two: Peach. Wait – peach? I go and find

my glasses, return to the book, and read

the title once again. Yes: War and Peach.

I’m curious to know how this one goes.

I dredge through lots of bloody death and torment,

exhaust my patience, and decide to skip

to Part Two: Peach. The brevity is startling:

‘The war was over; everything was peachy.’

That’s it. One sentence. Nothing more. I scan

my shelves and pick another book, at random.

Cress of the D’Urbevilles, the tragic tale

about a naïve piece of cress who ends up

inside an egg mayonnaise sandwich at

a roadside café adjacent to Stonehenge.

I close my eyes and run my hand along

the spines of unseen books. I stop and pull

one out, open my eyes, and find that I

am holding Fromage to Catalonia,

George Orwell’s personal account of bringing

cheddar and brie to the Spanish Civil War.

Below, I find The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

The book falls open at a much-read play,

Much Ado About Stuffing. I daren’t look.

Instead, I read some lines from A Midsummer

Ice-Cream. And now it’s everywhere I look:

Plate Expectations sits alongside Fried

and Prejudice, while Nineteen Eighty Flour,

Wuthering Bites, Jane Pear, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop!

(rum and raisin edition), Tinker, Tailor,

Soldier, Pie and Madame Bovrilly have

all found a place. Professor Stephen Hawkings’

A Brief History of Lime proves to be quite

impossible; I hadn’t known that citrus

fruits were so difficult to understand

and I abandon reading after page

seven. I look at all the books I have

and contemplate the unexpected mysteries of life.

Ultimate Bed Hair II

We play the latest virtual reality

sensation: Ultimate Bed Hair II,

and start off with the 1950s level.

You make a quite phenomenal arrangement:

Wind Tunnel Elvis Presley Singing ‘Blue

Suede Shoes’. The world has never seen a quiff

so catastrophic, and you progress to

the 1960’s level with a bonus brush.

By contrast, my Hungover Frank Sinatra

scores poorly, and I feel lucky to join you.

Your Marilyn Monroe on Any Given

Morning turns out to be a stroke of genius.

I come back strongly with Bob Dylan

After a Coughing Fit. The 70s

await. You choose Progressive Rock on Acid,

a style so vague you don’t move up a level.

John Lydon Wakes Up from a Nightmare Where

He Had to Sing ‘God Save the Queen’ with Paul

McCartney gets the highest score so far,

and wins me bonus shoulder pads, with which

any monstrous 80s bed hair style

would surely give me too much of a lead

for you to catch. My Margaret Thatcher

Mauled at the Labour Party Conference scores

far less than I had hoped, while you, still stuck

a decade back, create Members of the Band

Van Der Graaf Generator with their Hands

on an Actual Van der Graaf Generator.

The score for this is stratospheric, so

we check online and learn that nobody

has ever won so many points in just

one go. An Almost Drowned Simon le Bon

extends your lead. With my Chris Morris Wig

Attacked by Mail on Sunday Journalists,

I make some inroads, but your next creation,

George Michael Smoking Weed Crashes His Car,

incurs a massive penalty on grounds

of poor taste, and I find myself with half

a chance. An Ageing Punk Forgets to Use

Hair Gel sees me almost level with

your score. The final round will be decisive.

As you are in the lead, you get to choose

the order of play for this round of rounds,

decide to go first, and double whammy me

with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson Fight.

I can’t see any coming back from this,

and, knowing that I’ve surely lost, I make

a lateral move, and simply write Post-Brexit Hair.

We hear the strains of Morrissey’s obscure

b-side, Hairdresser on Fire, and it’s over:

I’ve somehow won. Conceding your

surprise defeat with grace, you load the new

latest virtual reality sensation

into the games console: Ultimate Wardrobe

Malfunction III, Lenny Kravitz Edition.