I got rid of the swans in the end: they were just too distracting. Big bed is
all well and good, but the second you think about sheets they have to be silk,
and the second you have silk sheets you get all wanky so you need swans to oh
y'know, be all silk sheety. You don't get it, but so what? You're not supposed
to. Swans. Y'dig? Swans are great. Big bed. Forget about silk sheets cos
they're a bugger to clean. Big fluffy duvet if it gets cold. Big bed. Big
duvet. Swans. Which means a moat, which meant moving bedrooms to the ground
floor, which meant digging up the hard concrete foundations instead of breaking
through a door and plaster and never mentioning that someone tried to kill me,
which meant back-breaking labour and six months of lying in traction with a
broken back and all sweaty and smutty from the work, and you might think that
that's all rippling muscles, but after six months of rancid sweat and concrete
dust forming a crust on your upper lip you'd think twice and thrice and
probably not bother in the end, so before I got the swans and after I'd been
released from hospital I dived into the moat (knowing how deep it was, but not
knowing that knowing how deep it was also went with not diving into it if it
wasn't deep enough to dive into). Another six months in hospital to recover
from paralysis - I'm a marvel of modern medicine and they all want to study me
and find out how come I'm all perfect, or as perfect as someone who spent the
best part of a year in hospital recovering from a broken back and then
paralysis, which I didn't really do, but it sounds cool to say cos chicks dig
scars and I didn't get any scars but there's always the prospect of compound
fracture scars on the lower back, and once you've got your top off at least a
little something is guaranteed - but I said no, I had swans to buy, and I now
didn't stink cos I'd bathed in moat water six months ago, so I smelled as fresh
as a baby's bottom that had been in moat water six months ago, and I bought me
some swans.
The thing with swans is they sound better than they really are. They can't
break your arms if you know how to deal with them: if they try anything, just
kick the fuckers in the knackers and they go down like a slut on heat. They are
ugly close up and they make a lot of noise and they shit a lot. Keep them
floating in the background on your moat around your bed and silent and shitless
and you'll not notice how ugly they really are and they'll just be swans
floating around your big bed with clean sheets and a big duvet and coffee and
chocolates for afters. Train them to be docile and they might be silent, but if
you scream near their head however docile they are, they're gonna join in the
noise and we all know the noise that swans can make, don't we, children?
They'll shit themselves (or laugh) if you take them by surprise. They'll shit
themselves anyway because they're swans, and swans shit, cos that's what they
do when they're not being wiped on Rabelais - nice arse, shame about the face.
You've gotta starve them, it's the only way to keep swans if you want to keep
them in the moat that surrounds your big bed. Keep them just on the brink of
death so they hardly move, won't shit, won't make a noise, but can just about
maintain buoyancy so you're not worrying about the dead swans with flies
buzzing around them whilst you're trying to mount your good lady wife. It's
what I did. Semi-conscious swans. Lovely.
Despite not being raised Catholic I do often feel guilty in the second or so
after ejaculation; I don't know what it is, maybe it's just serene relaxation
and I call it guilt because I know no better. I certainly feel emotions right
after, emotions I tend away from usually, and this one time I saw these poor
dear swans whom I'd consigned to a lifetime of hunger and death if I fell
asleep afterwards which I don't tend to do. I couldn't do it. I couldn't treat
them like that. I'd never be able to concentrate again; their silence would
haunt me, their lack of shit would haunt me, there's no way I could maintain an
erection after that... I could try, but I'd rather succeed than try, y'know?
Open the window, chuck the swans outside, wonder how to explain a moat in the
bedroom, wonder how I managed to summon up the energy to swim across to chuck
the swans out of the window, wonder if I have the energy to swim back, fall
asleep on the other side before I can decide whether to risk it. It wasn't
terribly romantic in the end, but it weren't bad, y'know?