We’re watching this documentary on an obscure channel. You know
the sort of thing, a pretence of quality journalism but really it’s just lets
all point and laugh at the freaks. This one’s all about extreme body art, folk who
cover themselves in tattoos and go under the surgeon’s knife to transform
various bits of their anatomies. Devil horns, forked tongues, the lot. Not my
cup of tea, but she loves it.
Gets to this one guy who’s gone seriously over the top. He’s
had an operation to get his entire body removed, leaving him as just a mouth
and a tattoo of the word ‘cock’. The interviewer asks if his decision to alter
himself so radically has affected his ability to find a job. “Actually, it’s
helped,” he replies. “I work as a model for an online alternative fashion brand
and I go to all the big body art conferences.”
I’ve seen enough. I head outside for some fresh air and a cigarette.
God damn it. Next door’s pet fucking lion is taking a massive shit down by the
shed. Bastard thing. Three times last week I had to clean up steaming great
piles. It’s not right people think they can just let their animals crap all over other people’s property. “Oi, fuck off,” I shout as I throw a stone at it.
The lion growls and starts prowling closer toward me.
Fucking nerve of the thing. That’s when I notice its bloody owner over the back
hedge, a woman who’s always wearing a dressing gown and never without a fag dangling
from her mouth. She’s hanging washing on the line, oblivious to the fact her
pet is in my garden acting like a cunt.
“Hey,” I yell. “Get this flea-bitten fucking thing away
from me or it’ll be going in a bag and getting dumped in the river.”
She raises a scornful eyebrow. “Fuck off. It’s not flea-bitten.
It’s a noble beast.”
“Noble beast my fucking arse.”
She gives me the finger, then saunters off back inside.
Bitch. She’s never had a job. How she can afford to smoke forty a day and keep
a pet lion is beyond me.
