Dead Famous

DAY FOUR. 2.20 p.m.

The shrugs of the rest of the group indicated that Layla and Dervla had won the day, and since the inmates of the house were allowed neither pencil nor paper Jazz, drawing on his training as a chef, suggested that they make the rota grid out of spaghetti.

“Spag sticks to walls,” he said. “That’s how you check it’s done. You chuck it at the wall and if it sticks it’s done.”

“Well, that’s fahkin’ stupid, Jazz,” said Gazzer. “I mean, then you’d have to scrape your dinner off the wall, wouldn’t you?”

“You don’t throw all of it, you arsehole, just a strand or two.”

“Oh, right.”

“Jazz lightly boils some spaghetti,” said Andy the narrator, “and makes a rota grid on the wall.”

“Bitching,” said Jazz, admiring his handiwork. “Now each of us can be represented by grains of boiled rice. The starch will make them stick.”

“Wicked!” shouted Moon. “We can each personalize our grains, like them weird fookers in India or wherever who do rice sculptures. I saw it on Discovery, they do all this incredible tiny detail and the really, really philosophical thing about it is, it’s too fookin’ small to see?”

“Well, that’s just fahkin’ stupid, isn’t it?” Gazzer opined.

“It’s not! It’s a fookin’ philosophical point, ain’t it? Like if a tree falls in a forest but nobody hears it. Did it make a noise or whatever. These blokes don’t do it for you or me. They decorate grains of rice for God.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“That’s because at the end of the day you’re dead thick, you are, Garry. You think you’re not, but you are.”

They all began to discuss how they could individualize their grains of rice, and it was at this point that Woggle spoke up from his corner. “People, I have yet to speak, and I think that this domestic fascism is totally divisive. The only appropriate and equitable method of hygiene control is to allow work patterns to develop via osmosis.”

They all looked at Woggle.

“Listen, guy, I have to tell you,” said Jazz. “The only thing developing via osmosis on you is mould.”

Layla tried to be reasonable. “Surely, Woggle, you’re not saying that any type of group organization is fascism?”

“Yes, I am.”

There was a pause while the nine people who were trapped in a small house with this creature from the black latrine took in the significance of his answer. They were going to have to live with a man who considered organizing the washing-up tantamount to invading Poland.

Woggle took the opportunity of their stunned silence to press his advantage. “All structures are self-corrupting.”

“What are you talking about, guy?” said Jazz. “Because I have to tell you, man, you are sounding like a right twat.”

“Centrally planned and rigidly imposed labour initiatives rarely produce either efficient results or a relaxed and contented workforce. Look at the Soviet Union, look at the London Underground.”

“Woggle,” Layla was now sounding slightly shrill, “there are ten of us here and all I’m saying is that in order that the house stays nice it would be a good idea to rotate the housework.”

“What you are saying, sweet lady,” Woggle replied in his irritating nasal tone, “is that a person can only be trusted to act responsibly if he or she is ordered to do so.”

“I am so going to hate you,” said Jazz, speaking for the group.

“In the greater scheme of things,” Woggle said, “within the positive and the negative energy of creation, hate is merely the other half of love, for every season has its time. Therefore in terms of the universe as a whole, actually, you love me.”

“I fucking don’t,” said Jazz.

“Yes, you do,” said Woggle.

“I fucking don’t!” said Jazz.

“You do,” said Woggle.

Woggle never gave up.