The Eye and I

My third eye wakes up thirty minutes before I do, and scans the room for clues. In my bedroom at home this is less of an arduous process, as the eye already knows its surroundings well and is less likely to be surprised. All this trouble comes from a place of concern. I understand. Genuine concern.

My third eye looks out for me so that I might look out for it in return; the less I die, the more secure the eye feels about its station in life; my forehead is prime real estate, except if I'm dead.

So in a hotel room or a friend's home, like clockwork, my third eye wakes and spends the full half hour scouring the walls. Alert and analytical, the eye searches for: likely predators; exits in case of emergency, preferably doors and windows; unattended bags; suspicious electrical appliances such as ovens and poorly-built telephone-charger cables; known enemies; unknown enemies; hiding spots where enemies, known and unknown, could be lying in wait. And I can only imagine the many other threats and dangers which would occur to a third eye, but not to me: uncomfortable contact lenses, for example.

Given the state of my two ordinary seeing-eye eyes, I wonder if my third eye might also be short-sighted. This would not be good. Not good because it might mean my short-sighted third eye is falsely over-reporting the number of visible threats in a given room before I awake – unable to see clearly, the eye panics and makes things up. In this way, the eye and I would be a lot alike, worrying over nothing and provoking worry in others. Also not good because my third eye might need glasses, and I don't know any psychic opticians.

A4

It turns out that if you take a whole unopened packet of A4 paper to a greengrocer and ask for the “A4 special”, the grocer will give a quick, understanding nod and feed the paper into a machine, out of which will pop four plump, ripe avocados.

“There you go, the A4 special. Four avocados. Good choice,” the grocer will say. It is not known how greengrocers make money from this, but it happens all the time. Try it as often as you can.

I for one would like to know how the avocado machines work, and whether I can purchase one to have in my home. I imagine it will continually pump out delicious avocados for a long time – as long as I can feed it A4 paper. Perhaps it will finally stop when all the trees are gone from this earth – so no more paper – but I imagine we'll all be dead by then, from oxygen deprivation or something worse.

Hair

We wash our hair so that when the hungry men come they do not mistake us for platefuls of spaghetti and eat the hair right off our heads.

Others have a similar problem – with hair, hay and horses.

If the visibly-clean shine is not enough to remind the hungry men that our hair is not spaghetti, the taste of shampoo sure will.

I could try poisoning the shampoo to ensure the problem does not recur but I am fearful that the poison will seep into my scalp. Also, I'm not completely sure I want the men dead.

So we wash our hair, and take care to remove any accessories or fallen leaves which could be mistaken for a meatball. The red-headed people have it worse – so far we have been unable to explain to the hungry men that the ginger hair is not covered in tomato sauce.

I would usually be agitated at the eating of pasta without cutlery. However, in this case, I am quite glad that the men do not bring knives and forks anywhere near our heads.

Elbows

My elbows have a life of their own. They flail around, bashing into things, and then expect me to apologise on their behalf. Some elbow-stricken things are easy to apologise to: a friend; a doorframe; a packet of biscuits; a crowd (in general); another, similarly flailing, elbow. Some are harder to apologise to, and an apology isn't anywhere close to enough when you look at what my elbows have destroyed: a cold glass of beer on a hot day; a priceless vase; a set of keys with no spare; the nose of another, less friendly friend; the only television screen in the building during the climax of an important sports competition, or war.

My elbows conspire against me. If they could laugh, they'd be laughing constantly as I run around trying to clean up their mess.

They have no sense of space; no remorse at the many things they ruin; no empathy for the apologetic buffoon whose body they represent.

Trim

If I do not trim my nose-hair twice a day, it will grow quickly and wrap itself around my body, obstructing my movement and breathing – or so medical professionals have informed me. It will expand first out from my nostrils, and then simultaneously down my throat and along my arms. It will wrap around the wrists, and also creep down into my lungs. In this way—probably overnight—I will lose the ability to speak, breathe and move my arms.

Thankfully, my daily routine already includes two timeslots for the brushing of teeth, morning and night, so it should only be a matter of expanding those from their usual five-minute duration up to the full half hour my doctors insist it will take me to properly battle back the rogue nose-hair. I am not angry at this sudden loss of fifty minutes out of my day. Surprisingly—and I surprise myself with this—I am looking forward to the structure it will bring to my life. Maybe I can meditate. Perhaps the extra time for reflection, coupled with the mechanical task of nose-hair extraction, will lead me to become more productive with the rest of my day. Less dilly-dallying, and the like. Less sitting around wondering about the universe when I could be cleaning, folding, reading, writing, etc.

If I fail to trim my nose-hair, even once, my life hangs in the balance. I could die at any time. I could lose the use of my arms. If, for some reason, my nose-hair suddenly starts growing at a slightly faster rate, then the process will be out of my control and the hair may kill me anyway, despite my following the doctors' instructions to the letter. If the trimming ritual stops working, then nothing will be certain any more. In this way, every day will now feel vital and precious.