Just to keep you updated, if your memory is not what it was (though how you would know such a thing no one has ever explained to my satisfaction – as far as I can remember) and to fill in the space that would be here if the words were not……………
Vlad, a murderous vampire has just done away with Gladys, his garmentically challenged wife, by means of oatmeal a terrible beige (and let’s face it many beige things are terrible – you can call it light fawn or taupade if you like but no one is fooled) desiccant, mildly disguised as a milkless breakfast cereal.
Now read more………..
More.
Jolly well done.
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Vlad stared in fascination as his wife imploded. It was quite a surprise to discover that horror films had actually got it right for once.
Gladys stared back at him with eyeballs that were already starting to turn to dust and falling rapidly as her body desiccated from the stomach outwards. In less time than it took to blink, her dusty eyeballs had fallen down through the neckline of her cardigan, her other cardigan, her new top, a necklace and a sports bra. As they fell the blackhead nose strip pinged off her imploding nose and followed the empty clothing collapsing on top of the skirt, jeans, shorts and workout thong she had been wearing. The entire ensemble landed on the anti gravity sandals, their work done as her thighs, finally, slimmed to nothing. For a moment longer her hair, supported and wonderfully hydrated by the contents of the seven different bottles that lined the shower tray so irritatingly, stayed aloft, bearing the pink plastic curlers and IPod headphones until her distressed tresses stressed by desiccation gave up the ghost and, to a tinnily syncopated beat, bounced her curlers all over the kitchen floor.
As the cereal bowl, which Gladys had hurled into the air, took a sudden dive, the circumstances of the murder, which had gone into slow motion, in the way of all extranormal happenings, suddenly speeded up. Vlad, who had quick reactions anyway, did a back flip from the light rain of desiccant and, without thinking flew round the door into the hall. Landing he examined himself minutely, cursing his lack of forethought. Fortunately there was only the slightest dusting of oatmeal on one trouser leg. Vlad removed an evening glove from his pocket, donned it, brushed the desiccant on to the hall floor and, stepping over it with exaggerated care, peered round the door into the kitchen.
On the floor lay a litter of curlers, a heap of clothing and the pile of dust that had been his wife, utterly encrusted with the oatmeal that she had ingested, the uneaten oatmeal from the bowl and just oatmeal, generally. It was stuck to everything in the scene like cut price beige glitter on a bad Christmas card. Vlad gasped and then shut his mouth, waiting to implode. When he did not, he risked another cautious glance round the door. Curses! He had inadvertently turned his own kitchen into a minefield seeded with the horrors of oatmeal. Why had he not foreseen the danger? In his planning he had allowed for the pile of clothes and had thought to solve the problem by recycling, now the council collected textiles in the red box, every other Tuesday. In his mind it had been the perfect crime. He could sweep his wife up and pop her in the black bin, collected on the alternate Tuesdays and the council would simply recycle the evidence. By the time anyone asked where she was, her clothes would be a third world donkey blanket and she would be landfill. Simple, elegant. The vampire way, no problem you couldn’t fly away from.
But now………oatmeal! One careless flick of the dustpan and Vlad would be dust to dust for ever entwined in a fashion nightmare.
Buried in neoprene workout shorts! It was more than anyone with any shaped teeth could possibly endure.
Vlad stood in the hall, his mind racing. He thought he had already solved the problem of how to get rid of his wife but now he had the problem of how to get rid of his wife. Could he just move house? Could he brick up the kitchen door? Even if he flew away the evidence was still there. Evidently.
Suddenly Vlad had a brainwave. The vacuum cleaner! Didn’t they have something called a vacuum cleaner? It sucked up stuff by means of a vacuum. Like a sort of mechanical vampire, but for dust. Now where would that be?
Vlad opened the hall cupboard. There were a number of devices in there. Which one was the vacuum cleaner? He knew the ironing board because he liked to be smooth and she was often, chaotically, too busy to iron for him. He kept her in stupid clothes but she was too busy to iron his! Well not any more. Vlad peered into the cupboard. He recognised a broom, which would only raise dust. A bag of dusters, which would only spread it about, and a brand new soft, fluffy feather duster which would flick it everywhere like domestic tracer fire. Vlad shuddered. Right at the back behind a rolled up mat and a box full of toilet rolls, there was a plastic cylinder with attached flexible hose. Aha! Not so dusty! This was the vacuum cleaner of legend that other people’s wives used regularly, he had heard.
Vlad retrieved the vacuum by lifting out everything else first and then stood, covered in dust and surrounded by the trappings of domestic cleanliness. He looked down at his well pressed trousers, now with the addition of a light coating of filth, with some distaste. Next time he married, instead of picking someone plump with plenty of blood as an insurance against hard times, he would choose a cleaner. Someone who enjoyed ironing and had no hobbies and didn’t collect clothes.
Vlad regarded the instrument. It was a plastic cylinder, with a long flexible hose attached to a metal pipe. An electrical plug was evident, which, when pulled, revealed the cord. Vlad plugged it into the socket in the hall and switched it on. Cautiously he directed the hose at his trouser legs. Instantly the hose attached itself and devoured his trouser leg with enthusiasm. With some effort Vlad prised his trousers from the all devouring suction and held the hose away from him. Instantly it latched on to the hall curtains and had sucked its way up them with extreme vigour before Vlad could restrain it. He switched it off and pulled the curtains out of the hose. Now here was a thing! If it could only be converted to take liquids, he could strap it to him on night flights and finally have a vampire doggy bag. How wonderful! Vlad regarded the vacuum cleaner with joy and, grasping it by the handle and the hose, advanced into the kitchen. At last he could make his wife tidy. Tidy, neat and resting still, instead of jiggling all over the place on those stupid anti gravity sandals.
Staying firmly at the holding end of the lengthy metal hosepipe Vlad placed the business end on the kitchen floor in proximity to the junk pile that had been his spouse and switched on. Gratifyingly the dust from her sleeve obediently made its way across the kitchen floor and into the end of the pipe. Vlad felt equal amounts of satisfaction and irritation; if vacuuming was this easy, why had she never done it? How difficult could it be? Look, two minute’s practise and already he was an expert! Vlad waved the end of the pipe around, it obligingly sucked up extra quantities of desiccated Gladys and then, without warning sucked up the sleeves of both cardigans at great speed simultaneously creating a whirling and dusty vortex in the Glad pile and a vacuum jam dangerously coated with oatmeal. As he watched the suckage and the blocking raised a cloud of beige danger. Vlad grasped the pipe in his long thin fingers and waved it as hard as he could, hoping to shake out the cardigans but all that did was direct a minor tornado of deadly dust in his direction. It swirled and whirled towards him as if Gladys was coming back to get him; when it reached head height Vlad held his breath and
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JaneLaverick.com – making household chores very slightly thrilling