What to do when bored...

You heard me, What To Do When Bored..?

Well, let's ask Sammy the Spoon. There's a man who knows what boredom is all about. He was borne into this world spitting and snarling, full of steam and hissing. Moulded in the image of his father, and his father's father before that, he was preordained a role in life from which he will never escape. His family were a serving family, only ever asked upon to perform simple tasks in the baking heat, and for little recompense. Sammy was a dreamer though, his thoughts in the sky, when everything around him was in the gutter.

Sammy didn't ask for much, he never expected to take pride of place for doing his job, well or not; he just wanted to be appreciated more often. Just once to be noticed, and kept near his master while he appreciated the efforts of his toil. A little ackowledgement of his efforts, and he'd be happy. It never came. Sammy worked every day in the boiling heat, and no sooner had he performed his role (expertly, by the way, for Sammy was a dedicated character), than he'd be cast aside. Again. Sammy lay on his back, rejected and discarded. Door closed to his cell, he started to reminisce about his youth, and about how that was just as shit as his adult life.

Sammy's mother was known as 'The Foundry'. Known so because she was smoking hot. She was a firey tempered matriarch, but she was still his mum. Sammy was sick of the running joke that she 'worked with a lot of slags'; he loved her and he missed her. He was still warm from being in her belly when they took him away, never to see her again. Young as he was, he never forgot her. She looked like an angel to Sammy, a hazy glow around her as he was marched away. An ethereal heat stroked his round face as he was led away, he was sure of it. The last tender strokes from his mama, telling him everything would be okay. Time may well muddy the memory, but he wanted to have that one link to his mother so much. If sentiment had overcome fact, then so be it. It was all he had of his mother. As he was led away, still soft and weak, a tear formed on his cheek.

Wet behind the ears, and with no savvy towards his captors, he was easy meat in what the bastard dictators called the 'Sorting Room'. On his way into this hellhole, he was branded by a hot plate, some kind of symbol and number forcibly stamped on the back of his neck. The pain nearly driving him unconscious, he was led to his numerically appropriated cage. Refusing to buckle and fold, he looked at his surroundings, and took in the Sorting Room.

A despicable place where they actually picked the better looking 'newborns', and gave them the better jobs, it was obvious to Sammy early on that he wasn't going to get one of the favoured jobs. The tear on his cheek from his mama had left a big welt, and it was clear that the bastard dictators (let's just call them the BD's from here, yah?) were looking for something he couldn't offer. Sammy and all of the other captives, upon hearing the door open, would jostle for position, trying to force their way to the front. Time and again Sammy was left behind, no matter how near the front he was. It was clear that the BD's would never pick him.

Or so he thought. After several weeks, it was obvious that the BD supplies were running thin, as every newbie had obvious physical flaws. Sammy befriended a strange looking fellow who had the longest neck, but crooked like a wizened tree branch. Sammy jestingly called him 'Corky' on his first day in the cell. Corky awkwardly flipped his gangly crooked neck around to see the fizzog of his adversary, but the first sight he locked on was the tear shaped welt on young Sammy's face. As imperfect as he. The two became great friends.

Sammy and Corky became the seasoned pro's of the Sorting Room. With a devillish sense of humour, they were able to cope with the systematic removal of everyone around them. Acquiesced to being last on the heap, Sammy and Corky used to laugh at all the pretty boys, the 'Silver Spoon' brigade, as they were dragged away. As each posh-polished one was led away, they'd bray "ooh, away to meet the Queen, are we?"; gallows humour to paper over the cracks of their own sorry predicament. And the predicament duly came to a head.

Sammy and Corky knew their time was up when the cage, their home for Lord knows how long, was barely a quarter full, and the BD's came in for their next quota. For maybe the first time since both had arrived, they were the healthiest looking pair in there. Forcing their way to the front of the cage through habitual anti-authoritarianism ("Yeah, come on then, take me, ya bastards!"), and never expecting to actually get picked, the fleeting few seconds it took to remove them from their home of so long was fillled with panic, hysteria and a lot of screaming. Despite the shock and panic of finally being removed from the cage, Sammy remembered praying to the Lord, and cursing Satan himself, Uri Geller.

The journey was horrible. Sammy and Corky were lucked to be boxed in together, but still their journey was mostly spent in absolute darkness. Impossible to gauge where they were going, it was a trip of fits and starts. Pitch black, and rumbling for ages, then a stop, and a crashing halt. Then the same again. And again. Then one day, daylight.

Light burst into their holding pen, and in the time it took them to adjust to their new surroundings, Sammy focused and saw a fine beard on Corky. He looked a lot older now, even though Sammy knew him to be the pup of the two. Light shining off of his beard, Sammy marvelled at the ginger, rusty colour of it. He hadn't seen such vibrancy in light since he was dragged away from him mother. Mother. The thoughts of his mother came crashing back, just as his new BD's carted Corky away. The same feeling of panic, that same ghostly orange glow captured in the sunshine, as Sammy knew he'd be left all alone again.

Which is where he is now, all alone. Locked in his cell, reminiscing. Remembering his shit life, his missing mama, and his missing friend. His only friend. Sammy has been working alone for some time now, and knows that his card is marked. The months of toil have left him looking knackered. Sammy's time will come soon. Nearly black from the filth of his job, and alone, he waits to be taken to that same place everyone else ended up. Hell, Heaven, who knows.





What, you still here? Fuck me, I know I'm bored, but you too? Or were you expecting more? It was a story about a tea-spoon. A spoon. That's what you do when you're bored, got any better ideas? God bless Sammy though, I'll never throw him away.

They're all with you on the way up, but on the way down, you're on your own.

Eddie Murphy hovers over me. He's talking loud, but saying nothing. I can't make a word of it. My old flatmate from Uni is next to him, wielding a crowbar and staring at me. Just staring. I look over to the left, and there is a sunny beach, with a picture-postcard-perfect palm tree half way down the shore. A perfect spot under it, in idyllic shade from the lasering heat, where a coconut gently floats to the ground, gracing slowly down like a feather. Eddie slaps me in the face, gesticulates like I should be paying attention. He's angry now. Still can't make the words out. I try to explain that I can't hear him, shrugging and raising my hands in deference. This doesn't please my old flatmate, whose face snarls in anger as he brings the crowbar crashing down to my face and...

Another convulsion. This one wakes me up with a jolt. What a fucking crazy dream. Where the fuck am I? Everywhere I look there is a wall directly in front of me. I'm definitely lying down, but other than that it's all wall. Am I dead? Is this what it's like to lie in a coffin? No, I'm on a bed, and it appears to be the worlds smallest room. What the fuck? Looking around this shoeboxiest of shoebox rooms, I feel the familiarity creeping in. This tiny shithole of a room is the accommodation I booked for Gerry's 30th bathday, in Ibiza. Amazed at what a budget room looks like, I survey my kingdom for the next few days. Doesn't take long, since apart from a single bed there is maybe 3 quarters the width of it (if that) to the side of the bed, and a wardrobe at the foot. Not much else to say really, that is it. You couldn't actually have the bed facing at a right-angle, not enough room. An estate agent would be ashamed to call it cosy, and Paris Hilton would go fucking bonkers if that was all her walk-in wardrobe amounted to. In fact, even if it was her dog's wardrobe. I look around the 'room' (not much of it), and picture Paris, going mental, at the lousy estate agent who sold her a sprawling mansion with a cosy dog wardrobe.

Fucking drugs. Another convulsion. This one sharp enough to really liven me, I evaluate the situation further. I'm lying on the bed in just my pants, the cover long since thrown across the 'room' in a feverish pique the night before. Thrown as far as the foot of the bed, where it could go no further. Yes, cosy. I try to clear my throat, the humidity of the room at unbelievable levels, but I'm so dry I nearly choke. Which makes me convulse again, so I shakily stand up and venture to the toilet to throw up.

Crouched in the shower, with my head hovering over the toilet bowl (Cosy? Compact? Fucking hell, never had to stand in the shower tray to use the john before), I start to retch, but nothing comes up. I put my fingers down my throat, determined to get this bastard demon out of me. Nothing. A few pathetic wretches, but I'm running on empty. One tear comes to my eye, the last drop of moisture left in me. Swivelling to the sink, which is right next to my head anyways, and nearly catching my face on the corner of it, I remember the age-old fact that you can't drink Spanish tap-water or you'll be horribly sick. I start to daydream about how two negatives make a positive, and wonder if Spanish sick will cancel out my Britsick. Mouth hovering by the tap, I turn the handle, and then... snap out of it. Of course not, you fucking pleb! I'll only be exacerbating the situation! Exacerbate. Funny how the big words come to me when I'm at my lowest. I step out of the shower tray and flop back onto the bed. Fuck me, I am going to die here. If the thirst doesn't get me first, the stupidity will.

Head throbbing, I survey my kingdom again, and try to piece the previous evening together. There was booze. There was a club. There was pills. Oh the pills. Stronger than anything I've been used to before, I only had one and didn't make it to my bed until god knows what time. Good stuff, but my usual reparation tools were gone. No pint of water for me, or cups of tea, nothing. Game plan time. Where to get my tools? The only hope of liquid I have is to get dressed and go down to the vending machine on the other side of the hotel. I'd have to dress, even though I don't think I have the energy, and go downstairs, past the front desk with the snooty staff. Past all the sober, straight-as-an-arrow Euro-bastards with their olive skin, bad haircuts, and under-breath giggling at me in languages I don't understand. The walk of shame. And then, to top it all off, I'd have to negotiate the tricky fumbling of coins, feed the machine, and head back, facing it all again! Fuck that! On second thoughts, take me now oh Lord!

I can't even get back to Eddie Murphy, to see if I can figure out what the fuck he was saying, cos I'm wide awake now, that awkward winged come-down from the yocks. The humidity in this room is unreal. There is an air-con unit in here, and, lying back on the bed, I reach my right arm to feel it (above the door, so I'm basically just flopping my arm off the bed). A warm fart of moving air gently brushes my arm. This won't do at all. I open the window (behind the wardrobe) to let some fresh, but warmer air in. The air-con clicks off, circuit broken when the window opens. Fresh air comes in, but the temperature rises. Which to be? The air-con, doing nothing but slowly circulating the smell of my gradual demise, or the fresh, hot air which is accelerating it? I am going to die in this fucking place.

I am going to die in this place. On this fucking rock. Dead, on a bed in a shoebox. In my pants. I can picture it now, them carting my body out of here. There'll be a commotion in the hallway, as other holidaymakers will gather around the room, spotting the paramedics and wondering what the hoo-hah is. They won't be able to get a stretcher into the room (cooooosy) so they'll have to carry me into the corridor, dead, in just my pants, before they can put me on the trolley and cover me up. And what if the way they're lugging me out happens to pull my boxers down, and everyone gets to see my cock? Of course it's gone AWOL due to the pills, but no one else will know that. Look at that sad, pale, shrivelled cock of a man, dead, that's what they'll all say. Where's my legacy then? Will anyone talk of the time I rescued a drowning child? Or the time I went into that burning building just to save a neighbours cat? No. Of course not. And for two very good reasons. Firstly, neither of those incidents happened, but secondly, everyone just remembers the image of a sad, dead bloke in his pants, and LOOK AT HIS COCK! HEE HEE!

Fucking hell. Distract my mind. Distract. Right, tool check. MP3 player is dead, so no music. Lost my phone, so no music there either, with the added whammy of not being able to phone Deej and see if he's awake on the other side of the hotel. Or to phone my mum, and ask her to send a priest. Can't read the book I brought because my eyes are still twitching all over the shop. Distract. Distract. Distract distract distract. I do have some cigarettes left. Yeah, that's what John McClane would do when the chips are down, smoke a fag and say something salty, and wisecracky.

Half way through throwing salty wisecracks at myself, chugging my stinking Marlboro Light (the only half-decent smoke to get abroad, and my god it stinks), I notice that I'm only filling the room with an even more unbearable fug than was already there, and I drag myself to the window. The inspiring view from my window is of a wall from the opposite building, so I finish my smoke and flop back on the bed. Fucking walls everywhere. Maybe I'm in prison, or I've already died? Maybe purgatory is nothing but talking to yourself, thirst, and walls? This being the only logical explanation for my sorry predicament, I spark up another Marlboro and go back to doing the John McClane on myself. Can you die in purgatory? Let's find out. I spark another.

Gibbering to myself for god knows how long (could be 30 minutes, could be 30 seconds, with no phone I have no clock), there is a knock at the door. Probably the Grim Reaper himself, come to tell me that it's check-out time from my room, if I would be so kind as to gather my things and head into the lobby of Hell; or to remind me that while John McClane had no shoes, he sure as fuck had trousers on. Do I answer the door? What evil lurks on the other side? I turn the handle.

"Yes lad, ye right?"

Is this some kind of Soul Sucker? Some archfiend come to escort me from Purgatory Hotel? I see the bottle of water in his hand, fresh dewy drops running from it. It must be an angel! I chug hungrily from the bottle and everything slowly defuzzes, back into focus. "Ye right sir?", comes the voice again. I look up from the bottle, and Liam 'Deej' Rodden is stood in the doorway. I manage to strangle the words "Yes lad" from my charred, scorched throat. "We headin' to town or what then lad?" he quizzes. "Aye, 5 minutes" I croak back. "Jesus, look at ye Ted, lyin there, like a big eejit", he fires back. With the water already working its magic on my nervous system, I throw on some clothes, gel my hair, and out the door we go. Back to the bars, and the madness. Oh, the madness.

And it happens all again the next day. Purgatory? Fuck off, I'm on holiday.