They stopped my gigs in the theatre after the fall, although Jean-Michel, the entertainment manager, said it is one of the funniest firsts acts he had ever seen. I hope he wasn’t talking about my collapse.
The Kandinsky knows we are close to Lozowick, and switched shapes to a steamboat. My mind hurts thinking about the how everything and everyone fits inside. I woke up about six to blazing sunlight, even though a day before the view was pitch black. The sea has changed colour too, from a deep green to a light blue, and on the horizon are the first buildings of the big city, black shadows cut into the sea.
I promised to tell you how my first Nadada experiment went, and I keep my word.
The basic rules require little comprehension. As a thousand television specials have informed us, if you use your imagination properly in Nadada, you can build the tallest building without a single worker, or grow a thousand plant without a single seed. This takes practice of course, but the journey requires another challenge.
The Butter Mouse has been part of my routine for over ten years. Now she is close extension of my right hand. I can build a whole Edinburgh routine by riffing between myself and her in our living room. I can dig my way out of heckling with an improvised and outrageous comment based on the colour of someone’s shirt, and the crowd love it every time.
But this is not a double act. When you break her down, both literally and figuratively, The Butter Mouse is wire and plastic, cloth and fabric. Considering how much we have chatted in the last decade, we have never had a conversation. So I had to wonder. Now we are in Nadada, is there a way we can communicate? Can I bring her to life like some kind of pleasant Frankensteinian monster?
The Butter Mouse sat on her now traditional space on the shelf. I sat cross-legged on my bunk, and tried to block out everything but her. Apparently that is what you are meant to do, although I had no idea what that meant. I imagined her talking, scampering around on furry legs.
Although I had just woken up, my thoughts drifted back to that point between rest, when your ideas flow in different directions.
I understand I am upside down, floating on the other side of the Earth’s crust. I understand that anything is possible in Nadada. The Butter Mouse moved a tiny bit.
My alarm went off on my phone, filling my mind with Muzak. Bang goes my concentration .
I have not had a chance to try another experiment. But what will our consist of by the time we hit the mountains if my work continues?
We should be in Lozowick in time for next week’s blog.
