absolutely nothing

Monday 22nd March 2010 11:55 PM

This week, after a lapse of a year, I decided to re-engage with the art of meditation again, because recently I've found myself spending long periods of time doing nothing, and I thought it might be useful to formalise the process, and do it properly. In my experience you can do less in half an hour's meditation than you can in two whole days of doing nothing.

However, it's difficult to achieve any sort of meditative state when there's a cockerel outside your front window, regularly and noisily proclaiming its availability for sex, so on Wednesday I rode out to the 'Range', my local neon-nightmare groaning slab of retail nothingness, in search of a deterrent water-pistol. I told the young assistant what I wanted, and why, whereupon he asked me if I'd ever considered using an air-rifle.

'No' I said 'Violence begets violence, let him who is without sin cast the first stone. Our sun is about to enter into alignment with the galactic centre and precipitate a massive spiritual paradigm shift, and its incumbent on us all at this time to cultivate feelings of peace, gratitude and forgiveness.' Then I looked him in the eye and said. 'I love those cockerels, and I don't want to hurt them, I just want to tell them that I'm unavailable for sex.'

The young man pulled out his mobile phone, looked at it, declared that he had to go, and then passed me onto another assistant. 'Had you thought of getting a catapult?' asked the new assistant. Having scared off the last one with blistering truth, I thought I'd go for irony this time.

'No' I said 'I was thinking more along the lines of a bamboo blow-pipe and some curare-tipped darts.'

'I'm afraid that's a summer activity, sir' he said, 'we won't be getting any of those in until May.'

Finally, just around the corner from pointless ornaments, we found the aqua-warfare section, but unfortunately the water-pistols had sold out, and all that was left was a huge, mean-looking, pump-action water gun, for the scary price of £3.99. However, I realised that the one-handed pumping action involved in priming the gun, coupled with all the subsequent ejaculatory spurting, would mean that I'd be able to chase away the cockerels, and satirise them at the same time, so I bought it.

Now I keep it fully loaded and primed next to my meditation cushion, and if I hear so much as the rustle of a rooster feather, I grab the gun, put on a red bandana, and rush outside and let them have it. I know it sounds harsh, but as Mao Tse-tung, who was also troubled by noisy roosters, once said, 'Peace comes out of the barrel of a pump-action water gun'.

Even though the roosters may suffer a temporary loss of status, I'm pretty sure they don't come to any physical harm. Intimidated by my etiolated Sylvester Stallone look, they're already running away by the time I start shooting, so if I ever do manage to hit them, it's usually on their backs, which being very similar to those of ducks, are famously untroubled by water. However, they're definitely getting the message that I'm not available for sex, or if I am available for sex, I'm obviously way too hot to handle.

Posted 11:55 PM | 12 Comments | Permalink