WOBBLY WOBBLY

They covered me in yellow plastic so as to help keep me dry, or so that I could be more easily located if lost somewhere in the wind and sideways rain, or so that I was not mistaken for an apparition of doom if any of the village residents decided to go for a drive and saw me blocking their path. Needless to say, it was important to stay alert. Inflated pride kept me on my toes, as even in an afterlife I could picture an overflowing well of shame due to some pill popping geriatric somehow stumbling across my death in a car far too powerful for such bony hands. Alert, I had to stay alert, be especially on the lookout for any self defeating distractions of thought, petty things really, such as how to stay warm and dry, or what the hell I was doing working three days a week in a retirement village of all places, as a groundsman, as a gardener, or whatever the hell they were calling me today. Working for peanuts, for watery, tasteless peanuts, that someone had forgotten to roast, or even partially salt. Yes, it was definitely time for a tea break, and a peanut butter sandwich too perhaps. Until I remembered I'd forgotten to prepare any food in the morning, more concerned as to why a family of mice had recently decided to move in to my house. And besides, I'd forgotten to buy any peanut butter. The tea would have to do, flowing from the urn in the staff room as if released from prison, or as if the pressure was getting too much and my cold shriveled hand turning the tap to fill my cup had somehow saved the day.