Author : Brian Varcas
“OK, so what did you really think of it, now we’re on our own?”
She had made all the right noises when the agent was showing us around the place; “Yes, I think I could see us living here…it feels like home already” that sort of thing. She’s always way too polite in these situations.
“Well, I really don’t think it lived up to the advertisement. I mean, where do these agents get their cheek?”
She was right of course. The advertisement had all the stock phrases:
“Desirable location”
“Flexible accommodation”
“Ready for immediate occupation”
“Plenty of character and atmosphere”
Atmosphere! That was a good one. You can always tell a place where the previous occupiers have died…there’s a certain smell and everything looks so drab, lifeless and sad. It would take a hell of a lot of work to make that place liveable again.
“So”, I asked, “what are we going to say?” I already knew the answer.
“We just say it’s not what we’re looking for and arrange to view the next place on the list.”
The “list” was getting shorter all the time and we didn’t have forever to find our new home so I decided to argue the point.
“You know, that place could be OK. Yes, I know we couldn’t get it back to its former glory overnight but what’s the hurry? It would be good to be able to stop the search and settle on somewhere.”
She gave me one of her looks; the one that said, “you’re just looking for an easy way out of this, you lazy shit.” She wasn’t far wrong.
“Well, we could take another look, I suppose…” I could hear the reluctance in her voice. “I mean, you’re right, we’ve got to find somewhere or we’ll end up homeless.”
We sat in silence, mulling the options over. Finally I made the decision for both of us by entering the details of the next place on the list into the dashboard navigator and making a 180-degree turn. We would have to go past the place we’d just viewed anyway.
As we got nearer, we could see just how lifeless it was! This was an absolute bombsite and there was no way we could bring our people here.
My partner was gazing out of the window at the “bijou residence, priced to sell”. “The previous occupiers really made a mess of this place before they left.”
I slowed down so we could take in the scene one last time. “Yes, it must have been one hell of a party!”
As I set our course for the wormhole which would take us to our destination I turned to Malklrinkla and, with mock drama and gravity, announced, “We are not alone…the universe is full of idiots just like us”.
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