Philosophical Plot

There was a cold going round. Everyone either had it, was in the midst of it, or was just about to get it but didn’t know it yet. Plot found that she could breath as long as she surrounded herself with steam, but as soon as she moved out of her own personal fog the problems started; the most obvious of these being her incessant, persistent cough.

For weeks now, Plot had been barking more than her dogs. She asked Mr Plot about it, but he replied that Plot had been barking since way before he even met her. Mr Plot thinks he is hilarious sometimes and off he went sniggering at his own joke.

Plot retreated to her cloud of steam and threw in some menthol and eucalyptus for good measure, she wondered if she’d be pushing it if she made herself a hot whiskey.

Plot knew of a good remedy for colds and flu;’ take two paracetamol and one strong hot toddy, with honey, cloves and lemon, then get into bed. If after an hour you didn’t feel better then your toddy wasn’t strong enough;  you needed to top up the whiskey until either the cold improved or you didn’t feel it any more’.

As she made the drink up, she pushed thoughts of how responsible an idea this was to the back of her mind; this was a tried and tested home remedy, who was she in the grand scheme of things to question such wisdom?

Plot was not alone in her suffering though. Ritu had also been getting on with things despite feeling under the weather, and was now nursing a spouse with the dreaded Man Flu.

Man Flu could, in certain circumstances be deadly. Yes, Man flu was deadly irritating,for each man’s partner, as each bemoaned sniffle emanated from the comfort of the couch. Did these poorly men know they were unwittingly putting themselves at further risk from the smiling assassins who brought hot drinks and snacks?

Ritu smiled anyway, and followed a tried and tested Poetic Ritual to deal with the situation in hand.

Elsewhere even the sea was coughing boogers onto the beach in unheard of quantities, as Bryntin found out when going through a bit of an existential crisis with one of his alter egos; `Bear R Humphries.

“Cogito Ergo Sum”, said René Descartes, “Try it again in English” said Bryntin kicking a pebble into the Cornish surf with his toe. Descartes looked a bit deflated, “I think, therefore I am” he replied in a huff.

Putting Descartes before the Horse

“Oh you’re no use at all!” grumbled Bryntin, “I know I ‘am’. The question is who is he?” Bear looked hurt, “I’m you too” he said.  Faced with Bryntin’s fuzzy logic, Descartes started to question his own reality, fading out as he did so.

That left Bryntin and Bear on the beach alone. “All we need is that Barrington fellow and we could be ‘The Three Be Me’s’, said Brintin. “When will I see you again?” Bear groaned, “Cant you see what you’re doing to me” he replied knowing that these jokes would be lost on anyone younger than 50. There was an embarrassing silence as tumbleweed rolled across the blog

Another jelly’d mass washed up onto the beach.

Those things really look like aliens said Bryntin.

“It’s Sea Snot” said Fatty McCupcakes.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Bryntin yelled, “and where’s Bear?”

“I have no idea who you are talking about” said Fatty, “but there’s a rumour that there’s a nice cafe round here where you can get cream scones with jam.

Bryntin seethed, quietly to himself… ‘how many times do I need to go through this? he thought. “Don’t you have a traveling companion?” he asked McCupcakes?

“Yes, but we are taking some time apart, we are researching how not to murder each other in our sleep” she replied. Bryntin sympathised, he knew the feeling well.

So did Plot, who discovered that a stash of nuts that she had been squirrelling away had been found and raided.

Meanwhile in a cabin in the woods, Lucy from Blond Write More was doing a bit of research for her next novel. She had fallen a little bit in love with her last leading man, which was a bit of an occupational hazard for a writer, and she was determined not to do the same thing again.

She decided that her next book would be about the grit of real love, not romance, which was a bold move as everyone knew that real love was anything but pretty to look at.

True love, was holding someone’s hair out of their face while they were bent over the toilet with morning sickness.

True love was making a cup of tea for the special someone after they had kept you up all night with their snoring.

True love was deciding against choking the ever living daylights out of the person who left the biscuit tin empty except for some well stuffed wrappers, carefully disguised to look like they were untouched.

Lucy began to wonder first about her ‘good idea’, that now looked sort of flawed, and then about some wider existential problems. Was that really Descartes coming up the path to the cabin again?

No, this time it was Dostoyevski taking to Gemma “I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” he decreed  and Gemma who was an avid tea drinker, was nodding in agreement. “Quite” she replied, “Loose leaf or tea bags?”

Plot looked out at Dostoyevski, and back at the empty biscuit barrel, “hmmm, Crime and Punishment” she thought, “you could write a book about that!”