I wasn’t intending on doing anything anymore, I had it in my mind just to sit right down and let the grass grow under me if that’s what it wanted. it had grown some already. I watched the sun rise up each day like a giant furnace getting stoked in the sky, and stayed there watching until it burned out again at night, it was beautiful to see that things were going on without me all the same. sometimes, I could hear the crickets rubbing their legs somewhere in the fields, and now and again, I could even pick out the noise of the stream dribbling through from somewhere over the horizon. I was a man of my time, I was in tune, at one. but she had other plans.

get up, she said, get busy, this is no way for a man to be spending his time. oh, come on, I said, I hated having to talk even, it was an effort like all the rest, I don’t feel like it, not any more. I don’t care whether you feel like it or not, it’s out of your hands, out of that lounger and do something like the others. I sighed, because you have to at first, when someone wants something and it means you going out of your way, they have to know that you’re going the extra mile for them. hey, if you don’t, they’ll only ask again some other time and try to take advantage of your better nature, take some advice when it’s given out for free. I stayed laid out, and in the end she went back in, sighing like she was supposed to, to show me her displeasure. etiquette is such an easy game, when you stop trying at it so hard.

the thing is, I couldn’t move my legs, I had tried (sort of), but there was no response. I had been on the lounger a long time. they’d got weak, I couldn’t stand on them anymore was all, they disobeyed like unruly dogs. well why not, they hadn’t had a command for I don’t know how long, I’d have forgotten too if I were them. were those legs thin, I was like some kind of long-legged bird they’d got so bony. but like I say, I wasn’t intending on doing anything anymore, so what did I need legs for? nothing, it was a waste of time my heart pumping blood down there anymore really. I had a machine attached to my genitals and colon, so that took care of the waste, and I got myself a drip so I didn’t have to chew even. I had a heavy duty blender installed in the kitchen which liquefied all my favourite foods into a thick paste, and that was attached to a giant vat in the middle of the room. all I had to do was sit there and the food ran straight up my arm.

once a week, I got the local store to call round and pour whatever they’d brought straight into the blender, I gave the boy, Kevin, a key and told him not to bother trying to break in one night because I wouldn’t be out at any time however long he staked the joint out, that they’d have to carry me out of the house in a wooden box and even then I’d kick up a fuss. he said he was just a delivery boy, not a burglar. me and Kevin had an understanding going there, we laughed about it later.

granted it wasn’t the ideal system, some of the food in my little cauldron might have been floating around for months before being slowly released into me, but it wasn’t a problem, a little food poisoning is a small price to pay for such high living, there are far worse things that can happen to a man going about what you call normal daily life. he could get run over, mashed up by a train, savaged by dogs, it’s a minefield out there, every time you raise your foot it could be the last time. and anyway, it was a big vat, too big to go cleaning every week, plus I hate to see things going to waste.

I’d thought of everything. even rechargeable batteries for the tv and stereo remote controls, the charger was close by and all I had to do was shout a command and the batteries that were charging would be raised and the old ones lowered out and re-energised. it cost me a little, but there have to be sacrifices. the cds were already loaded up, so I didn’t even have to change them either, the stereo did it all for me. I also had a box full of all the stuff I’d collected so far, things like books and photos, but I rarely used that, it was a lot of effort really to hold things up and turn pages. oh, and I had a telephone headset so that I could order more food when the drip started getting air bubbles, or to get people to bring me other stuff I needed from somewhere that was further than an arm’s reach. not that I liked to use my arms, but in an emergency, you understand. even the phone had voice recognition so I didn’t have to lift a finger, I’d just say the number and they’d connect me, say if there was a bill to pay, just like the remotes, I’d shout out the name of a channel and it’d turn over the tv for me, or I’d shout the name of a cd and the music would kick in. there was rarely any kind of overlap, but some channels had the same names as albums, I hadn’t thought of that, but it was a minor inconvenience. things could have gone a lot easier if my wife had helped me, but she was against the project from the start, she said I’d cracked.

I know what you’re thinking, maybe I do anyway, but I’m not a rich man, no more so than most people anyway. don’t get me wrong, I had enough though, I wasn’t on the poverty line begging for bread. the way that I was working it was that the economy was doing ok and I’d saved for quite a while beforehand, it had all been planned out for ages see. I figured I could get by off the interest as long as one of those developing countries didn’t go throwing a spanner into the works and getting all affluent and threatening the standard of living we’ve all got accustomed to here. that was about the only thing I figured could go wrong, unless everyone went back to bartering suddenly, or people decided that gold was worth less than granite one day, or there was some sort of war. you worry, when your future’s at stake, you have to. but all of those seemed unlikely, maybe not the war, but everyone’s scared of that, it isn’t a real fear anymore, if it ever does happen then you won’t even know about it probably.

if you don’t get out of that chair, I heard a voice behind me shriek, it must have been my wife, I couldn’t turn my neck around to check, but she was the only female who had access to the house. I think it was a threat, there was something meant to be attached to the end of the sentence but she left it open so it sounded more threatening still. my wife was quite wily, she’d done linguistics. it wouldn’t work though, I knew what she wanted me to get out of the chair for, it was what she always wanted me to get out of the chair for. when will they learn that a man has needs of his own to satisfy? he can’t spend all day every day chasing round doing menial tasks just to keep the wolf from the door, and why should he, when he is surviving perfectly well on the interest? that’s the difference between a man and a woman, a man says, that’s enough, a woman says, what about the rest? at some point you’ve just got to draw a line and say I’ve done this much and I won’t, nay can’t, do any more, it’s stupid to even try. I said that to my wife, she said I was an idiot. I said, but I can’t compete, they’ve done all the big things now, we can fly, talk to someone five thousand miles away, eat a nectarine out of season, they’ve done it all. what’s a regular guy like me supposed to do, just get on with cleaning up afterwards and taking out the rubbish? everyone else does, she said, what makes you so special? nothing, I said, that’s my whole point. she shrugged. they just don’t get it, the first person to flog a dead horse was a woman I’ll bet. everyone else is getting on with things, she said. everyone else is a moron, I said, you especially.

I turned the tv over about a dozen times, but I was getting croaky, and I still hadn’t found anything good to numb me, standards are slipping but the quantity is up. my dad told me that if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well or not at all, I wondered if I was going to be the last person in the world to think like that. if he could see me now, the pride. I watched a butterfly float past my face instead of the tv, and I thought about the tidal wave it was bringing on elsewhere by being up and about. if a butterfly can do that sort of damage just by flapping its wings, then I think it’d be for the best if we all sat down and stayed calm about things, took time off and made like stones. seeing it there like a grenade spinning in the air waiting to explode reminded me how I was doing the world a favour, I couldn’t think when the last time I made a sudden move was.

there was more shouting from the kitchen, I’m leaving she said, I’ve had it up to here with you and all this. I’ve packed my bags, that’s it. I had to take her word for it, I was feeling rather tired, it was around my mid-afternoon ‘meditation’. me and my euphemisms, you understand. oh, she said, and just so you know, I’ve pulled out the phone connection and turned off the electricity, see if you can be bothered to get up and put them back on now. wait, I said, but she was out of the door. some people, they just can’t help but ruin it for others, there’s something in them says, destroy.

well, it wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that for nothing. there was no tv on for almost a whole week, no music, I was alone with my thoughts and they’re the last thing a man wants to be left alone with for too long, they’ll send him crazy as soon as look at him. it was typical of her of course to walk out in such a melodramatic fashion, she might come back, I didn’t care either way, I was indifferent. the only reason I kept her around was in case of mechanical failure, she’d even tried to take money from my account one day, insurrection was always close at hand when she was around. so I laid there and tried to keep myself busy, thinking about rockets and supermarkets and my favourite adverts and all the time there was this dead sound in my right ear where the phone used to buzz, it was unnerving. a couple of time I tried to get up, but it was for show really, I didn’t have it in me.

but things always work out ok in the end, when you’ve got a system, I mean, I’d taken my wife’s erratic behaviour into account, she could never be trusted to behave rationally, she was always the dangerous element. six days later Kevin walked in as I told him he must if I didn’t call, and brought a selection of my favourite foodstuffs. Kevin, I shouted, out here my boy. he came outside onto the gazebo, I don’t think he’d seen me since the first time we met and I’d given him the key, he only ever stayed in the kitchen filling up my vat. he looked kind of shocked. are you ok? he said, you look like you’ve got some kind of disease. Kevin, I said, I’m fine, now would you do me a favour and plug the phone back in and check the fuse box? if you’re sure, he said and I heard his footsteps retreating slowly away from me.

well, it was like the light had gone on in my world again, the picture flashed up again in front of me and the phone sounded like a whole swarm of bees in my head. I phoned up some agency in the philippines and ordered myself a new wife, I was a bit unsure because, you know, she’d be sending some money home no doubt and boosting their economy to my own personal detriment, but you can’t get that kind of service locally, if you could I’d have willingly paid the extra. I said I didn’t care how ugly she was, as long she could follow a few simple instructions now and then, in an emergency, they said they’d dispatch one right away.

what is it you do? said Kevin when he came back. whatever I do, I’m doing it right now, I said, you’re more than welcome to join me, if you have the savings, you could muddle through I’m sure. I’m not a great conversationalist but I’ll let you shout at the remote every now and again. Kevin looked dubious. all I want to do, I said, is slip away with the least bit of attention, if things go to plan, the world won’t be able to tell if I’ve even been here or not. are you some kind of zen master or something? he said, that would be cool, if you were, I mean. I was feeling light headed, I hadn’t spoken that much for years. no, I said, nothing like that, just a guy who’s cashing his chips in early, that’s all. it sure would be a neat lifestyle, Kevin said, I have been feeling kind of empty myself of late, this might be just the ticket to enlightenment. such grandiose ideas the youth have, how little they know.

well, I wasn’t going to burst his bubble, I’d leave it to time to do that. obviously we’d need someone reliable to replace you from the shop, I said, we don’t want to get stiffed with some idiot, we’d starve. Kevin said it wouldn’t be a problem, he had a brother.

Kevin and I are sat here, rigged up to the machines, it’s a beautiful day, the sun popping its head round the clouds every now and then just to say hello. Kevin still thinks he’s on the right path, he told me yesterday he felt like a pebble in a river, but it’ll pass, when the wrestling starts up on tv. Nyung seems to be enjoying the change of pace too, I don’t make her do too much around the place, I told her though, no more than 25% of your money goes home. she didn’t have a problem with that, my family wanted me to become a prostitute, she said, you’ve saved my life. and here he is now, right on time to refill the vat, Kevin’s replacement, Kevin 2. truly we have been blessed, this is indeed a happy home.