Dilemma

You start off looking at a Slow Loris and before you know it you have spent half an hour watching videos of ghosts and of demons that claim to have the body of a pig. Blinkin’ YouTube. Now I am dead scared, alone in the house for at least an hour and desperate for a wee. Do I go to the downstairs loo, past the door to the cellar, the cellar with the blocked-off room where the floor level is a foot higher than everywhere else? Or do I go upstairs, past the attic trapdoor that opens itself from time to time? Or do I just stay in my room and piss in the teapot again?

Recently I have been thinking about the inside of other people’s mouths. The mouth is by far the busiest orifice. I love the inside of mine, the pink crannies, the sweet and tender craters. My tongue is supple and acrobatic, it noses about like a curious animal. It reaches up to trace the ridges on the roof of its den, it dips into the bowl of each molar, it slips between teeth and lip to slide about counting, taking stock. Sometimes, if I don’t like who I am talking to, my tongue spells out rude words on the roof of my mouth. If it gets overexcited I have to bite it, and then it lies flat and docile, and I can concentrate. I wish I could see people’s tongues all the time.