Comedy

Life in a basement flat is not easy. Pick a reason, any reason.

One of them is the simple, everyday process of receiving mail. Basement flats tend to have their own separate door (a number of steps below street level), while at street level there is another door, for the ground and upstairs floors. Both doors are really part of the same street address, and addressing mail for the “Basement Flat” is not enough to ensure it goes through the correct door.

So, every now and then, I’d visit the upstairs flat to collect my mail. Sounds easy doesn’t it. One of those things, like washing the dog, or painting the cat. This was different. First, I had to convince somebody upstairs to actually answer the door. Knocking didn’t cut it, which was weird because I thought that’s how it worked. Knock-and-answer. Not at that door.

To be fair, they’re all separate tenants up there; if nobody was expecting anybody then I don’t blame them for not answering the door to unsolicited visitors. For all they knew, I could have been a con-man or even a Jehova’s Witness.

If I was lucky enough to be granted an audience, I’d have to convince the door-answerer that I was legit. That I really did live downstairs, and really did have the right to riffle through the pile of envelopes in the hallway. That I could cheerfully declare a handful of it as ‘mine’, simply by smiling a lot, and sounding sure of myself. I never really could be sure they didn’t think I was a confidence trickster, which didn’t sound so bad when you thought about it. An avant-garde trickster-rogue.

This story begins with my subscription to a “DVD Rental By Mail” service. Nice service really, especially the “DVD Rental” part. The “By Mail” part was a little more troublesome. It was something I really didn’t want to mess up, because after all it was only a rental service, which implies a “giving the DVD back” part.

So, when no DVD arrived to my Basement Flat address, I knew it could only be locked in stasis behind the sturdy, inaccessible upstairs door, and that everything was in limbo. I could declare the DVD “undelivered”, but what would happen then? They’d send a new one out, which would suffer the same fate as the first. Perhaps after enough iterations, the resulting stack of DVDs inside the door would be too heavy, and they’d all come crashing through.

I was about to cut my losses and cancel my account, being apparently incapable of simply receiving a letter addressed to myself, when a chance encounter occurred. Returning home, I saw a woman walking up the steps from my basement flat. Passing her on my way down, I loitered with my keys in the door, feeling the tingle of a sixth sense. Sure enough, she began to climb the steps to the upstairs building. I ran up after her. “Excuse me, do you live here by any chance?”

She turned, and seemed lost in thought. “Oh no, I’m just … for the referendum … - “. She held up some pamphlets.

“Oh that’s fine, no problem.

I was just checking because - it doesn’t matter, it’s a minor problem.”

At this point, she should have said, “OK, no problem, bye!”. But she didn’t, and it all got complicated. “A minor problem?” She seemed genuinely curious about my minor problem. More “Genuinely-Confused-Curious”, than “Genuinely-Helpful-Curious”.

“Well, I live downstairs you see, and sometimes my post goes to the upstairs house …” At this point I was wondering why I was telling her this, and why she was still listening. “So I sometimes have to go upstairs to check, but nobody ever answers.”

“So nobody lives here then?” Confusion reigned.

I attempted to overthrow its reign. “No, they just don’t answer the door. Anyway - "

We both looked up as the upstairs door opened very slowly. The oldest woman in the world stood at the threshold, inert. I seized my chance, bounding up the steps. I explained things again, this time to the 100-Year-Old Woman. Several stacks of envelopes were perched on a small table just inside the threshold. I could see my DVD; I could have reached out and touched it.

She wasn’t getting it. No response from the 100-Year-Old Woman. She didn’t even seem to see me standing in front of her.

Meanwhile at street level, the Referendum Woman was still mulling things over. “I don’t understand why your post goes to the wrong house.”

I wanted to tell Referendum Woman that her part was entirely played out, and she ought to consider exiting stage left. Instead, I tried to cross the dusty plains of Time, in order to get through to the 100-Year-Old Woman. It was “me” who lived downstairs, and it was the same “me” who wanted to collect his post. A lot of gesturing. I pointed at the stacks of letters, and then at myself. “Me!” “I can’t hear you,” she croaked.

I grabbed my DVD, then pointed at the name. “Me!” I could have just taken the DVD. After all it was rightly mine, but it still somehow seemed like theft. I felt as though the jury was still out.

I held up the DVD packet like a trophy to The Referendum Woman, still loitering at street level, as if to show everything made sense now.

In return, she further thickened the plot by holding out some leaflets for me to collect. Stupidly, I bounded back down the steps and took them from her. Dutifuly, I bounded back up the stairs and held the leaflets out for the 100-Year-Old Woman. “These are from HER, for YOU.”

I tried to grin the absurdity of the situation away. Referendum Woman called up. “No, they’re for you.” She’d already been to my door, so why did I need more leaflets? I would never know. Why was she still involved anyway?  I could only imagine she was waiting around in case I tried to mug the 100-Year-Old Woman. After all, she was delivering leaflets for the Lib Dems, so was probably socially conscious and all that. Probably thought it was her day of glory when she’d catch a vicious con-man in the act. Or avant-garde trickster-rogue.

Still at the upstairs door, I started going through the remainder of the orphaned mail. But 100-Year-Old Woman seemed determined to keep strangers out of the house, and was preventing me from getting more than a hair’s-breadth across the threshold. It was clearly an uncomfortable situation. I had no idea what she thought, or if she thought anything at all. I had to admit defeat. I had my DVD, but who knew what other trophies of correspondence I’d have won, given time.

Back in my own flat, I looked at the referendum leaflet. Perhaps I’d vote. I’d have expected my voting slip to arrive by now.

The common mosquito has long been known as a pest.  It has brought discomfort and disdain anywhere in the world where it can stick its disgusting, barbed feet up, and then drain the blood from honest, hardworking animals.

But now - apparently unsatisfied with crop decimation and itchy sores - the mosquito has such a dangerous trick up its “sleeve”, that even politicians are looking up from their expense receipts.

Scientists recently unearthed a dangerous change in the mosquito genome, dubbed the Nile Mutation.  If left unchecked, it’s set to send the biosphere hurtling into oblivion like an errant, beer-soaked cue-ball.

Clues to the existence of the Nile Mutation were spotted back in August 2010, when traces of plutonium were found in the River Nile.  There were very few explanations.  Either somebody had let off an atom bomb and nobody had noticed.  Or, someone was running a secret nuclear plant on Egyptian soil, and was cheerfully throwing the waste down the drain.

Meanwhile, a separate group of scientists were studying Mosquito cadavers in the same area (the project had no particular goal; people just like to gloat over dead mosquitos).  

Something very odd showed up under their microscope.  A new organ had developed in the frontal thorax, closely related to the digestive system.  This new organ was unlike anything seen before in evolution. It was a tiny, perfectly-formed nuclear reactor.

The explanation wasn’t hard to find.  Due to the slow march of climate change, mosquitos in remote areas had been slowly starving to death.  When times are hard, you have to adapt.  Nobody could really blame mosquitos for finding an alternative (though sadly non-renewable) source of energy.  An onboard nuclear power plant was apparently essential for the species to survive.

The scientists didn’t dare publish their findings, because it all seemed too silly.  But the pressure built until the lid blew off, and finally, this morning, the world heard the news. One international leader quipped that “it’s bad enough Iran having nuclear ambitions.  But at least Iran doesn’t fly into your face, or lay eggs in your food.”

Fears of a terrorist ‘dirty bomb’ lessened in favour of the new threat.  The Terrorism Threat Level rocketed from Tangerine to Beetroot - described as “New-Underwear-Scary”.  Scaremongers predicted biblical swarms of miniature nuclear missiles, armed with proboscis warheads.

Even North Korea seemed to offer help, by cancelling an important cruise missile strike on the South.  Unfortunately this was not a conscientious gesture of peace.  Spy satellites revealed that all efforts were diverted to the Great Shining Mosquito of Pyongyang Project - an attempt to splice genes from the Nile Mosquito with those of synchronized swimmers, in time for the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Clearly it is time for all countries of the world to forget their differences and work together.  Option One (“Kill All Mosquitos”) has already been ruled out: they breed faster than you can clap them to death between your hands.  Option Two (“Leave Planet Earth”) is infeasible: it would feel too much like defeat and besides, space is kind of dull.  

This leaves only one solution: Negotiation. The crisis talks are underway, but the doors are closed.  Pundits chew over one solution - effective, yet morally treacherous: a heavily-guarded mosquito net to segregate the dangerous species from humanity.  

Whether the “Berlin Net” will see the light of day is unknown.  But an answer must be found fast, before a simple bite on the ankle becomes a fatal bullet in the head.

Written as a storytelling project, for Toastmasters. I can’t remember if I ever delivered it, though … “Good evening respected esteemed gentlefolk … No that’s not right.” “Lords and Ladies! NO!” Would you envy me my task of being asked to deliver a speech …an inspirational speech … at a wedding … in these Elizabethan times? Where virtually every guest is an actor or playright, and me, a mere meat trader?