I can picture pp swaying slightly in his seat at some seaside Cafe's Al fresco table. He's in one of those picturesque croation towns like split or zadar or Dubrovnik, with the coastline's rolling, bucolic hills rising out of the background behind him. In the foreground, thronging tourists and a pebble beach. The early afternoon sun beats overhead, softened by tufts of gentle cloud. He's about to knock back his sixth shot of rum when the thought occurs: do I have something to do today? He paused for a second, ponders it. Bizarrely, he imagines a kangaroo standing by a creek bed and using a clunky, overpriced gadget to apply a moisturising mist to its face. But the kangaroo's arms are too small and the mist is going everywhere. This will never work. The kangaroo gives up and tosses the gadget into the creek and hops away. Now pp watches a strange, desperate man cower by the imaginary creek bed and count out magical beans from his pockets. "When the machine is built, when the machine is built, when the machine is built," chants the man, tears streaming down his face. He disappears in a puff of smoke. Now, in pp's mind's increasingly fraught fantasy, a cartoon lawyer is crawling across the Australian dirt towards him. "My knees are no good. If only someone could do something for my knees," implores the cartoon lawyer. He crawls his way towards pp's leather business shoes, whose glossy leather he starts to lick, tonguing it with gusto. "You can do no wrong," he says between licks, "you have a trustworthy face. Next year the mean girls will be hearing from me in spades." Suddenly the cowering cartoon lawyer rises up on his bung knees. He licks pp's knees, his calves, his tongue making his was towards pp's pant's zipper. "Let me push out your timeline," he says to pp, gazing up into his...
"sir, sir, you have fallen alseep," says the smiling Croatian waitress to pp, as she gently jostles his shoulder. PP giggles and smiles at her and tells her in Croatian that he is fine. She smiles back and turns to take the order of another table. PP brings the sixth shot of rum to his lips and knocks it back. He looks into the serene horizon, into the beautiful deep blue sea. He is overcome with contentment. No, he has absolutely nothing to do today.
(20min delay)