Yorkshire Puddings (standard:humor, 1376 words)
Author: Atticus	Added: Oct 25 2002	Views/Reads: 3615/2361	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A surreal and ironic look into a person with quite an incredible identity crisis.

YORKSHIRE PUDDINGS 

Jean lived in an unportable cabin of a house; an ornamental (you'd be
surprised how jumble sale nic-nacs and Boyes' clutter can spruce up a 
place), prehistoric (unfortunately, nothing 'en vogue') cave; dark, 
secretive, and hotter than a ring-piece the morning after the night 
before.  Walls were garlanded with curlicular tapestries (car boot this 
time; six for a fiver), the ceiling nicotine-stained, of course, and 
carpeting was of the stick-to-your-feet variety.  Yes, a most 
interesting house.  But there was more to this house than met the eye. 

Lurking within the shadows was their family secret, Marina - hidden away
from prying eyes, a 'recovering' actress, born from Satan, and 
pricklier than your skin after two hours on a fast-tan sunbed - one of 
two sprogs now largely forgotten, the other being the notable Fat Sam; 
a bilious individual, devoid of endearing traits.  Both a permanent 
fixture in the Bronx (Jean's Houses' Estate, in Scarborough not 
America); a run-down reflection of how not to run a country.  But Jean, 
ever the icon of purity, sense, and strength in her crazy, crazy world, 
healed the demons wandering freely around her house, and kept her 
children well out of sight.  But Sylvia didn't know this. 

Sylvia Wannabe, dressed gaudily, like a Xmas bauble - elaborate, shiny,
and effervescent - tremulously opened Jean's House's garden's gate; for 
the effect on herself (ever the drama Queen), not the twitching curtain 
owner's over the road.  Nervously eyeing her surroundings (and there 
was no need; but you can't explain things like this to someone like 
that), Sylvia tapped on the M.D.F. front door, acting up the part in 
the film in which she had psychologically created; seeing herself 
outside herself on celluloid; a heroine; a secret-agent; a double-agent 
rather.  A cuckoo child, unhinged and desperate, if ever there was one. 


Once inside Jean's territory, the warmth cracked Sylvia's foundation
immediately, unbeknown to her.  Jean gurned a toothless smile, showing 
off typically, and welcomed this identity-less soul encouragingly.  
Sylvia asked Mystic Jean (as she was known thereabouts), who was also a 
visionary, who she was, and would she find out from the cards.  To be 
precise, "I'm here to find out who I am."  Jean doubted it, but would 
try and fail regardless. 

"You mean you're not a woman?  Streuth.  Do you know about the woman who
forgot about her washing on the line?  Two weeks and much rain later 
found mildew and rot as remnants of a time before.  Sang a Dixieland 
chorus for the next two weeks, so she did.  And all because a 
neighbour, Mrs. Nesbit, from No.32, forgot to remind her.  I say - a 
fortnight without a thought for your bed-linen is worse than leaving 
your kids at Disneyland; although, in some respects, the latter would 
be more desirable than the former. 

Our Marina once said, two years before she was born - I heard her even
then, like a foghorn - the same thing, but you can't answer, for it 
would be like jumping into a bull-ring without training; all rhetoric; 
wind and piss.  It'll kick you in the head soon as look at you."  
Before sighing, "She was always bright."  Remembering when she went to 
strip her singularly papered wall of paper; a garibaldi-scented affair, 
but resolute.  You see, with a paperless wall she was free to ruminate 
effortlessly on what was left.  The bare minimum.  "Yeah?" 

Sylvia, restless to distraction by now, wasn't getting the point at all.
 A blank expression replaced the former interested look; she wondered 
if she'd done the right thing by coming here, and couldn't pin-point a 
bull on a wall anywhere. 

"Who do you want to be?" Jean shrieked, suddenly, causing Sylvia to
spill her tea onto the dog (an already unforgiving beast) that had 
taken to sitting under her size 9 stilletoes.  Sylvia replied, 
dramatically, "I want to be a woman."  Jean had heard that line 
somewhere else before. 

But Sylvia knew, even with implants and 'that' removed, that she could
only ever acquire an identity, not a life.  For that, 20 odd years of 
physiological and social calamity stood in her way.  But why couldn't 
she try and fail, it would be much more sanctifying; like the trip to 
Disneyland, but without the kids in the first place.  Or even arriving, 


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