The Jarvis Nebulae Files - Part Two (other parts to follow)

© Duncan Wheeler 1997-2007

Here's a poem I wrote to commemorate a special event that happened to me last Sunday night:
The stars, the stars, the cars and the bars,
Twitching under my itchy palms
On the roof while looking afar
I made a fire that blew afar
It went into the highest stars
And made my heart begin to start
The stars, the stars, the cars and the bars,
Ha ha, Ha ha, to squish in a jar - don't laugh
For the stars, the stars, the cars and the bars
Nasty cross-dimensional travellers behind bars
Into the future and into the past - how bizarre
You'll never get me cos I'm Jarvis
I'll fill your craft with rotten tar and laugh Ha Ha!

I'm just a bit worried because, although it rhymes perfectly and in the most subtle and elegant way, the second verse just carried me away so much that I couldn't condense it into six lines to match the first verse. I1m sure you'll appreciate that talent such as mine cannot be defined by conventional writing rules, nor can it be cramped by horrible experiences - indeed, it seems to have blossomed.

You'll note my cleverly obtuse references to the UTUFO I sighted on the sickly underground journey, but they probably disguise the fact that I am still reeling somewhat from the event. I haven1t had a good night's sleep for a week now, and those "No Doze" tablets my caring neighbours keep recommending probably weren1t designed for someone with my superior physiology. Being entirely hairless is a sure sign of advanced evolution in the human species (since we will have clothes, heating and houses to protect us from the cold from now on and into the foreseeable future).

Not that I require the smallest shred of covering to remain warm and comfortable! You see, much to my neverending amazement at the wonder that is me, I discovered another undeveloped talent within myself when I rubbed my hands together on the roof of my house. Might I point out at this conjecture, that my roof is magnificently understated. Just as the house is magnificently understated. Just as I am magnificently understated. So understated is my house that in fact, after the doorbell has rung, I usually find visitors kindly waiting for me in the cellar, which is directly below the minimalist front porch. They often seem to have a quietly impressed and subdued look upon their faces. Indeed, when I offered a baked bean sandwich to the postman last Thursday, he was so awe struck by his surrounds that he ran upstairs, out the front door, and then did it again, twice, before eloping out the back window. Such behaviour is not unusual in my humble but striking abode. I am rather proud of the knife display hanging like a chandelier from the entrance hall ceiling.

To return to my tale of undiscovered talent, however, I was on the roof and as usual I was watching the neighbours dancing around the garden in their underwear. As I dreamed of chateaus, big gates with big black knobs on them, and really cute tea-cosies, the friction caused between my itchy palms set alight the thatched tiling. Fortunately next door were cooking over a bonfire so they didn1t notice my little outburst. I have noticed that cooking dinner for most seems to be an all-engrossing procedure. I personally take little fuss over it, having discovered a fantastic book by an old Antarctic explorer detailing the world's greatest baked beans recipes. You know, my household runs like a smoothly oiled laxative pill, is highly efficient and environmentally friendly - I have no waste because I eat everything. It is a real shame I am not hooked up to the council's sewage and water systems because if I were, my bills would be so small they would have to pay me!

The only disadvantage of not being connected to the Council's services, and the first time one has arisen, was that I could not put out the fire I had started. Not immediately, anyway. I stomped on it, I threw a towel over it, and I poured methylated spirits on it, then even soaked the towel in methylated spirits and threw it down upon the burning tiles in an effort to suppress the mighty flames. It was at that point that I felt the hand of God. Perhaps not God himself, maybe one of his proteges, maybe the aliens I had encountered in the underground envelope. It was remarkable all the same. It began to rain. It rained so hard my pants fell down under the weight of the water they'd absorbed. I wish I had checked out my neighbour's 19 year-old daughter in the garden next door at that point, but I was too busy trying not too slide down onto their woodpile along with my roof tiles and a plastic armchair.

It was with my hands wrapped around my chimney, my bare butt pointing towards the neighbours, and a small fire gradually falling off my roof into the neighbours' garden, that I discovered something incredibly profound about myself. Something that I had never dwelt upon before this absolutely clarifying event was thrust upon my weary shoulders. Something that the neurons firing commonly used pathways in my brain had been planning and coordinating based on years of experience. It had to be true, I realised: I like big breasts.

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