like a drowned rat

This is me right now:



Have I been taken by the arms and had my head held under water by the prison guards, to teach me a lesson when I refused to co-operate? Have I been scrubbed down by a firm and unyielding Nanny, ignoring my squeals as her rough washbrush scraped my nipples, which were bitten bullet-hard by the cold water?

Actually I've just cycled home in a tremendous deluge, pushing through puddles so deep the wheels of my bike sent up plumes of water too heavy for me to pedal through. When I got home I tumbled inside looking like a drowned rat, as my mother would say, took my trainers off on the front doorstep to tip the water out, and peeled my sodden jeans off straight into the shower.

I made it home at top speed though, whirring through the empty, flooded streets as fast as I could, adrenaline coursing through my body. I didn't want to be out any longer than I had to, sure, but I found a subversive delight in racing through London in the rain, battling the streams of water and grinning as lesser mortals cowered indoors. Now I'm home with hot tea and a fluffy bathrobe, and free to enjoy the thoughts of what might have just happened to me ...

... Perhaps a headstrong young lady, slipping out of her bedroom window at night to scale the roofs on some adventure? She would have lost her footing on a loose tile and fallen, to her lasting humilation, into the waterbutt outside the kitchens. Her thrashing would have wakened the servants, who would have come running out with candles and barefeet to fish her out. The under-maids would giggle, the kitchen boys would snigger at the sight of her wet nightdress plastered to her young body, and the grim-faced butler would take her to her father's study to explain what, exactly, she thought she had been doing ...

She would have recovered her composure by the time he addressed her, and would face his temper with a haughty silence. But the cane hurts more on a wet bottom ...



Photos by Dogstar.