Miss Hazelwood

 

I remember meeting Miss Hazelwood one dark evening whilst crossing the park on my way home from the pub. She was always a distant kind of person. I could never work out whether she was small or just far away.

She invited me to her house. We entered the living-room. I don't know why they call it that since everything was made or dead materials and nothing was living except some culture in a Petri dish on the table. 

The curtains were drawn. Everything else was real. Furniture, carpets, pictures and so on. 

I drew her attention to the dust on the furniture. She quoted the Bible and said we are dust and we'll return to dust. She does not vacuum clean in case she picked up some dead people.

She was a science teacher at the local college. She also taught graffiti to delinquent youngsters. They called it murals. But you might as well be talking to a wall telling them it was vandalism. They thought vandals were people who wear open toed footwear with straps attached to the sole to the foot.

She explained that sound does not travel in a vacuum. You could scream and no one would hear you. Especially if the vacuum is switched on and there's dust in the bag. That's why she does not vacuum ... in case dead people are screaming their heads off and she can't hear them.

She was a bit eccentric but her heart was in the right place. So was her stomach, liver, kidneys and everything else. 

Except her ears. She had an ear right on her fore head. That was the Final Front Ear!

And her eyes were not the same size. She had an eye as big as a tennis ball. The other one was much bigger.

And a very long nose too. It entered a room ten minutes before her. It was so crooked she could smell round corners. 

She had one foot covered in corn. The other one had wheat. She believed in rotational harvesting.

She confided once that she was not happy. Although she was sometimes grumpy and bashful, and when tired she was dopey and sleepy. But she was never sneezy even though the house was full of dust. So she never needed the doc.

She's looking forwards to Christmas because her family and friends are giving her Gift Vouchers to redeem at the local psychiatrist.