New life
Blissed out
Zenga Longmore
The hippies next door have recently taken to banging on the wall whenever Omalara cries. Everyone agrees that this is most unfair. After all, she only cries twice a night. Once at two, and once at five in the morning. The problem is, she doesn't stop in between. What the hippies don't realise is that they should thank me.
Let me explain. Ever since I have had a succession of sleepless nights, I've been what the hippies would describe as 'Ken Russelled'. Airy and hallucinatory, if You know what I mean. I once heard the hippies talk of something called Jesus Drops that apparently `blissed you out, man'. With a new baby next door they can get blissed out for free. So why do they still persist in clanking great metal objects against the wall all night long? Maybe they think Omalara is a human transistor radio that can be switched off at the sound of a loud clang. Poor fools. They have a lot to learn, and, if the community midwife is to be believed, another two months of cater- wauling from next door.
At this very moment, even as I write, the typewriter floats before me, and its keys merge into one another, turning pink and blue as they do so. It's quite pleasant in a morbid sort of way. The trouble is, I hear babies crying all the time. The last few days have been spent tearing in and out of the bedroom thinking there's an Omalara alert, only to find a sleeping babe who instantly wakes up at the sound of my charging footsteps.
Not that I mind, don't get me wrong. I can't remember doing anything more worthwhile than this before she was born. Come to think of it, I can't remember doing anything at all before she was born. I have vague memories of my ante-Omalara days being spent in a sort of trance. Olumba, who's just brought me in a cup of tea, tells me I sometimes used to make my own tea. He can be a very bitter man at times.
The mind fairly boggles when you think of some of the methods that peoples of bygone eras have employed to deal with crying babies. Did you know that the Georgians swaddled up their young so tightly they could scarcely move an eyeball? In this unenviable state they were strapped to a board and hung up on the wall by a monstrous hook. I don't know whether that worked or not, having yet to try it out. The South American Indians had an even bigger brainwave. They buried their little 'uns up to their necks in sand while they went about their daily business. I don't know if that stopped the kiddies from crying, but I do know they must have saved a bomb in nappies.
Olumba has just been telling me about some perfectly revolting ways in which his granny dealt with crying babies, but as he's probably lying I won't bother to repeat them.
Mrs Wright from the ninth floor brought up a potion which she said her mother used on her, when she was a girl. It's called Mother Gruncheon's Remedy — The Modern Mother's Standby Mixture. So far it has stayed in the top drawer of the bathroom cabinet, but I'm thinking of trying it out on the hippies next door. After all, you've got to be neighbourly once in a while.
Speaking of the hippies, I shall have to sign off because I can hear raucous bellows coming from the bedroom, so I must dash before next door's dawn chorus com- mences.
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