The Adventures of Barnabas T. Trenchdigger: Memory Loss

The hawthorn bush

Sundown

A week today

Quack

Memory Loss

The note hung in Barnie’s mind like a fly on the water. It hung on the door like a piece of paper speared to a door. Everything about it was incomprehensible to him, although this could just have been the hangover, which made his senses reach out into the world and drag back all the painful sounds and irritating smells it could find.

“She can’t have liked me,” he said matter-of-factly to the walls.

Several more times Barnie told himself that one fact throughout his morning routine. In the shower. With the toast. In front of the mirror. With the last steps out of the door. The shower washed in the doubt and the toast tasted of insecurity and the mirror reflected disappointment and, by the time the door closed, it only clicked shut with regret.

He replayed the night before over and over again in his head. The drink. The boredom. The drink. The mystery guest. The drink. The fall. It flashed past his eyes like a cinema reel, and he could only catch fragments. But what he caught, he clung to.

A dog? The question squash-balled around between his ears. She can’t have been a dog...

Barnie worked in a little place down Hedge Way that dealt in mainly in analysing the density and consistency of soil. It occasionally branched out to looking at trees. In hard times, it would assess rocks. It was a business based on poor puns and even poorer demands.

“Morning, Gumball”, slithered out of his lips, directed at the dark scraps of cat that rocked in the corner. Marcus Milktray had once been a prominent member of the feline community. Then, he accidentally nuzzled up to a trapping of chewing gum. His fur had to be shaved from his skin. Now, he was Gumball, and lived underground.

“You’re late,” was hair-balled back.

“Let me see today’s soil.”

“It’s brown and mucky and looks just like yesterday’s soil and tomorrow’s soil.”

“Uhm... Where’s it from?”

“Dunno, somewhere near the hawthorn bush, I think.”

The hawthorn bush!

Six days to go.

Woke up. Got dressed. Went to work. Looked at soil. Thought about a girl he couldn’t remember. Went home. Slept. Dreamt about a girl he couldn’t remember.

Five days to go.

See previous day for details.

Four days to go.

See previous day for directions to the day before that.

Three days to go.

Something changed.

By this time in the week, Barnie’s memories of the night that would eventually changed his life were little more than languishing tendrils of thought and imagination. He’d dreamt about it and her and them and her and the noises so many times that reality was as much a part of his dreams as his dreams were a part of the world around him.

At work, he would see reflections of purple in the soil, or hear barking where once there was just the squeaking of a rocking chair, or even see hope in what, essentially, is a hopeless feline. Like a fever, his dreams were throbbing through his body. He was making them real.

But a part of him had to know what was real and what was fake. His brain.

Two days to go.

The next morning, Barnie woke extra early, dressed with surprising haste, ate with insatiable greed, and left the house with dancing heels and inquisitive thoughts.

The pub was closed when he got there, but he’d expected nothing else. Inside, he could hear movement. He rapped on the door. The activity within stopped.

“We’re closed,” a voice called out, pushing years of lingering smoke out of tar-filled lungs.

“I just want to come inside for a minute.”

The living tar depository paused. “We’re closed!”

“Just a minute, then I’ll be gone.”

The inside of the pub was different in bright light. The void of people drew eyes to the walls and the ceiling, both a dull, faded brown. Soil brown. West Country soil brown.

“Do you recognise this?” he said, and held out a purple spine.

“What is it?”

“It’s a spine, like from a hedgehog.”

“It’s purple.”

“Yes, thank you, but do you recognise it?”

“Hedgehog’s aren’t purple.”

“This one was, I think.”

“...but hedgehogs aren’t purple.”

Barnie made to leave. He had left the house knowing two things: hedgehogs were not purple, and that this had to belong to a hedgehog. He needed an explanation, not a repeated fact. Maybe she wasn’t a hedgehog, his mind whispered. Maybe it was just a dream.

“She’s a hedgehog.” The voice came from deep behind the bar, but Barnie didn’t care. He didn’t care who said it or how they knew. He cared about one thing: she was real. His dream was real. She was a hedgehog. He was out of the door faster than any mole had ever moved before.

The next few days flew by.

Two days left.

One day left.

Zero days left.

Best suit on. Fur washed and fluffed and combed back down. Contact lenses on (blue tinted, they matched the tie). Half an hour early. Sweaty hands. Pacing and pacing and pacing and pacing and pacing...

“Quack!”

The Adventures of Barnabas T. Trenchdigger: Speed Dating (draft 2)

Here are some interesting facts about moles:

• There are no moles in Ireland
• They have two thumbs

That’s about it. They’re not the most interesting creatures in the world, so you can imagine the trouble Barnabas T. Trenchdigger has in finding a girlfriend.

Speed Dating

Barnie sat at the bar and eyed up the talent. There wasn’t much on offer. A couple moths, handful of squirrels, dozen or so field mice, the odd rabbit. The usual slim pickings.

This wasn’t Barnie’s first time at an event like this. In fact, his attendances at these socially-questionable shindigs was scraping double figures. He knew the routine. Sit down, let her talk, sound interested, get rejected. Always it was the same. He didn’t mind much. Not really. It got him out the hole. Killed a few hours. Got him a bit tipsy.

A grey squirrel with over-eager eyebrows and an impatient tail jumped up onto the bar. She wore a scarlet top hat with hand-made ear holes, and a vermillion ribbon. A swanky stick swirled from one claw to the other.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she announced, ring-master-like, “Everyone to their seats!”

The first three dates went exactly the same.

“So, erm... What’s your name?”

“Suzie (then Brenda, then Margaret). Yours?”

“Barnie.”

“Oh, OK.”

Then came the same awkward pause while each participant thought of a subject to talk about. Rejected topics of conversation: the increased price of worms, hole tax, above-ground retirement homes, snakes, death, bigger snakes.

“What do you like to...” Bell! Next table.

The fourth date was slightly better. She was a skinny rabbit called Petra. She liked slow hops around the cabbage field and folk music, and disliked the taste of broccoli. They had what most people would call a conversation. Barnie thought of it as a connection.

“How about you and me go somewhere else?” he verbally prodded.

“Or, “ said the rabbit, whose ears were the colour of fallen leaves, “how about you stay here, and I go somewhere else with... erm... him!”

The fifth was much the same as the first three. Pleasant exchange of syllables. A jostling of inadequacies. Pendulums of awkwardness. A small break was called, before the final few meets. Barnie rushed towards the bar, gasping for inebriation.

He ordered a double vodka, straight. (Like human vodka, underground animal vodka is made by distilling and fermenting potatoes. Unlike human vodka, it’s mainly water). Downed it, and then downed another. His eyeballs contracted, and then erupted. His vision swam amongst the hoard of creatures, ethereal and with a life of its own. His bones shivered.

“You’ll want to slow down,” said a voice from his behind his ear. Barnie turned and stared. His advisor was either a small, green, flaming duck, a hedgehog with purple spines, or a blue ball of wool. Stab in the dark.

“Quack?” he replied. His voice rippled with pride and straightened with unsurety.

“Woof!” Dog wasn’t an option. Why wasn’t dog an option?

It couldn’t be a dog, his sober mind told him. Dogs were big and scary and chased moles and bit moles and ate moles and most certainly didn’t give moles advice at speed-dating conventions.

“You’re not a dog...”

“Hmmm. No, I suppose I’m not. But I could be a dog.”

“You could be a dog?”

“Oh, I could definitely be a dog. Listen. Woof!”

“No. No. That doesn’t mean you’re a dog.”

“Well I’m certainly not a cat. And I never said I was a dog. I said I could be a dog.”

“But you can’t be a dog.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not a dog.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t be a dog. Who are you to tell me I can’t be a dog?” And with that, the flaming green duck, or the hedgehog with purple spines, or the blue ball of wool stormed off.

“Wait,” Barnie called, his arm reaching out further than his voice. This only led to him falling from his stool and landing, snout-first, on the ground. His chances faded slightly slower than his consciousness.

Apparently, the universe decided that for highly hammered and mischievously malaised moles there would be no sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth. Instead, there would be a throbbing at the temples, a sickly uprising in the gullet and a stink of embarrassment.

Barnie didn’t find out about these gifts of fate until the next morning. He woke in the same bed he’d woken up in for the last twenty years, to the same view and the same life that always greeted his first flickers of vision. With one exception. A note, purple-spined to the wall.

‘The hawthorn bush. Sundown. A week today. Quack’