"When the Imagination Strikes Back" by Suzannah Carrick

It was touch and go whether I left the house; I was sitting at the kitchen table, painting the table cloth with red acrylic, trying to make my mind up.  I had made myself a cup of coffee, but had not drunk it – something small and lizard-like was floating belly up in the froth – it rather put me off.  I had flipped a coin, only to find that it had nine sides and every one of them had said maybe.  I had watered the chocolate plant, but it was refusing to bare fruit.  Shame, I fancied a crunchie.  I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, agonising the matter, finally I plumped on venturing into the great unknown.  I pulled on my cagoule, plunged my feet into a pair of orange wellies, and armed myself with an enormous umbrella.  I opened the door, I sniffed the air, I breathed deep, and I stepped out into the mystery that awaited me, which, in this example, looked like the set of a limited-budget cowboy movie.

            Fitting easily into the mood, I kicked open the swinging doors of the saloon opposite, tore my way through the mosquito netting, and hollered, “I’ll take a mug of your best, Joe!”

Unfortunately, however, appearances had been misleading, and the building was not a saloon after all.  It was an upper-class restaurant, empty, but for the short-skirted waitress who was eying me as though she’d never seen anything quite like it, and not in a good way.  I shoved my hands into the pockets of cagoule and strutted forward.  Acting in a way that I thought was distinguished, smart, and every bit as though I hadn’t just hollered, “I’ll take a mug of your best, Joe!”  But I had the feeling I wasn’t fooling her.

            I swung myself onto the chrome barstool, and smiled disarmingly and tried to force the reptile poking its head out of my cagoule pocket back into the darkness.  The barmaid eyed me suspiciously.

“You new around here?” she demanded in a lipsticky voice.

“I’m just passing through.” I replied.