Warm Cantaloupe

On the train, a trio of wretched-looking youths were hunched at one end of the carriage while a group of glowing young mums chatted at the other.

Samara and I sat at the centre of the carriage and, suddenly, a baby’s bottle half-filled with milk rolled speedily past us from where the healthy young mums were gathered, all the way down the aisle to the ratboys.

It landed stopped rolling at the feet of their leader who picked it up and sniffed at it. He looked gloriously bewildered for a moment before returning it to a thankful mum.

“It’s a sign,” I told him.

“Blerg,” he said, and squirted Weil’s Disease squarely into my face.

Later in the afternoon, I’d get my own sign from the babygods when, at a barbecue, a little koala-like baby dragged himself along the lawn and used my leg to pull himself unsteadily onto his feet.

I touched the back of his head in an investigatory and hopefully-affectionate way. It was like a warm cantaloupe.

I was slightly drunk and unsure of what to do about this stranger’s child potentially pulling my trousers down, but his father soon came over to rescue us both.

“Don’t you think the world is overcrowded as it is without your sexcrement running all over the place?” is precisely what I didn’t say. “And why is your face so blurry?”

At least, I don’t think I said it.

I like barbecues.

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