Dark forces are at work in my house.
The shadows bend outward from the corners as if stretching, reaching for additional purchase to haul themselves further into the mortal world.
Upstairs in an inexplicably empty room flies seem to multiply unnaturally and mither themselves to the point of insanity against a solitary window that is impossible to open. So many of them, swarming, crawling, buzzing like infernal machines, that they block out the light of the sun.
In fact we sent a priest upstairs to sort that room out with a blessing a couple of weeks ago and he still hasn’t come down. Come to think of it I found his dog collar on the stairs a few days after his arrival and it had teeth marks in it.
And don’t talk to me about our basement.
What basement? Yeah, that’s what I mean. We didn’t have one when we first moved into the house but suddenly we do and it seems to have a strange effect on all who venture into it. Their eyes turn red, their teeth become large and pointy and they start talking in a slightly unhinged but manly baritone... something about the gateway to hell.
Now, either my house is built on the site of an old McDonald’s Drive-thru or something truly nefarious is occurring.
It is the only thing I can think of to explain the sheer impossibility of obtaining any damned contractors to come round and perform the multitude of small jobs that are currently hampering my enjoyment of my family home.
I wrote a while ago about my difficulties in obtaining a plumber. I’ve approached others since then and they have all given me the same excuse: yes, I am interested but can’t come round now to look at the job, I will call you on such and such a day and arrange a visit. Right. So such and such a day arrives and they don’t call so I call them back and get the same excuse repeated to me and the same thing happens yet again.
And then there are the TV aerial installers. I tried to engage one of those too. I left several messages on the company phone. Nobody has rung me back. It’s £159 to have a new aerial installed apparently. Not huge money, I know, but it is the price they have put on it themselves. I’m willing to pay it. But for some reason they don’t want to come round to my house to earn it.
And now I have to engage someone to try and repair our cooker because another sausage-based inferno has put paid to the dials on the fascia and the cooling fan has lost the ability to turn itself off.
My heart balks at the mere thought of having to kick off yet another round of polite enquiries only to be given the finger / the hand / the cold shoulder / the thank you but no thank you / the brush off.
Christ. The only person who comes round regularly and without fail to my house is bloody Wayne the window cleaner. You remember him? Wayne the bloody nutcase, commie hating, Christian platitude spouting, crusade revivalist with a grudge against all western world bankers. Every month he comes round to clean my windows because I’m too much of a coward to tell him to take his chamois and his bucket and his ladder and his hordes of demonic flies and sod off.
Ooh.
Demonic flies.
You don’t think he might be, you know, putting some voodoo on my house or something? Some kind of weird window cleaning juju?
*Gulp*
Anybody know a good priest? Shit. Hold on a minute; I’ve already tried that.
Help!