Crash!

A cup hits the floor. Dregs of tea dashed across the tiled floor, the chaos momentarily organised by the gaps between the tiles. The rough semblance of order was maintained for a short while, and then chaos reigned as tea pooled over into the white square spaces once more.

I was sure I put it on the edge of the bath securely? I had done it a thousand times before, same place, just at the corner by the shampoo. The strange thing is it had been sitting there, with half a cup of tea in it for over five minutes. So what had changed? I took a cup full of water and let it trickle into the bath. That seemed ok, it fell at the rate I expected.

Perplexing. I did not like things out of order.

So what was it that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character used to say?

Something, like looking at everything, discounting things, then what was left was the answer? Something like that, right?

That never worked for me. The way it generally turned out was me being left with no milk for a cup of tea, only the two crust ends of bread in the packet, and my car keys nowhere to be seen.

So that was not going to help me know, was it? Maybe my degree in Astrophysics would?

I sat up slowly in the bath and reached for my glasses. My eyesight had changed over the years. I had needed glasses all the time. You know that bad that I needed my glasses to find my glasses. The strange thing is that had now changed.

I had now turned into one of those people who was ‘looking for woodpeckers’, as my uncle used to say. He was referring to the way a person would balance their glasses on top of their head when reading something close up. One set of eyes on the page, the other set was ‘looking for woodpeckers’.

The bath water rocked about my body vigorously and sloshed a little onto the floor. Stranger still!

Why? What was going on with the water now? It was as if gravity had shifted or bumped a little. Despite my scientific background, I was a strong believer in the 'Events'.

The 'Events' or 'Happenings' were the explanations allotted to anything unexplained. So it was a broad palette. These occurrences were previously attributed to sprites, imps, and Faeries, but with the advent of 'science', these creatures were forgotten. These creatures were lost in the mist of time and history. History was rewritten by the scientists.

The latest scientific fad explained the unexplained. It then became part of the collective consciousness of the planet. For example, when did you learn about gravity, or sunlight, or space?

Were you ever bothered to discover why things were the way they were? The world is full of other distractions and excitements for you to be bothered, right? That is the point. The world does not care that someone has a better phone than you, or that you are going to be late, it just continues its journey slingshot around the sun.

So since Sir Isaac Newton 'invented' gravity people do not bother about why things fall. They just accept it. The individual is more bother as to why the bread fell butter side down than why it fell at all. Then, of course, why not post that on your Facebook page or Tweet about the bread incident and not gravity! See, Imps at work again.

That is one thing that drives me mad, the not knowing why things happen.

I sat up further in the bath and grabbed my notebook and pen. I had always admired Archimedes principle and the legend of how he discovered it. So I always had a notebook and pen when I am in the bath, and a bathrobe as I do not want to run naked down high-street either!

I scribbled down some rudimentary calculations concerning gravity, factored in time, the moon's cycle and its own gravitational pull. All looked fine.

Plink! A toothbrush falls to the floor from the sink.

Really? Now, what? I got out of the bath and grabbed my bathrobe wrapping it around me. Tea squelched between my toes. I dabbed them dry with a towel and picked up the toothbrush. Something was off there too. I noticed a fine silken thread attached to the end of it, like a spider's silk. Carefully I followed this across the bathroom, my feet plodded on the cold tiles. I dropped to my knees as the thread descended. The almost invisible thread disappeared under the door.

It was then I noticed another thread extending back into the bathroom. I pulled it, and the cup moved. Hang on a minute! I dropped the toothbrush and picked up my notebook.

I opened the door slowly and heard tiny feet scurry across the floor and a lot of giggling too.

I saw small shapes disappear around the corner. The toothbrush and cup bounced down the corridor after them.

“Oh, come on guys!” I said.

The face of Pip and Bodger smiled back at me from around the corner.

The Imps chuckled laughing and pointed at me. I looked down at my tea stained feet, wet legs, pools of water on the carpet and the soggy notebook.

“Guys! Come on you know my bath time it is supposed to be my protected time!” I laughed.

“Now stop it and get back to the lab, OK?”

Pip and Bodger laughed their way back to their workstations.

I returned to the bathroom, added more hot water, and settled down into the warmth.

So Mr Homes would have been right on this occasion. I discounted the scientific and what was left were Events. And no one knew better about the orchestration of Events better than my friends Pip and Bodger.

I closed my eyes and relaxed enjoying the near weightless sensation the water provided.

Clink! My razor fell to the floor.

“Guys!”

Lloyd Oxton 2016