Having had a long and sweaty day at work on Friday I was more than just a little disappointed to get home and find The Cousin’s chum/partner in menace John ‘the baby’ Barton and The Cousin passed out on the living room floor. Clearly their post work drinks had gone well. I was too tired to deal with them so I just stepped over them and their collection of empty Buckfast bottles and went to bed. I would deal with them, and no doubt the mess, in the morning.

I awoke the following morning to the gentle and chummy chit chat of Radio Four and what I thought was the sound of housework. This was as odd as it was unsettling. There was a strange smell too – gone was the usual ass and wet dog smell that hangs in the air and despite your best efforts makes your clothes appear like the unwashed garments of a real ale drinker or one of those people who spends all their time with barn animals and I don’t mean farmers either. No, this was a reassuringly pleasant odour but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. There was the moreish smell of sizzling bacon but also the healthy whiff of Pledge or Mr Sheen or some other household cleaning product. I lay there, stiff as a board, almost scared to moved lest I scare the pleasantness away. I could hear the twit twins talking, quietly, there was reserved laughter and what sounded distinctly like a conversation. It had been so long since I had heard a conversation in this house that it didn’t appear obvious at first. The closest you get to a conversation within these walls, other than with a door to door sales chap, is when somebody is barking their food order for the Chinese takeaway at you.

I pondered as I lay there. Was I dead? Had I died in the night and heaven is actually a full reversal of the shit you had to put up with on earth? So instead of living with Harold and Maude I was now going to spend eternity with intellectuals who cared whether or not the bin was emptied and who didn’t just throw wet towels at their asses. Was this what had happened? Whilst dying would indeed be disappointing I was pretty sure I could put up with it if this was the afterlife. But then a fly buzzed past my nose and I realised I hadn’t passed from this world to the sweet and infinite freedom and pleasantness of the other side. Surely there were no flies in heaven. Surely flies and their more terrifying and all round more disagreeable kin, the bluebottle, would have their own afterlife location filled with rotting food and sticky messes in which to shit and eat. Maybe fly heaven is a McDonalds fast “food” outlet. No I definitely wasn’t dead as I was still wearing my Batman trunks and I just don’t see anyone getting into heaven in comedy underwear.

A few moments later and I was standing next to the door with my ear pressed up against it attempting to discover what was going on. The Cousin was indeed making breakfast and from what I could gather John ‘the baby’ Barton was tidying up. Panic gripped me, “They’ve fucking broken something!” Well what else could it be?! Artha’ and Martha don’t exactly have a positive track record when it comes to cleaning and tidying. The last time they did the dishes I had to re do most of what was left. Many plates were broken that day by the fat handed twats.

I pulled a t-shirt on and headed downstairs. I was in full ninja mode as I negotiated my way to the kitchen avoiding creaky floorboards and other defects that would give my position away. You have to develop ninja skills to survive in this house otherwise you’d never get a sandwich to yourself. But when I got to the living room I was astounded, shocked beyond words. My precious stereo was sparkly clean and appeared in full working order. The layer of dust and nicotine that had built up on the screen of the TV was gone and in general the place was showroom beautiful. I wandered with the starry gaze of the abducted on an alien starship into the kitchen. Everything was, everything was just wonderful.

“Morning Manuel, sleep well?”, asked The Cousin. He was standing at the cooker making a breakfast of sausages, bacon, breads – both potato and soda, tomato, mushrooms and my favourite breakfast product, black pudding.

“Yeah….yeah actually I slept great…eh really good.” I was trying to take it all in, the tidiness, the domestic goodness, the magnificence of the breakfast without appearing stunned.

“Grab a seat…”, began The Cousin as he cracked eggs into the frying pan. “….breakfast will be ready in a mo. The Guardian’s sitting there and there’s juice on the table.”

I practically fell on to the seat. This was a stunning turn in events. Just as I picked up the paper John ‘the baby’ Barton shuffled his way in from the backyard. He was carrying a small bunch of my wild flowers, by a small bunch I mean a posy. “Hope you don’t mind, it’s just we thought they would look nice on the windowsill”, remarked The Cousin as John ‘the baby’ Barton hid behind him waiting for my reaction.

“No no, they eh look great. Good choices there John” He looked sheepish and blushed as he filled a vase with water.

“Right lads grab a seat this is ready.”

And there we were, the three of us, about to tuck into a lovely cooked breakfast in a tidy house with flowers on the windowsill and free from the malodorous honk of ass and feet. This was fucking weird and getting weirder. There then followed a five minute conversation between the two chaps about what to do that afternoon – walk along the towpath or clean out the attic. I had been at The Cousin for months to clean out the attic but I also loved the idea of the two of them going for a walk, as much for health reasons as for the quietness it would afford me.

“Hey, now that I think about it why is the table set for four? We expecting somebody?”

“Yeah, that’s for George! He’s in the bathroom.”

“George?” I didn’t know any George. Who was he? Was he responsible for this transformation in the monkey brothers?

“Yup, George Best, he’s taking a crap I think.”

“Balls, this is a dream isn’t it?”

“Oh hell yeah”, replied The Cousin.

At that George Best unlocked the bathroom door and wandered into the kitchen. This was the young and successful George Best fully kitted out in United strip and not the old and sad George Best.

“Morning George.”

“Morning Manuel”, says George as he lifted a sausage from his plate with one hand and patted my bald head with the other.

“The boys told you it’s all dream right?”

“Yeah George”

“Good, good. I gotta go now”

“Really George?”

“Yeah…”, says George with that childlike laugh of his. “…gotta game at three and a Miss World at five.”

George jumped on his unicorn and disappeared off through the kitchen wall. I was woken a moment later by the sound of my bedroom door opening.

“Here man…”, came the gruff sounds of a semi naked fat man in too tight by half gray/white boxer shorts from the doorway. “…you got any headache tablets. My head’s pounding and somebody has been sick in the bath…..wasn’t me though”

Dreams eh. Oh how I long for the long peaceful sleep and dreamy time of a prolonged coma…..