what side's Jerry on?

Jerry Roid has a nice photo of his wife tucked into his wallet. He’s just slipping it out of its leather slot now, to take in a dose of her big smile. Hopefully this will cheer him up. Things in the world’ve been odd & difficult of late. Yesterday morning the lamppost opposite his house simply bent over like a length of liquorice bootlace and then bobbed up again, whilst its insipid orange laughter seeped through the early workaday gloom. Of course Jerry Roid didn’t see it that way; he didn’t actually notice this impossibility of lamppost behaviour. But he did feel a kind of glitch - something like that black cat in The Matrix double crossing perception; but rather than actually seeing the cat on two separate occasions (separated by seconds), instead smelling the cat - the second time the scent being just that bit more catty. Thing is though, Jerry is starting, bit by bit, pixel by pixel, to become more aware: About an hour ago a distinct image of a bendy liquorice lamppost actually faded-in to focus on his mind’s eye, only for a fraction of a second. But he did notice it, and he did wonder, be it very briefly, about where such a bizarre image could’ve come from. Jerry is now staring wistfully at the photo of his beautiful wife, Helen Roid. Lets swing our viewpoint down past Jerry’s ear, over his shoulder, and straight into his palm holding that lovely image – what can we see? Shocking isn’t it - not a woman’s face at all. Yes, that’s right, it is in fact an image of various objects covered by a black, slightly glossy membrane, some of the objects behind the membrane pushing into it vague imprints of their presence. Now, are you going to tell Jerry the truth, or am I?

Mark Goodwin