Turn the kitchen sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on, walk to the bathroom. Take socks off. Turn the bathroom sink on. Wait 36 seconds. Turn the sink off. Count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Put socks on. The whole procedure had been finely polished into a smooth six minutes. Exactly. Justin’s day can now begin. He finishes his normal routine and leaves the house. He checks the gutter. He’s not checking for anything specific, but it’s sixth in his morning ritual and must be done.
Today he found something. There’s a girl, passed out. She is wearing an excessively short turquoise sequined dress, with matching stilettos. Justin was at a loss. The gutter was not empty. Should he call the police? He took her shoe. He ran. Six blocks later, he stopped. He was In front of his favourite coffee shop. It was an intimidating place, with a tattoo and piercing service offered, while you wait for your coffee. He liked it because the address was 666. He was worried the police he hadn't phoned would be searching for the stiletto he had stolen. Who would have known he would turn to a life of crime? Just earlier, while the bathroom sink was on, he had been thinking of complementing the local parking officer (the one with the limp) on his ability to write tickets. Now here he was, holding the glittering fruit of his crime. Maybe he could return it to the young lady. She seemed nice enough, from what little he knew of her. But what if she questioned him? Best have an excuse prepared. He could say he saw a spider climbing into it. His chivalry had saved her from a nasty bug bite. No, he couldn't pull that off. He would pretend to be a poet, that’s what he’d do. Poets are known for being strange. So he set about writing her a poem.
Turquoise like the rain,
off you go, down the drain.
With a dress, short like our fleeting existence,
that could really do with some more distance.
I took your heel to 666,
left you a poem in the mix.
Justin was in fact quite proud of his apparent literary side. He rejected -yet again- a discount on tattoos, and left the coffee shop. He walked back to his gutter, Finding once again the girl, passed out. Slipping the stiletto back into place on her foot, he looked around guiltily, double checking the police hadn't followed him. He went inside. He went to bed. The next morning, he forgot to turn the kitchen sink on. He didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the kitchen doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on. Didn’t walk to the bathroom. Didn’t take socks off. Didn’t turn the bathroom sink on. Didn’t wait 36 seconds. Didn’t turn the sink off. Didn’t count the sides of the bathroom doorway. One, two, three. Didn’t put socks on.