Floaters
Picture myself on a boat on a river - the river in question being the one that runs through the middle of Srinagar, in Kashmir, in the 80s. Many people live on the river in huge, antiquated houseboats, patched up with anything from cardboard boxes to flattened-out Coke tins and the water is used for everything - cooking, washing, you name it.

Watching the river traffic as we drift out of town, I notice something large and white drifting idly along behind us, but slowly gaining. Even as I'm watching, I can't work out what this thing might be - but it's made even more puzzling by the slight degree of movement that I can detect.

It isn't until it draws almost level that I realise that I'm looking at a bloated sheep's carcass, most of which is below the waterline. What I can see is just one side of the sheep, raised above the water by whatever gases are causing the swelling. More to the point, the movement I can detect is caused by the thousands of maggots that cover the entire exposed area, waving slowly - as, I presume, maggots are wont to do.

But as I'm wondering whether to recoil or puke, I look up and about two or three yards beyond the sheep, equally absorbed in watching it float past, is a Kashmiri man who leans across the side of the houseboat and dips his toothbrush in the river, before he puts it in his mouth and cleans his teeth.

And all the time I had my trusty SLR by my feet and at no time did it cross my mind to grab a picture. Wouldn't have felt good about it, anyway.

I can still see those maggots, though - or rather I can still see then waving. And I still feel like puking.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 5:53, 8 replies)

yourself doesn't understand reflexive pronouns

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 9:42, closed)

Get yourself to fuck.

(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 17:27, closed)

^ upset

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 18:12, closed)

Myself or yourself?

(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 18:19, closed)

I think you've managed to upset yourself.
And prolly messed yourself as well.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 26 Feb 2015, 19:28, closed)

You flatter yourself if you think this is upsetting.
Which doesn't really surprise me.
(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Fri 27 Feb 2015, 2:07, closed)

N'you don't understand tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

( edjogs Collared doves are shit., Fri 27 Feb 2015, 9:53, closed)

never heard of them.

(zebideedoodah likes florence but prefers venice, Sat 28 Feb 2015, 1:08, closed)