Proper Order

I was also rather enjoying the sensation of having
one fingertip gently warming in my nosehole 

I saw the nosehole lady while I was standing at the traffic lights waiting for the green man. She was sitting a few cars back picking away at her her nose. She was really going for it, like looking for her wedding ring down the back of a couch. She turned and caught my eye and, embarassed for her, I looked away. When I snuck a glance back at her she was still looking at me and still picking her nose. It felt a bit strange, locked into a staring match with one whose face has been slightly distorted by having the bulk of a finger forced into her nasal cavity. I watched as she kept on rooting. The whole area around her left eye and cheekbone moved in circular contortions as she went at it. It struck me that she might be quite pretty, were it not for this self-imposed, facial palsy. Her straight, jet-black hair and dark eyes; her slim and genteel bone structure; her flush, pouting lips and her index finger, three knuckles deep in centre of her face. The lights changed and turning her head, she sped away but something of her remained with me, like perfume in an empty room.

I couldn't shake her from my head. The strength of her. A woman, so bravely independent that she could publicly dig for snot whilst strangers looked on. I felt I knew myself - my buried shames and guilty secrets - could I be so free? Could I discard pretence in the face of another's naked gaze. I determined to try it that very day. Sitting at the bus stop, I put a finger up my nose and started staring at this young one sitting next to me. She gave me a dirty look and walked away but I felt I had achieved something.  I resolved to keep my finger there and see how much of this new freedom I could allow myself. When the bus came, I hopped on and dropped my money in the slot but my bag slipped off my shoulder as the ticket was printing and I had to catch it with my spare hand which left me having to bring my face right down close to the machine in order that I could grab the ticket with the free fingers of my nose-hand. At this point the whole bus was looking at me like I was mental so I gave them all a little wave with the free fingers of my nose-hand to put them at their ease. I sat down near the back, across the aisle from a mammy and her babby. The babby had one of those huge heads you sometimes see on babbies with all the features clustered down near the bottom, just above the chin. I waggled my eyebrows and winked at the babby and it started to cry. The mammy gave me a dirty look but as she turned away I saw the babby shove its finger up its nose and go to sleep.

By the time I got home I felt I'd proved a point but I was also rather enjoying the sensation of having one fingertip gently warming in my nosehole. I found myself marvelling at how perfectly suited fingers and nostrils are to this manner of exploratory intercourse. The longer my finger remained there, the more heightened became my awareness of the inner form of my nosehole. The little hairs, the minutely contoured flesh, the little snotty balls of varying viscosity and tackiness. Sitting down on my couch, I plucked one out - a dark brown, wizened little thing like a tiny walnut. Ignoring the tinny voice of shame, I popped it in my mouth. It was a good one. Turning on the TV, I went back up my nose again.

There was a Fellini film on - Amarcord. It's that one with the Italian fascists and the fat cigarette lady with the massive knockers and the rich bird with the big arse that everybody fancies and the mentler uncle up the tree and yer man pissing down the tube and the young lads wanking in the car. It's a shite film but people still watch it. Usually they watch it so that they can talk about it at parties or to see yer one's massive knockers but they'll never admit that. I can appreciate that I guess, I mean who's going to sit through two hours of poorly contrived, subtitled dialogue delivered by a gang of the ugliest Italians you've ever seen and then tell a room full of relative strangers at some party that you only did it to see yer one's big, blue, veiny knockers?!

I was at this party once where some fella was talking about Amarcord. When all the girls started to look a bit bored he clapped me on the shoulder and told them that I had only watched it to see Italian women with big arses. They all had a good laugh at that, which was unfair because yer man didn't even know me or that I don't care tuppence for big arses. Feeling I should get one back at him, I announced to the girls how he'd said that he'd like to wear them all like finger puppets. Everybody turned on me then which was even more unfair because that was true and I didn't see why it should be me that left the party.

I change the channel and some Scandinavian film comes on. It's just a man and a woman in a kitchen. He keeps scowling at things and she just does the ironing and looks sad. I get fed up waiting for one of them to say something and switch over to Bravo for Men where some guy is going on about motorbikes.