Canvasses and Mattresses (JM’s creative comp)

The top floor studio was ideal. Stacks of old paintings, metal utensils and other assorted clutter were scattered all over the place. This made the property cheap by the city’s standards. Dereliction might be off-putting for some; although I’ve watched TV builder entrepreneurs transform pits into palaces. For me dilapidation was right up my street, I work better in chaos.

At last I had somewhere to forget my kinky muse and I didn’t need to march to a far away desert singing about a black pudding with other outcasts. This spacious, detritus strewn attic made me dismiss thoughts of jumping in quicksand. Yes, it was touch and go for awhile there. I remember the fateful day as if it were yesterday.

I came home early from class and heard her screaming from the bedroom. When I entered the bed was a sea of painted doors with wriggling underneath the wood as if someone was drowning. The doors were battering into one another and splinters hurled from their edges causing timber sprays. Still she screamed below the worsening waves of the doors.

Painting murals on doors was one of my great original ideas. Doorals I called them and like hot cakes I made a killing with them. Now the unsold Doorals had got all supernatural and were trying to kill my hot chick.

“Don’t worry, Honey Bunny, I’ll save you.”

I pulled door after door or Dooral after Dooral from the top off the bed. As I neared the bottom of the pile- the seabed- the doors were calming their waves and were moving at a steady rhythm. Still she screamed and I recognised the scream. It was the scream of passion. When I felled the last door to the floor I saw two bodies in the bed: my lover and that unemployed cur, Eddie Munch. She purred.

“Sorry Pumpkin. You know I’ll try anything once and I knew you would never use your precious Doorals as covers.”

In total humiliation I left immediately. How could she do such a thing with my Doorals?

Now I opened the curtains and ushered in light to my new abode. I surveyed the mess and was as happy as a clam. A broken frying pan caught my attention and I remembered far back in the sands of time hitting a previous love rival with such an implement. I caught him kissing my partner in the kitchen at a social gathering. Choosing the nearest weapon to hand I gave him a stainless steel strike. I knocked him out with a punch bowl. Perhaps, this frying pan had been through a similar adventure. Parties and accidents have given me permanent grief since time immemorial.

I picked up a collection of ancient newspapers and was about to read some old news when I saw what lay beneath them: a metal detector. The happiest days of my life were spent with a metal detector. For hours I would comb the beaches and find huge sums of money. I discovered other bric-a-brac that was also useful to my profession. The detector seemed to be in perfect working order. Now it was time to look forward. I can’t wait to catch the train to the nearest beach and go fortune hunting. And it might not just be money I catch. A lot of single women walk their dogs or watch the waves at the sea shore. And there will be me, the focus of everyone’s centre of attention emitting positive vibes. The metal detector is a pure chick magnet.