The Flying Adventures of DOUG

When I was little, I watched the Gremlins movie. It was one of the first "scary" movies I had seen, and boy, it freaked me out. That night it took me ages to fall asleep; the thing that eventually comforted me enough to allow me to fall asleep and turn my back to the dangers of the dark was repeating to my self, "There's no such thing as gremlins. There's no such thing as gremlins...," as I huddled in bed.

Now, apples do not exist. What don't exist? I don't know, they're not there, 'A' is for Aardvark... Don't try to convince me otherwise. I am an expert by now on the non-existence of apples. I spend eight hours a day, five days a week, plus four hours on Saturdays, contemplating how thouroughly and completely apples are not part of the material plane. They are a figment, an illusion; at most, a ghost of something once dreamed of and never realised.

In short, I got the job on the orchard. The French have an interesting system in which every rule that says you can do something is contradicted by a rule which says you can't. Sweet. So it took a while to get my work permit as some official in Perigueux (local government) decided which rule he was going to believe in. I guess he blinked the other, contradictory one out of existence. Like the apples. I've been working for a week picking nothing off rows and rows of trees. It's surprisingly hard work. I wear a big bucket strapped to my front which becomes pretty heavy by the time it's full... of nothing. Nothing is surprisingly heavy. And noisy. The sound of nothing pouring out of the bottom of my bucket into a big crate, and bouncing over other bits of nothing, is a multitude of tiny rustling thuds, like hundreds of flies colliding with closed windows. Non-existant apples can also be pretty gross: sometimes their far side is squishy, brown and speckled with white bits; or cracked and blackened; or covered in slugs that feel like dough saturated with far too much milk...; nothing is surprisingly tactile.

I'm doing pretty well though. I'm working for six weeks (only five left, now) and then taking off for some more flying adventures with a wee bit of cash burning through my pockets. I hope to catch up with some friends of mine, Ara and Pascale, who are in France at the moment but will probably be in Turkey by the time I finish working. So, maybe I'll get to Turkey afterall!

The days are tiring, but I've coped so far, to my surprise. It's the mental game that I was expecting to lose, trying to switch my mind onto other things while my body does tedious menial labour for eight hours, but it's been ok. I've made up stories, planned trips, and inserted myself into the plot of Harry Potter to pass the time. I've even delved into random fantasies like, "Doug winning an Oscar." It's all very silly, but it's better than thinking about apples or wondering what the time is.

Our house is pretty good. We live on the second story of a cottage with a red tile roof, in the middle of the orchard with views of the Dordogne, apple trees and crates. The washing machine works. The fridge works. The gas stove works. There's hot water; it's pretty sweet. This was not my initial impression. When we first walked in the floor was covered in dirt and dead flies. There were so many! I've never seen so many flies in one place before. Dad says that it wasn't that bad, but HE went for a walk to the supermarket while I swept and scrubbed all the floors. The nearest supermarket and telephone is a good forty minute walk away, towards Bergerac, so Dad was pretty stuffed by the time he got back. It was a necessary trip, as the only things in the cupboards when we arrived were two jars of mustard (best before sometime in 2003), a box of filters for a phantom coffee machine and an almost empty bottle of tequila.

I spent the next few days (Thurs-Sat) scrubbing the bathroom walls and the kitchen sink and writing the start of my first novel while Dad worked in the orchard. I cooked each night, too. My wife is going to be a very lucky woman. I started work on Monday afternoon once my permit had arrived and my contract had been drawn up, and the rest is history. We've received one pay (they come monthly) and we appear to be losing almost 40% of our earnings to tax or social security, to save for our pensions and medical expenses. It's a shame we won't be here to draw a pension and can't use the French health system for free, as we're not citizens or residents. Ah well, maybe there's some way we can claim some of it back. Our supervisor told us (in French) to take it up with Mister Chirac.

Due to the distance, lack of transport, and work pressures, it looks like I'll only be able to make it into town to use the internet once a week. Which is good, because it means I'll have lots of emails to read and answer after they've had time to stack up and because I'll save money on internet time. On the other hand, I'll miss being able to communicate as frequently as I was. I hope you'll all cope...

When I get home tonight I'm going to draw up a chart of how many days/weeks I have to go at work. Then, I'm going to savagely cross out the first week (it will be very satisfying), leaving only five weeks to go. Dad says the time will fly by, but I don't know how many times I can imagine winning an oscar or attending Hogwarts before it begins to get old. Any suggestions for other mental time-wasters would be appreciated!