Let's say

Let’s say I was an amateur film maker when I was at school.  Let’s say that Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong were right in their decision to stop me from babysitting their son.  Let’s say that I had sex with Lorraine Kelly when I was at university.  Let’s say that I didn’t.  Let’s just say that now I am unable to be turned on unless there is some form of tartan in the room.  Let’s say that I stock up on shortbread biscuits for a rainy day.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say my wife came home one day to find me dead in the bath tub.  Let’s say she didn’t cry as much as I thought she would.  Let’s say she didn’t laugh as much as I thought she would as she reached out to touch my neck to check for a pulse and I opened my eyes and yelled ‘surprise’.  Let’s say I’m a practical joker.  Let’s say I’m divorced.  Let’s say I like to sleep naked, but only when I’m camping.  Let’s say I used to believe in vampires.  Let’s say I still do.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s just say that there’s no harm in stocking up on garlic and steaks.  You never know who’ll be popping over for dinner.  Let’s say I’ve seen every film that Patrick Swayze has ever been in, even Christmas in Wonderland.  Let’s say I quite enjoyed it.  Let’s say I took dance lessons on Thursday evenings after work, hoping that after a couple of hours I’d miraculously turn into Johnny Castle.  Let’s say I had to quit because I spent more time fantasizing about my dance teacher than I did learning the steps.  Let’s say the constant erection rubbing against my Scottish boxer shorts and Lycra tights was becoming unbearable.  Let’s say he was the only man I’ve ever fantasized about.  Let’s say he’s not.  Let’s say I drive to his house in the middle of the night and watch his window for a sneaky peek of a stretch or pirouette.  Let’s say I have better things to do with my time.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say I find the German language attractive.  Let’s say it has something to do with the glottal vibrations and occasional spitting.  Let’s say I still wear my wedding ring when I’m out in the hope of picking up women.  Let’s say I tell them my wife died in a car crash.  Let’s say that the other driver was drunk and that she was on her way home after volunteering at a children’s cancer centre.  Let’s say that sympathy sex is better than no sex at all.  Let’s say I take drugs.  Let’s say I enjoy it.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s just say that I’m on first name terms with the A&E nurses.  Let’s say I tell people that Cliff Richard is my cousin’s step-mum’s brother-in-law.  Let’s say he is.  Let’s say I construct my claim to fames by pulling names out of a hat.  Let’s say that the only name in the hat is Cliff Richard.  Let’s say that I have OCD.  Let’s say that we’re all going to die unless I step over my threshold seventeen times.  Let’s say I only cross over my threshold seventeen times because I’m extremely forgetful.  Let’s say I’m extremely forgetful because of all the weed I smoked during my exams.  Let’s say that the weed I smoked during my exams was only oregano and that I only smoked it to look cool in front of my peers and to piss off my parents.  Let’s say my dad died of lung cancer when I was 23.  Let’s say I stopped smoking oregano when I was 23.  Let’s say that my mum’s new husband was cheating on her with his secretary.  Let’s say she believed me when I told her.  Let’s say she kicked his cheating arse out onto the street and burnt all of his clothes on the town’s Guy Fawkes Night bonfire.  Let’s say she loved me more than she loved him.  Let’s say I’m Oedipus.  Let’s say I only buy food when it’s on a buy one get one free offer.  Let’s say my cupboards are full of rice pudding, pickled gherkins and prawn cocktail flavoured crisps.  Let’s say I love all of those things.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say I chop up chicken and feed it to my vegetarian friends at dinner parties.  Let’s say I tell them it’s tofu.  Let’s say I don’t tell them anything it all.  Let’s say I cut my own hair.  Let’s say it makes me look like Ted Danson from Cheers.  Let’s say I sometimes put on an American accent and pretend to be Ted Danson from Cheers.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say I’d like to though.  Let’s say that when I’m lonely, I watch Japanese pornography while eating burritos.  Let’s say that I don’t.  Let’s say that I have enough friends that I never get lonely.  Let’s say that I don’t.  Let’s say that I ride rollercoasters at the weekends.  Let’s say that each rollercoaster provides my underwear with a different shitty skid mark stain.  Let’s say I bought myself a digital camera for my last birthday.  Let’s say it’s still in the box because I have no idea how to use it.  Let’s say it’s still in the box because I’m afraid of what I might end up taking pictures of.  Let’s say I left that life behind.  Let’s say I didn’t.  Let’s say I only ever read books up to page 66.  Let’s say the devil makes me do it.  Let’s say I’m easily distracted.  Let’s say I’m easily bored.  Let’s say I’m easily dissatisfied with the shallowness that fiction delivers.  Let’s say that I keep it real.  Let’s say that I don’t.  Let’s say that I never learnt to tie my shoelaces.  Let’s say I can only wear orthopaedic slip on shoes.  Let’s say I tell people I wear orthopaedic slip on shoes at such a young age because I was born with a stumpy leg that never grew to the same length as the other leg.  Let’s say I sometimes walk with a limp to make my disability more convincing.  Let’s say that’s why I really stopped going to dance lessons.  Let’s say I get tired of it all.  Let’s say I’ve had a tough life.  Let’s say I haven’t.  Let’s say I’m privileged.  Let’s say that Daddy bought me a pony and a small principality for my 7th birthday.  Let’s say I’m a princess.  Let’s say I’m a prince.  Let’s say I’m the frog that never gets kissed.  Let’s say that I chew the inside of my cheek until the skin breaks free.  Let’s say I like the taste of blood.  Let’s say that spinach is my substitute love maker.  Let’s say I collect plastic bags.  Let’s say I buy things I don’t even want just so I can get a new plastic bag.  Let’s say I own a coffee percolator and a pair of tan coloured women’s brogues, size 5.  Let’s say that I’m a coffee drinking woman with size 5 feet.  Let’s say I’m not.  Let’s say I’ve tried suffocating myself with each plastic bag.  Let’s say it’s the only way each bag can genuinely feel like it’s part of the collection.  Let’s say I chose the colour of my spare bedroom walls from the blue of my lips.  Let’s say that everyone who stays in that room gets ill shortly after leaving.  Let’s say it’s a curse.  Let’s say it has something to do with the dead animals in my air conditioning system.  Let’s say it’s just a coincidence.  Let’s say it’s not.  Let’s say I never concern my mind with such trivialities.  Let’s say I only speak French when I’m drunk.  On dit je suis ivre en ce moment.  Let’s say I’m not.  Let’s say I can’t remember the last time I was fully sober.  Let’s say I once auditioned to be on a televised reality talent show.  Let’s say I sang a medley of Wham! songs in the style of Tom Waits.  Let’s say I stood on stage with a shuttlecock down my shorts.  Let’s say that my performance was never shown on television.  Let’s say I was heartbroken.  Let’s say I defecated into a cardboard takeaway coffee cup and threw it at one of the judge’s cars as it pulled out of the theatre’s car park.  Let’s say I didn’t.  Let’s say I don’t like being arrested.  Let’s say I only use the internet to check football scores and to groom young boys in chat rooms into performing lewd sexual acts for me via webcam.  Let’s say I wish I had a son to carry on my family name.  Let’s say that I fear my daughter will disappoint me.  Let’s say that through giving her freedom she may one day choose to vote Conservative or become a lesbian, or worse; tell me that she’s going to a Mariah Carey concert.  Let’s say I love her regardless of her faults.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say I don’t even have a daughter.  Let’s say I’ve never tasted dew cupped in an early morning leaf.  Let’s say I’ve never witnessed a caterpillar escaping its cocoon.  Let’s say that when people face me and speak to me, I see their words emerging from their eyes.  Let’s say that this doesn’t terrify me as much as when I see my own words.  Let’s say that Mondays make me think of red things such as the splattering of blood that lands on a person’s face when they’ve been shot in the chest.  Let’s say that on a Monday I saw a man shot in the chest.  Let’s say he was an innocent bystander at a bus stop.  Let’s say I was on a bus.  Let’s say I was standing next to him.  Let’s say I pulled the trigger.  Let’s say I saved his life.  Let’s say I trust made up scientific words like bifidus actiregularis and pentapeptides.  Let’s say I’m allergic to latex.  Let’s say that’s just an excuse.  Let’s say it’s not.  Let’s say I find it difficult to sleep, especially when we spring forward and fall back.  Let’s say that when I find it difficult to sleep I set up a stool in my kitchen and imagine that it’s on a low stage at an irregular open mic night in a basement bar jazz café with blacked out windows and neon light.  Let’s say I don a beret and a cravat and introduce myself as the master of ceremonies.  Let’s say I also read the occasional spoken word free verse poem that is full of irony and clever internal rhyming.  Let’s say I’d perform forever if it wasn’t for the infernal lack of timing.  Let’s say I don’t want to dominate the spotlight.  Let’s say that my skills pale into insignificance when Gregor steps up.  Let’s say I go to bed while he is still speaking.  Let’s say that his voice lulls my worries.  Let’s say I chose my features.  Let’s say it’s hereditary.  Let’s say I was adopted.  Let’s say I wasn’t.  Let’s say I wish I was.  Let’s say I was nurtured.  Let’s say that I like to grow my own vegetables in an allotment plot behind the church.  Let’s say I give them away to homeless people who sleep in the church porch.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s say hooded youths come into the allotment and take what doesn’t belong to them.  Let’s say I set traps to catch them in the act.  Let’s say I do this because I believe in justice.  Let’s say I’m a vigilante.  Let’s say I’m an anarchist.  Let’s say I’m a sadist.  Let’s say I’m not.  Let’s say I like a laugh.  Let’s say I have my favourites.  Let’s say I don’t.  Let’s just say that nobody steals my pumpkin.