THE DEMON SEED

So I was coming home on the train, and don't ask me how, but I ended up in West Norwood, waiting for a train to take me home to Gipsy Hill. Yes, I do think it's appropriate that in this transient state I'm in at the moment, I'm living on Rommany Road in Gipsy Hill.

Anyway.

So there's this small, blonde, Demon Seed child at the rail station who absolutely fixated on me. Her mother was talking on a mobile telephone, and every so often she'd look up and threaten this child, mostly with "I'm going to tell your Nan," but for the most part, DS was free to roam about the station.

She kept coming up and conversing with me. She asked me, "Do you smoke?" I said, "No." She asked, "Why not?" Although I don't really particularly care whether or not other people smoke, I would generally answer a child with something like, "Because it's a disgusting habit," just on principle. You know, like even if I swore like a sailor, I'd try to convince a child that it was a really terrible thing to do, just because that's what you are supposed to do with children. But in this case, her mother was sitting next to me, chain-smoking, so what exactly was I supposed to say?

I said, "I just don't."

DS replied, "Well, *I* do," in that "aren't I terribly precocious" voice.

I replied, "Oh," quite blandly, figuring that registering shock would be the worst thing in this circumstance.

A few minutes later, the little girl came up to me again and tapped me on the shoulder. She had the end of a still-lit cigarette in her hand, that evidently her mother had dropped. She was smiling the evil little DS smile. Have I mentioned that she was about five years old? I don't think I have. But anyway, there I am, sitting at a rail station talking with a five-year-old girl with a cigarette in her hand that she's about to put into her mouth.

I said, "Honey, you don't want to put that in your mouth." Finally, her mother noticed what was going on and told her to put the cigarette down, which of course resulted in the little girl dancing just out of reach with said cigarette and her mother threatening to tell Nan until the mother in question became distracted by the person she was talking to on the mobile phone and forgot that her child was dancing around putting a cigarette in her mouth.

The girl came back a couple of seconds later and said her mouth tasted bad because she'd put the cigarette in it. I'm thinking this is a good thing. Then she asked me for twenty pence. I asked her what she wanted it for, and she replied something that I couldn't quite understand. I told her I didn't think I had twenty pence, but I did give her a shiny penny eventually. Then she danced off to a man standing further along the platform, and asked him for twenty pence. He asked what she wanted it for. He eventually gave her a penny and asked her where her parents were. The little girl pointed to the bench I was sitting on with her mother, and all I could think of was, "Oh, please, don't think that I am this child's mother."

Eventually she danced back over to her mother (at which point I wanted to stand up, wave my arms, and point at them both while exclaiming loudly, "See!? Not my child! Not my child!" but decided that it would probably not be wise and may result in, you know, institutionalization) and told her that she had gotten a penny from each of the two of us. I immediately realized that I had just rewarded bad behavior. Then she told her mother that she had asked us for twenty pence, and her mother said, (in a fairly obvious attempt to say it for our benefit) "You can't walk up to people and ask them for money," and the girl said, "But you do it!" and the mother quickly shushed her and started talking to her in a quieter voice.

At that point, the train arrived, and I am afraid I made a bit of a display obviously walking to another coach, in another attempt to prove to nobody who was actually watching or caring that I was NOT THE MOTHER OF THIS CHILD.

I am a sad woman. It's true.

Anyway, last night I got a package from my sister, which was nice because I was feeling low at the time and that cheered me right up. Especially since there was *jam* in the box. There were also photos of the most adorable great nephew in the world (or is it grand nephew?), and I don't want to admit that there were quite a few with me, because everyone knows that I have nothing to do with babies. I think that there was some kind of conspiracy to take photos of me looking domestic or something.

I keep seeing these little Chinese outfits in shop windows, and I want to get him one so badly I can't stand it. I have no money, but am aware that my very first dollars of my very first paycheck will be spent on a little Chinese outfit for Corbin.

Again, I am a sad woman.

I have some kind of flu-ish cold. It's not bad, I mean, in the sense that if I take enough drugs I don't mind terribly. But when I exhale, it sounds like there is a baby in my lungs crying. It's really bizarre. I've never had my lungs make this noise before, as far as I know. The noise actually kept me up last night. Fortunately, when I did sleep, I didn't dream of crying babies.

I have discovered, incidentally, that the analgesic I've been taking that is quite common over here--called Paracetamol--is a blood thinner. In case I haven't mentioned this before, I am a hemophiliac. Three guesses as to how I discovered that Paracetamol is a blood thinner. Three more guesses as to what I will no longer be taking for pain.

Anyway, no matter how sick I am, the life of my housemate is so. much. tougher. He asked me how I was feeling this morning, and I croaked out a response because it takes a few hours in the morning for me to actually regain my voice. He responded by expounding to me at great length about how bad he was feeling. He is taking the next two days off. Evidently, he is not feeling badly enough to refrain from playing the keyboards, sans headphones, at all hours of the day and night.

For reasons I won't go into, it's a really bad idea for me to express any sympathy or friendliness toward my housemate. It's surprisingly difficult, mainly because he's about the only person I have regular contact with, and so when I'm stand-offish to him, I feel like it's a new personality trait, because I feel like I'm stand-offish in 90% of my human interactions.

So anyway, last night I was watching the news, and they were talking about a tuberculosis epidemic over here. I'm wondering if my housemate will think that he actually has TB. I wonder if he will want me to get tested.

Well, I suppose I'd better get back to looking for work. There are these two jobs that I've been asked to interview for, but they keep pushing back the dates, and it's getting annoying. I mean, I doubt that I'll get either of the jobs anyway, because of the whole Work Permit Issue, but it would be nice to have it over with.

All right, back to the salt mines. Hopefully I won't run into any children there.