RANDOM ECHOES - 30/9/05

Giant Squid found and filmed - mythology is real.

Merissi had 16 names - none of them of his own devising. Many came from misread birth records or mispronunciations, but they all came in useful in later life when he was on the run and hiding out. But even though he became a champion of deceit he couldn't help leave traces of his true identity in his work. Teams of investigators were put on the case to fathom the clues to his whereabouts. It was a serious game. Time consuming and irritating for the officers concerned. Merissi continued and when he caught wind of what was occurring he laughed, enjoying the notoriety, flaunting his identity by waiting outside the investigators' offices at the end of the day, watching them leave for home or a bar. On one occassion he even bought one of them a drink. They never found him. But when an unidentified body washed up on the shores twenty five miles south of the city twelve years later without any papers or trace of address, they named it Merissi. But they never really knew.

A woman and a man in love are on a tube carriage to work. She says to him that he has yellow eyes. He doesn't understand. "The retina is yellowish, it means you are renal," she says. He is still unclear. "It means you are angry and jealous, and that quite possibly you are ill. Your kidneys may be in a bad way." Another woman, reading a paperback novel nearby, looks over the top of her book at the man to see if his lover is right. She says that it's true. At the next station the couple part. The man is concerned about his symptoms. He looks in the mirror inside the lift that takes him to his office. He is caught out by people getting in who stare at him. He explains that he is renal and they nod sagely back at him as if they already know. The receptionist at work says he looks angry about something and a little bit yellow, she asks if he has a cold. He says no and explains that he is renal. The receptionist nods of course. Everyone appears to know his symptoms and the diagnosis. He asks his boss for some time off so he can visit a drop-in surgery. His boss agrees mentioning the yellowness around his eyes. He quantifies with his boss if the discolouration is around his eyes or in his eyes. His boss says both. The man is doubly perturbed. On his way to the surgery he is mistaken for: a streetlight, a lemon ice-cream, and a traffic control beacon. People laugh at him or point him out, particularly children. By the time he makes it to the surgery foyer he is trembling with despair. The nurse behind the counter looks at him with wide eyed fascination. The man looks at her and says "I know, I know, I'm renal. Please you've got to help me!" He waits in line to see the doctor, weak with anxiety. After an hour he is admitted and the doctor looks at him and tuts and tells him that he is renal. The man screams back "I know. What can be done about it?" The doctor tells him that for starters he can calm down and then gives the man tablets and suggests he goes straight home. The man protests and the doctors fills out a sick note to put the man at ease and so he heads home. On his way he passes a group of art students sitting outside their college sketching, painting, smoking cigarettes and posing bohemian. They all look up at the man as he walks through them to get to the end of the street. One of them stops him and asks if he can paint his eyes as they are such a good shade of yellow. The man thinks the art student is taking the piss but when he sees that the others too are louchly mixing paints in readiness he grudgingly agrees. "After all," he reasons, "I don't actually feel unwell its just that everyone else has told me I am." So the man stays with the art students for the afternoon. They each paint him and when they are done he wonders homeward much happier. Indeed when he gets home his lover notices how much better he looks. The following morning on the tube the woman turns to the man and delicately she says "Your eyes are looking so much better," and she pauses for a moment then carries on, "but your lips are turning blue."