Thursday 15 October 2009

Beware the Dreadlock Of Unusual Size

There are a great many Things about London, and one of those Things is that on any day, a day that may start just like all the others, you can suddenly notice a person in the street that you've never seen before. And then, the day after that, you might see them again, and you wonder how this should be, and why they've suddenly arrived in your life, and where they've been up until this point, and what the men who sit in the high, high cabins of construction cranes above the city who, as everyone knows, orchestrate everything that goes on on the streets beneath them, have in store for the pair of you.

And then you never see them again and the drudge consumes you once more, and you forget any of those thoughts that went before.

Yesterday, on the short journey between London Bridge and Southwark Street, I found myself walking behind this man and his… well, I would like to call it a mono-dreadlock, but it was not working alone. However, its considerable girth far outstripped that of its siblings. In keeping with my ongoing fad for allusions to the icons of 80s light entertainment, in the dreadlock Roly-Polys, this one was definitely Mo.


Then, this morning, I found myself following the same man and his prolifically unwashed hair once again and I was gripped by a chilly terror – that the end of that dreadlock would rear up towards me like a furry, unwashed cobra, and two beady red eyes would open, and a terrible, tiny jaw would unlock, and a set of pernicious, pointy little teeth would come right for me. I am slightly scared to go to bed tonight for fear that this is a portrait that will have been painted inside my closed eyelids. It is the night of the living dreadlock.

6 comments:

The Umbrellas of Sefibourg said...

Great blog BTW. I too have such fears.

There is an old possibly homeless man who hangs around the top o' Leith Walk in Edinburgh. All of his dreads have formed a kind of 'bottleneck' that forms at the shoulder-blade region. His hair is grey and resembles matted tumble dryer lint. It's less of a sausage beast - more like an evol Dover Sole.

But he seems a nice man so I let him be.

Cheerio now. x

pollymorph said...

Ugh, geoduck head:

http://www.freshseafood.com/graphics/store/products/73.jpg

Anonymous said...

Not necessarily unwashed, just uncombed.

Miss Jones said...

Ms Sefibourg, thank you. Perhaps you have found my guy's dad.

Pollymorph, that is both brilliant and uncanny.

Anon, you are entirely right and I take it back. In my head, this post was a bit more live and let live, but it didn't come out of my fingers quite that way. Washed/unwashed, combed/uncombed, it's none of my business. I just felt that one dreadlock was looking at me funny on two consecutive days.

Salvador said...

Even more disconcertingly I can see a spooky smiley face in the bald patch that surrounds the monstrosity.

Miss Jones said...

Ha! I think it looks like an owl, which is strange as I love owls.