Kikumbob-The E-Matt

Everyone’s heard of the common claustrophobia and arachnophobia and maybe even agoraphobia. And a lot of people understand why people can be afraid of enclosed spaces or frightened to death by dirty, furry monsters with eight legs or wide open spaces that can hold anything. Only last weekend I was in a portaloo and suddenly wondered how screwed I would be if I slipped, fell against the locked door and pushed the whole thing over. I felt slightly claustrophobic for a while.

But there are, I’m sure you all know, hundreds more phobias. In fact there are as many as 600 and still counting. The simple fact is that you could have a phobia of anything and everything (which is, by the way, panophobia). The possibilities are limitless. The phobias that have names are only the common ones. Someone could have a phobia of butter being spread onto toast and suddenly you’ve got another phobia on that list.There are some utterly weird phobias out there. Medorthophobia, the fear of erect penis’ (peni, whatever) is one of my favourites. Having a fear of insects, acarophobia, sounds understandable. But do you know anyone who is scared of insects that eat wood? That’s Isopterophobia. And a fear of buttons? I heard that a while ago and can’t remember the name for it.Just to show you the humour of the guys who make these names up, Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is the fear of very long words. Try to imagine attempting to tell a person he has that.

This next phobia is a little bit mysterious and spooky. Dextrophobia, the fear of objects on the right hand side of the body. And then it’s opposite; sinistrophobia. Can you imagine having both those phobias at the same time? Yum.

You are probably all wondering about the title by now. Yes, there is a phobia of having phobias. And who can blame them? There are so many phobias about that you could easily get seriously paranoid about getting one. Have sympathy for the people who have this because its an endless cycle of traumatism as you realise that you finally have a phobia and it is this terrible phobia of having a phobia that is getting you so worked up in the first place.

I have, as always, saved the best one for last. Arachibutyrophobia has to be the single most favourite phobia I have ever come across and I simply want to meet someone who seriously has this. It’s not the fact that I can’t understand anyone that has this phobia – I can, it’s quite irritating when it happens to me – it’s just simply a highly specific fear. Of course it’s annoying when Peanut butter sticks to the roof of the mouth. We’ve all been there, damn it!

If you’re reading this and thinking “Hey! I really do hate long words! They scare me! Its not funny!” I apologise for offending you. Phobias are quite natural. Anything can trigger them. Of course people laugh at these, but that’s because they are funny. Its nothing personal.

This entry is really just to test Microsoft Word’s new blog posting idea. For some reason it all feels very sceptical yet extremely flash.

Now, to place something in this entry to make it worthwhile reading…Like, an ingenious quote from the current book I’m reading.

A Quote from Jingo by Terry Pratchet.

“Wazir comes from Smale, you see” said Carrot. “And Mr Goriff comes from Elharib, and the two countries only stopped fighting ten years ago. Religious differences.”

“Run out of weapons?” said Vimes.

“Ran out of rocks, sir. They ran out of weapons last century.”

Vimes shook his head. “That always chews me up,” he said. “People killing one another just because their gods have squabbled—“

“Oh, they’ve got the same god, sir. Apparently it’s over a word in their holy book, sir. The Elharibians say it translates to “god” and the Samalies say it’s “man”.”

“how can you mix them up?”

“Well, there’s only one tiny dot difference in the script, see. And some people reckon it’s only a bit of fly dirt in any case.”

“Centuries of war because a fly crapped in the wrong place?”

“It could have been worse,” said Carrot. “If it had been slightly to the left the word would have been “liquorice”.”

Jason walked along the endless isles of pricey greenery. The Garden Centre, being what it is, was full of the stuff, all packed neatly into plastic or, in some cases, ceramic pots lining rickety wooden shelves that stretched into oblivion. Somewhere, at the theoretical end of the current row he was walking down, there was a pond containing an erratic selection fountains, lilies that that burnt their fluorescent colours into the eyes, and half an ocean of freshwater fish. An elderly woman was looking at a fountain that resembled a naked boy passing water.

The local garden centre was built like one large greenhouse. The roof and walls were made of large windows and monstrous white pillars towered down from the transparent ceiling at tactical intervals.

By now it was all getting to Jason’s head a bit. All he wanted to find was several flowers to put a bit of life into his small backyard garden. He hadn’t expected this.

After staring intently at a blue and purple flower that he swore was staring back at him, he decided to call it a day and jogged to the end of the row. Looking around, he failed to spot anything that would indicate an exit  and was about to decide that he had got interestingly lost in this commercial jungle when something caught his eye.

It didn’t stand out, neither did it stand in, but it caught his eye and pulled on it nevertheless. It was something just visible through a row lined with plants that had all sorts of spaghetti-like projections and flowers that grew deliberately long. It was the plant version of a world of hippies.

Brushing the tendrils and lanky leaves aside, he walked carefully up the aisle. The plants closed over him, cutting off the outside world. The babble of people became muffled through the greenery. And still there was something there that was completely in place and inconspicuous but, nevertheless, it pulled on him.

Slowly, Jason advanced on the captivation. Something brushed his hand. It was a price tag.

Chlorophytum comosum: £6.20

Jason followed the string of the tag up to the shelf, where it hung from a plant out of hundreds that grew long leaves that dangled innocently.

Maybe this was what they called instinct, Jason thought. Maybe I’m supposed to buy this. It’s my destiny, or something.

Shrugging and with an urgency that suggested he just wanted to leave and go have a cup of tea in his own house where there were no plants whatsoever, he grabbed the plant off the shelf and made a movement to walk away to the counter.

A sudden rush of chlorophyll, heightened senses, a spinning world, colours, smells, sounds, danger…

What have I done…

Jason almost dropped the plant. Very carefully but quickly he put it back on the shelf. His senses flung themselves against each other. Alarm bells rattled in his brain. Something was happening. He needed to do something about it. And fast.

Lucy-Jane considered the fountain sculpture of a naked child, where water came out in such a place that it suggested certain attributes. But Lucy-jane thought it looked nice, and would go well with all the lilies in her pond. Now all she needed to do was go to the counter and…

The over-grown row of plants behind her burst open. Leaves sprayed everywhere, a plant pot smashed onto the heated stone-slab floor. Ceramic pieces skittered over the surface and were flung into the pond.  The man also skittered, careered into a startled Lucy-jane and both were catapulted by sheer momentum into the pond. Fish tore away from the frenzy, creating their own ripple under the mass of ripples the pond received. People looked around. Staff ran to help. The commotion level soared. Someone screamed in a completely unnecessary fashion.

Jason broke the surface of the water and swam with an energy  that could only be described as “high” and with arms that had suddenly gained strength. He hauled himself onto the solid surface, waited precisely three seconds to dry off, and then bolted for it. The crowd could only do their best by leaping aside to get  out of the way. Staff shouted. Lucy-jane splashed a bit. She knew she should’ve taken swimming lessons.

Jason concluded that there was simply no exit. The Garden Centre was a trap. People went in, bought something, got lost, bought something else and went round in a continuous cycle until they had ran out of money and were kicked out at closing time.

His new urgent take on the world, however, proclaimed that the hundreds of large glass windows were really a doorway in disguise.

David was homeless. But that was cool because he didn’t really need a home. He could sleep anywhere. The earth provided him with everything he needed. Right now he was eating a taco on a bench just outside the garden centre. It was one of his favourite places. There was a certain entertainment  in watching people shop pointlessly and the garden centre was quite transparent. The cobbled pathway  that wound around the centre was also quite a nice walk. Being a garden centre, the place had been decorated with colours that sparkled, plants that smelled wonderfully and nature that blossomed.

With a sigh of content, he finished his taco and threw the wrapping away in the bin, wiping his saucy fingers on the dirty, torn jacket he always wore. He scratched his tangled beard thoughtfully as the commotion inside the large glass building dawned on him. The place was certainly more urgent than it usually was. And there was a man running down a row of what David knew as Gladiolas a few metres away from the glass wall. Halfway down the row he turned and climbed up onto the shelf with astonishing pace and leapt like a frog over a second shelf and into the window. The glass exploded over David and a heavy body that stank of urgency smashed into the bench, breaking the back rest.

Jason stood up, brushed shards of glass off his jersey, looked up at the wall, jumped, caught the top of the wall and hauled himself over onto the pavement behind it. From there his feet got a grip on the black tarmac and propelled him off down the street. He knew where he was going.

David opened his eyes. He was covered in glass and lying in the flowerbed behind the bench. Understandably derailed shoppers were now stepping out of the broken window and looking around. Several people were attempting to phone the police. If David had a mobile, he certainly would have.