And in telling you that, I’ve reached the part which, as a rational human being, I find it almost painful to relate; because I can’t honestly swear it really happened. Overwork, poor diet, a momentary lapse of reason — I know they’re all poor excuses for what you’re going to have to swallow next, so I’m left with the broken pieces of reality. And, as the song goes, breaking up is hard to do.

What I remember is coming back from the kitchen with a mug of steaming coffee held to my lips to find the living room full of ticker tape. It looked as though someone had unravelled several rolls of percussion caps from one of those toy guns that kids used to drive you mad with in the days before PlayStations and X-Boxes. And it all seemed to have spewed, in one long roll, from the mouth of the doll that was now standing on the coffee table. I froze, my lips pursed above my drink, the mug tipped at a dangerously acute angle, not really believing what I was seeing.

The first thing to hit me, ridiculously enough, was a sensation of relief that at least Laura wouldn’t be arriving home from work at any minute, eager to put her feet up and relax.

The end of the roll that was suspended between the pouting lips of the Nano Doll hung motionlessly; it seemed that she had, at least momentarily, stopped spewing paper. I picked up the free end, causing the coils to rustle like party streamers. On one side of the paper was a string of words. They seemed nonsensical (although the total lack of punctuation didn’t help) and were printed in a faded matrix of dots. I had to retrace my way to the doll’s lips to find out what she had said first. I tore the paper against her lower lip and the jagged edge retracted into her mouth. Feeding the message between my fingers I tried to follow the printed words:

“ai yam teh loakum yeloe roas i nose no merci haf noe foas i is wort i am and am wort i be that is teh long and thr short of me y i am hear knobudy nose taht givz the gong and seals 2 me mai faes is breit for orl to c past 12 at nait to one to free 4 wen nain is ten and 12 be free be braif and neel not nex to me un knowl to dem un tole to me no dokta haf a rjemadi on top o dat fahr ovr me sitz godd in hevnly leck triss it ee my own lee feer if u mus no cums hurtlin down goas to an froa godd sendz us luv he nose not y an if u luk it goas on buy 4 such is laif in this hier hoal no taim to waist no time 2 crai on top o dat eyes goan 2 dai thr godd eye luvs 4 saek en me...”

The automatic writing prattled on like this at length, interrupted by neither full stop nor comma and driven by a rhyme scheme that might politely be described as random but which did not seem especially Japanese in origin. A dyslexic telegraph message for an unknown recipient. I picked up the doll, frantically searching for the surface I must previously have overlooked — a cover concealing some switch or dial — but I found neither secret compartment nor cunningly disguised control.

Being a true Virgo, I had not yet thrown away the packaging; but no reference was made on it to the toy’s printout feature. The words had come out anyway, in one long line.

Staggered, I stood in the half-light, cursing the Japanese and their miracles of miniaturisation.

In defeat, I placed the doll on the nearest flat surface, which was the bookshelf beside me; next to a ceramic Buddha that Laura had given me one Christmas. It’s a tiny statue with pale, pinkish skin, a bulbous belly and gold-painted prayer beads hanging from his left hand. He sits, contentedly in his pale blue robes with eyes closed and his chins resting on his chest.

The Buddha and the Japanese equivalent of Betty Boop: how ridiculous they looked, next to one another on my bookshelf!

This seemed like the kind of moment in which to take up smoking cigarettes. Or perhaps intravenous heroin.

Only music could save me now.

The first CD in the rack was Sheila Chandra’s ‘Weaving My Ancestors’ Voices’. Number 423 in my archive. I don’t know what would have happened if it had been Number 897, ‘The Story Of The Clash’ or Miles Davis’s ‘Kind of Blue’, Number 685. The fact of the matter is, as Sheila Chandra commenced her Indian scat on Speaking In Tongues I, I was distracted from the flickering of the green numbers on the front of the CD player by the strangest of sounds coming from the direction of the bookshelf.

“Gzzz...” it went, like the bell of a tiny alarm clock going off.

I turned around, in time to see the doll come to life. She moved to the hectic tabla rhythm of Sheila’s voice with an exaggerated flick of her hips, a delicate oriental grace and a provocative tilting of the head that was agonisingly realistic. She took a few steps to the right then flung an arm around the Buddha and stroked the top of his head.

And as the doll was stroking the Buddha’s bald, ceramic head it seemed, very briefly, as though he had opened his eyes and was looking over at me. His opened eyes were tiny, black and beady, but quite different from the thin, curved slits that were otherwise almost obscured by the folds of fat on his cheeks.

And then the Nano Doll straightened up, re-traced her steps and the Buddha’s eyes suddenly closed again. Apart from the streamer of gibberish piled-up on the floor, it was impossible to tell whether any of it had ever really happened.

I sat staring at the doll for what seemed like hours, expecting her to move again. The CD ended, the darkness beyond the window became opaque, the silence reproduced itself until there was no more space left for it and I couldn’t bear the pressure in the room any longer.

I succumbed to the sudden and uncontrollable urge to tidy up; my star-sign getting the better of me again. I had crumpled up all the paper and was jamming it into the kitchen bin with the heel of my shoe when the bell rang.

I opened the door. On the other side of it was Laura.

She had seen the error of her ways. All was forgiven. She’d had a bad day at the office and, what with all the stress, had simply over-reacted. But she’d come back to apologise and now we’d kiss and make up and have wild sex together all over the furniture, as you do after you’ve squabbled.

“I forgot the condoms,” she said, ransacking the bathroom cabinet. “Don’t forget to take Bonfire of the Vanities back to the DVD store,” she added before stomping back out of my life.

Ouch.

*

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