Indescribable

"It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train – a shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter."
—H. P. Lovecraft



Have you ever seen something which literally defied description? I have.

It started out quite normally. A new girl had arrived in the Nodnol office; let's call her Laura. She was hella good at her job, but that's not what caught my attention. And what with those being the days of steam radio, before Al Gore invented t'internet, it certainly wasn't her appearance; I had no idea what she looked like. But I could figure it out from her voice.

Laura came from the Republic of Oireland, where leprechauns still leave crocks of gold at the end of the rainbow. Where the grass truly is greener. Ah, to hear her talk about her home town, 'twas a marvellous place indeed. Did you know, for example, that the Oirish had Clones long before Professor Wilmut stopped shagging sheep long enough to make a copy of one? (Fer feck's sake, why? Why make an identical copy of an animal from a species famous for looking exactly the same as each other?)

I digress. I used to phone Laura for the odd chat, and while she told me about the wonders of the Emerald Isle, I would listen to her silky-smooth voice, like Baileys Oirish Cream on the rocks, and build up a mental image of her. Let's see.

From the bottom up:
Impossibly high heels, definately FM shoes by anyone's standard.
Long, smooth, tanned legs going all the way up to her chin.
Tights Stockings with the tops just peeping out from under...
A really, really short skirt.
Bit of midriff showing. Slim waist, possibly a pierced belly-button. With an emerald in it.
Some kind of flimsy blouse revealing more than it covered.
Lots of cleavage.
Arms bare except for perhaps a fashionable bangle.
Long fingernails, highly varnished and bright crimson...
To match her glossy lipstick...
And long, flowing red hair, cascading down over her shoulders.
Flashing green eyes. (Can redheads even have green eyes?)
Blindingly white, perfect teeth.
A nose like a ski slope.

Nothing special, just a cross between Nadine off Girls Aloud and Jessica off Roger Rabbit.





All the blokes in Embra fancied her something rotten, so imagine my surprise and delight when she casually dropped into the conversation that some new piece of software was due to be installed, some kind of flexible rattlesnake, and she would have to come up to Embra to explain it to us geeks. As geek-in-chief, I was to get a one-hour session all to myself.

Really, really should have exchanged photos first.

The big day arrived. I spramped myself up, clean shirt, new tie, cut a couple of feet off the end of my beard, turned my underpants inside out. Checked the mirror - OMG I'm gorgeous! Off to work.

The phone call came - "someone in reception for you." Oh boyohboyohboy!

Looked around reception. And around again. Finally, an angelic voice came from somewhere near my waist: "Yew most be Fartee. Oim Laura. Hi."

My eyes tried to focus, but all I could see was a short, vaguely female shape dressed in tweed. I introduced myself and led her off to my lair desk. An hour later, we said our goodbyes and off she went to her next meeting. And an hour after that, I'd completely forgotten what she looked like.

The next time we spoke on the phone again, she was, of course, fantastic. Literally.

Am I a bad person?