Special Effects: Washing-Lines

You can tell a lot from washing-lines. I mean, if you look over a fence and see nothing but nappies, you know straight away that someone's got a baby or two, or three. Nappies are a dead giveaway. They're like flags. "Look at us! Here we are! Babies inside this house!"

But what if you see lots of shirts, and trousers. A solo Dad? A male student? A single man? Sometimes it's quite difficult to work it out.

I don't look at washing lines so hard these days, I must say. It's like that saying about "curiosity killed the cat" for me. I shouldn't have poked my nose in so far. Let this story be a lesson to you! Here's what happened:

Just down the road from where I live there was a washing line that really made me wonder. When I first noticed it, there were the usual things hanging on it. Tea-towels, bed sheets, a flannel, clothing for a man and a woman. Nothing very remarkable about that. But after a few days I saw something I couldn't make out. It was round, and blue, like a sleeping bag, with rounded corners. It had a zip along two edges, and it hung half over each side of the wire along one zip, without pegs.

You probably think I'm nosy, but I'm not. Usually I'm not, anyway. I've got better things to do than go peering over people's fences looking at their washing. Really I have. But if there's a clear view from the road, and its obvious that people aren't trying to hide what they hang there, well, where's the harm in having a good look?

So I looked and looked at this big, blue thing, and then I went home and drew it on my pad. I tried to work out what it would look like if it was unfolded and spread out flat. Nothing much. Perhaps a really round sleeping bag? Maybe it was a small, hot-air balloon? Maybe it was a tent? Nothing seemed to make any sense. It was either too heavy for one thing, or too small for another, and it didn't have any doors or windows, or slots for wheels . . . maybe it was some kind of modern art?

I went back in the afternoon for another look and came home again just as mystified. There was nothing on earth I could think of that needed a huge, really round, blue bag.

That evening, the person who had hung the big, really round, blue thing up came and took it away. So now I was really stuck. The best I could think of was some kind of alien, shaped like a balloon, had landed and it was living in the house, with the man and the woman. That was the best I could do? It was more likely the worst I could do.