Meet Monosyllabic Mike

Based on extracts from The Guadeloupe Diaries, 2000-2001

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Mike stayed with us for about a week. Definitely no longer than that, but it seemed like a month. Mike was a man of few words. Understandable when you don’t speak much of the language, I supposed. The following day, I thought I would be friendly and show him around a bit.

Mike gave monosyllabic a whole new meaning. How one person could radically alter the atmosphere of our flat was truly astounding, especially as I didn’t think he was even doing it on purpose. I’d never really taken much notice of negative auras and bad vibes, but both of these unseen forces were swirling round like a pea-souper smog.

Despite this, I did try to jolly him along a bit. After all, I had already experienced a stay abroad, I knew what it was like to feel shell shocked and homesick. But as the time wore on, so did my nerves. The absolute classic had to be when I was making myself some breakfast when he appeared in the kitchen and I jumped out of my skin and practically had to be scraped off the ceiling.  He hadn’t said hello, or announced his presence in any way. He did this with irritating regularity, and after a while it was starting to piss me off big time

“Would you like some guava juice?” asked Marie as she poured the neon pink liquid from the carton.

Mike crinkled his nose, “No thanks,” he replied, and returned to reading “The Road to Calvary”. Oh no, I though, a born-again Christian to boot. Great.

“Have you tried it? It’s really nice.” Marie was doing her best to connect with Mike.

“I don’t want any.”

Deflated, Marie gave up. Later on, she said to me that if you don’t even try a drink, then you’re not going to get very far. I think that Mike had already decided that he wasn’t going to like Guadeloupe.

Later in the week, Eliane Leblanc rang up to talk with Mike and they were speaking for a good half hour. Or rather Eliane was speaking and Mike responded with the usual “uh-huh” and “sure”. Afterwards Mike said that there was a room at the boarding house of the Lycée de Providence, and he would give that a try. He admitted to me that he felt he had bitten off more than he could chew, since when he applied to do the Assistantship programme, he had expected to be going to Europe, and had not expressed any preference for area, little suspecting that they would send him Outre-Mer. I felt quite sorry for the guy, stuck in his room reading the Bible, but try as I might, I could not relate to him.

Relief was the feeling which overwhelmed me when I came home to find Mike had moved out. After he was rude to one of the teachers from my school who rang up, I found it difficult to have any patience with him at all. I was getting tired of having to apologise on his behalf. After the Mike and Leila incidents, Marie said that she was not going to bother with any more lodgers.

Later on Madame Fleurival called to see how les assistants were getting on. I informed her of her error, and she went on her way, rejoicing.

So far, the other assistants seemed to be way out west, even by my warped standards. Snotty Leila et al, Mike, and that was before I had even met crazy Amy.

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