The Dangers of our Cause

And so, dear reader*, our story resumes, some seven days later, deep in the untamed wilds of civilisation ... (or suburban Essex, to be more precise).

Buoyed by a sense of purpose and imminent triumph, our two protagonists arrived at the swimming pool for week two of the most fiendish training regimen ever devised by man (40 lengths of a standard size swimming pool, at slow-to-very slow pace, interspersed with plenty of Grange Hill gags and frequent stoppages).

Unsure as to whether the human body could survive such a strenuous routine, our plucky brown hero was filled with doubt as he approached the water, and, his toes curled around the lip of the pool, he began to question all that he had previously held to be true (such as the relative merits of water-based puns, writing in the third person, and over-dramatising really quite mundane events).

However, these nagging thoughts were waved aside as he plunged into the water, with all the grace and elegance of a blind, three-legged, baby giraffe taking its first tentative steps over a pit of hot coals (too much?). The joy of swimming; that feeling of flight and weightlessness, swept over him and flooded his senses with a striking and vibrant clarity of feeling. Nothing could stop him in that brief moment of time, because nothing else registered.

Simply put, nothing else mattered.

Little did he know that he was completely and utterly wrong; that tragedy was about to strike.

During one of his (many) allotted ‘stamina-building’ stoppages, our failing brown hero was struck by a rising tide of pain in his left foot. Gazing down through the chlorinated water, the source of his discomfort soon became clear. His large toenail, which mere moments earlier had been a perfectly normal, well-rounded toenail, was now hanging loose, replete with extra edges and spring.

Finding this state of affairs to be more fascinating than alarming, our hero turned to his sidekick (aka Flotbear) and said with precise brevity, “Look at my toe”.

It was a request that would provide inspiration for tribal mask creators and old wives tales the world over, as his comrades face shifted into an an ever-changing montage of distorted shapes that managed to express befuddlement, horror, surprise and indifference in one fell swoop – an expression that Seb would later affectionately refer to as car-crash face.

Saluting his wounded comrade (and sinking as a consequence) Flotbear then asked the question that no-one had dared voice. “Do you think you should stop?”

But our hero wasn’t for stopping.

... That is until two lengths and many stifled sobs later, when he realised that stopping was probably a good idea.

* I think the singular use of this noun is appropriate. Hey Tom!