A Lick of Paint

A Story by Jay McGroarty

Newlyweds Gordon and Mary move into their new house and begin decorating. Mary leaves her husband to it...

Mary and Gordon were finally ready for settling down. With their wedding out the way and their old flat not big enough to store kids, they got themselves onto the property ladder. It took a little longer than expected but they were finally a few days out from moving into their new home.

The bags were all packed and the van was loaded up with all the big stuff. Mary was determined to make sure nothing went wrong with this new move, prayers were said and her lucky socks were on. All they had to do was take all the furniture over and hand in their keys to the landlord, surely nothing could go wrong. That was the case, they moved into the house with ease and the next day they would start the decorating.

So, they had set their plans for the day of decoration, Mary would pay a visit to the landlord and come back once she'd done that. Gordon was going to head down the road and get some paint to get started on the master bedroom, and that's what happened.

'Don't worry about getting anything too fancy, I just want it done quickly so we can settle in,' Mary told her husband that night. Gordon didn't do fancy so he was pleased with not having to hunt out anything and was planning to get something cheap.

Gordon woke up the next morning, had his morning shite and got dressed. He knew he had gotten the easier of jobs here because he didn't really get on with the landlord, he was a bit of a prick. So he grabbed his keys and he and Mary head out the door.

He headed down the road and popped into the wee shop selling hardware stuff to look at some paint. It had a whole load of options and Gordon was pretty overwhelmed with the different shades and colours of paint; daffodil yellow, dandelion yellow, marigold yellow, yellowish yellow. You get the idea.

So he perused the options of paint and found a way to make it easier on himself: choose the cheapest option. After all, they had just spent a lot of money on their wedding and buying a house, so this seemed like the best idea. Besides Mary had already given her orders so she couldn't complain about it being shite. So he skimmed through the cans of paint and eventually found a big tub of unlabelled paint in the corner of the shelf. He took the paint over to one of the lassies working in the shop and asked what it was. They informed him that this was definitely paint and had been reduced in price because of the lack of sticker and that they didn't know what colour it was. Sort of a lucky dip of colours, but regardless this was the cheapest of the paints. So Gordon grabbed the tub of paint and took it to the checkout, 3 quid for an absolute heffer of a tub.

He took the paint up the road and lay out all the precautions before he got wired in. He got his old joggies on and the scabby, old brushes ready with his tinnies ready to go. The room was a decent size and the only problem was seeing if the amount of paint that he had would cover the whole room. If it didn't that would cause a slight issue: not knowing what the colour is to get more paint.

So he cracked open the big, white tub of paint and was hit with the stench of paint, which Gordon loved the smell of. He inhaled the fumes which went straight to his head. That was strong stuff. Peeking into the tub he saw that the colour of the paint was an off-white, similar to that of the container: a nice neutral colour it seemed.

After cracking open a cold tinny, Gordon got started. He had the radio on and pelting out Katy Perry to himself with a buzz from the lager, not really paying any attention to what he was doing. It hadn't even passed his mind as to where his wife was, she'd been out for quite a while. This is f****n' class man. He finished the first wall and took a step back to look at his glory. Something was wrong...really wrong.

The wall was the exact same colour as it was before but he had definitely been painting it, he was sure of it. So he decided to go have another look at the tub, just to double-check everything was okay. The paint was exactly the same as when he left it. Right, try it again. He put the brush into the paint and was really paying attention to it this time. There was definitely something wrong here, the paint wasn't on the brush. What was going on, Gordon looked over to the pile of tinnies in the corner, only a handful of empties. Besides, with all his years of drinking, he'd never really hallucinated or anything like that. So he doublechecked the outside of the tub, just in case there was some explanation for this weird situation. He tried and tried to rack his brain around this. Was it water? Naw, It was too thick. Was it some kind of paste or something like that? Different consistency. So what was it? It didn't really look like paint however, everything else suggested that it was paint. The smell especially, oh that quality smell he thought to himself.

What had he found here, was this some sort of invisible paint? This was the only logical explanation whizzing around in Gordon's simple mind. Instead of thinking the logical answer, which was that it was a clear paint or some sort of varnish, Gordon instantly assumed that he had found invisible paint. Stupit bastart.

Thoughts rushed through his tiny head at a million miles an hour: what am I going to do with this; do I paint myself and run around invisible? Logical questions for someone that was convinced that they had found some invisible paint, after all, was this a world's first? Gordon tanned the rest of his tinnies and got to work, lathering himself up in this 'invisible' paint. The fumes from the paint bounced around the room, the same way the smell of the breweries reek out Edinburgh.

After about 10 minutes, he was covered head to toe in this thick paint, bollock naked. Not sure why he had to strip off but whatever. Now, what was he going to do with this superpower, because he really hadn't given this any thought? F**k it, he was going out. Final answer.

He swaggered out the door, flapping in the wind and ready to go. What was he going to do first? Get something to eat? Aye, go on. Bold as brass, Gordon walked into the nearest chippy and took a look around as he stepped in. Whispers were heard from around the shop as people took out their phones to record the next viral hit. Thankfully for Gordon, there was nobody behind the counter, making his life easier. He walked through the wee staff door on the counter and helped himself to a handful of chips, casually walking back out the door.

Strolling away from the chippy, he thought he'd nip into the pub across the road and pour himself a wee pint. He walked out onto the road thinking he was Superman and started to feel awfully dizzy, the lassie across the road pointing at him was multiplying as he blacked out numerous times. He eventually fell to the deck like a sack of totties, just in time for the number 19 to fire around the corner and smack him full pelt. Gordon died on that road, chips and boaby in hand.

Don't sniff paint folks.