Mr Schadenfreude
Picture an arthritic nurse squeezing herself painfully into a Toyota Micra, bone-tired after a tough shift. Her face is a bloated lump of bread and when she grimaces there is a palpable glint of terror in the eyes as if the tiredness had been haunting her all day and had now pounced. Exhaustion births clumsiness. She drops the car keys into one of those puddles that elongate down the concrete seams of multi-storey car parks. Now the keys are wet and laced with petrol and engine oil and worryingly squelch into the ignition. Then the contortions of reversing the car set off a series of lumbago winces. Oh and her feet are killing her!
Somewhere in the shadows is a uniquely focused man, one of society’s barely known gems who represents about 1 out of 187 people. He lurks behind a pillar or perhaps from his own car- probably a small hatchback. He seems a neutral witness or a concerned citizen, but that idea gets demolished by his triumphant snorts which blossom into a kind of psychic inflorescence, adding further joy to the man sniggering in the dark: The Schadenfreudist.
He’ll wait in car parks, train stations, airports; he’ll join online lumbago forums to cherish the woeful tales of sufferers, even chipping in with innocent questions just to milk out more SF. He’ll follow a family of five to Nandos. Writ clear in their jovial swagger are the promises of succulent chicken and spicy fries. But what’s this? No tables? None available for another two hours? So they crumple dejectedly out. The world is suddenly not such a friendly place; things go wrong. The wordless memories of all petty wrongs somehow visit their faces- cat pee on the carpet, fly-in-the-eye bike accidents, burnt toast, out-of-order public toilets at a time of great. The father is particularly huffy and it is now exclusively to him that SF eyes turn. Hail the irritation, the indignity at being refused. Suck up the exasperation of his being victually impotent. Oh and here it comes- rebuke from the wife. ‘Why didn’t you book?’ ‘You never book.’ ‘You’re so stupid.’
Meanwhile, Señor Schadenfreude is in febrile rapture as he looks down his list of that day’s ticked boxes.
-a mosquito persistently buzzing in the ear of a stressed and heat-angry bus driver
-a zip trapping a pinch of material (do I force the zip backwards or forwards?)
-clipping the the welt of a shoe on an unseen elevated pavement slab, setting off a stumble. In this case the victim was sporting an unseemly side-parting, making the blunder somehow appropriate.
-a pen running out of ink before a signature has been completed
- cramp in the calf and sole of foot. Good combo!
-a tooth chipped on a bite of something the victim didn’t really need or want
-a squeaky shoe