Short Story

24/10/2007

I want a divorce.

I want a divorce.

Judge: Why do you both want a divorce?

Because she is wrong.

Because he is wrong.

Judge: Are you both wrong?

No, I’m right, she’s wrong.

No, I’m right, he’s wrong.

Judge: You cannot both be right and wrong. But you could be wrong and he right or you right and she wrong, I suppose. It makes perfect sense but that’s no defense. Why not just agree a mutual divorce Nisei. Mutual guilt, like spilt milk and equal responsibility and split down the middle all your worldly possessions, his at least.

No. I must be right and proved so.

No, you are wrong. I must be right. I will go down in history as the first victim of an environmental marriage crime. Our case will be as quoted as Roe vs Roe.

Judge: Roe Vs Wade. Is this about abortion?

No, judge and No you are wrong. I must be right. I will go down in history as the first victim of an environmental marriage crime. Our case will be as quoted as Roe vs Wade.

Judge: Ho, ho, ho!! No disrespect. Both claiming the high moral ground. Another typical boring divorce.   

No, an environmental divorce. Your judgeship will be famous.

Judge: Or infamous..

As the first environmental divorce judge.

Judge: What’s the evidence? Perhaps there is some substance?

Switching off every light to give me a fright?

Darkness is an economiser’s sacrifice, a powerful environmental statement, a painful delight.

It is out of sight. Light is our human and domestic right at night. It puts bad dreams and robbers to flight and scares away the evil spirits lurking in the  shadows.

Switching off the lights and changing to LED lights..

Judge: Light Emitting Diodes?

Yes

Judge: LEDS are good. I use them myself.

Are you biased Judge?

Judge: No, never.      

He is not green. Just mean.

No, I’m green. You are greedy.

Ask when he flushes the loo.

To save water. There will be water wars, you know?

After one pee or two?

Water is scarce.

Noo after three pees. Sometimes four.

Waterconomics.

The house smells like a large urinal. Welcome to my WC, I say to some of my guests. The humiliation! Sufficient grounds of an environmental divorce!

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.  

Our guests not ‘my guests’ and very embarrassing. What a way to describe one’s home. Sufficient grounds of an environmental divorce!

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.

He does not switch off switches.

Till bed time. Whys switch them off if you are going to use them again soon?

Switch off everything not in use on the wall.

But even you leave the computer and the printer and the UPS and the speakers on all day and all night. What a colossal waste of kilowatts or whatever.

Yes to keep in touch with work, the world and the weather.

But we do not work for the World Bank. 

Quite normal in this IT world. Is that not so judge?

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.

I had him followed. He went for a ride in a friends 2 litre car, burning up the fossil fuels of the world and emitting mountains of carbon dioxide and monoxide.

But I rode to his house on my bicycle. Yes, panting more carbon dioxide into the air. How can you criticise a bicycle? Eco-friendliness par excellence. Exercise, low emissions or no emissions. Grounds for environmental divorce!  

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.

I had her measured and she has put on weight, up three sizes, changing clothes like crazy, consuming lore calories, less exercise, a bad example to the children. 

I had him weighted and his pot belly is an embarrassment to the environment. Extra large sized belts.

Food was her department. She failed to provide the family an environmentally friendly diet.    

I had him all sewn up.

Yes. That I agree with.

He uses a power shower. I mean which environmentalist uses a power shower?

Not everyday. Only on holidays. Most days I use a full bucket of water while she uses a bucket filled six times.

Still less than a bathtubfull.

Six bucketfuls a day is a bathtub full thrice a week. That is not environmentally friendly. Grounds for environmental divorce!  

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.

She refused to share a bath with me.

Get into your dirty water? Not for nation or God.

It saves water.

Have you smelt him? I have a sensitive nose. He wears re-used clothes. Grounds for environmental divorce!

Judge: Is this true

He wears them till they are see-through.

Recycled actually. Environmentally friendly.

Disgracefully threadbare. Wornwickedweary.  www. As God is my judge.  

Judge: We’ll be the judge of that.

And no swearing. God is green. Remember the garden. Love knows no bounds.

Love knows those bounds.

She saves almost dead pieces of soap and crushes them together to make multicoloured, multilayers soapcakes looking like a layered n ice cream.

Recycling. Waste not want not. You are supposed to use it and not eat it.  

She takes the lift to the first floor. What a waste.

Don’t judge in haste. So would you if you had fifteen Tesco’s  or Sainsbury’s or Walmart bags struggling to cut through your fingers and fall to the carpet with a week’s shopping.Fifteen bags.

What an abuse of plastic!! What an abuse of electricity and a neglect of exercise as an environmental weapon. Think of the wasted kilojoules. 

He left all the light and tv and shower and fridge and a/cs on, on, on not to mention the switches on the walls with their red marker lights.

Once. I bath with ½ a bucket.

Not very clean then??

And clean my teeth, not from a running tap losing a half a bucket of water, but with a glassful and shave in a saucer and comb my hair in one sweep and what is your aim? Divorce of course.

Can I borrow your plot, I’ve lost mine.

Judge: Have you tried carbon trading.

She has the biggest carbon footprint in town. Carbon dioxide is pouring from her every pore. Then they all went back to the hotel, different floors to write and await the verdict. There they succumbed to temptation and indulged in the complete wicked works of waste, waste, waste in this carbonising world. Power shower on to warm up or cool down before they were even ready to get into it, TV on even though no one was looking at it, radio on for backup in case the TV went off, all lights on in broad daylight, waste, waste, wonderful waste unlimited.

But I’ve paid for it

And so have I

Judge: And so have I.

At least it has been paid for on our behalf. We don’t get a discount, or our money back for not using the wonderfully wasteful facilities. Let’s have room service. Maybe you should. Should what? Get a discount on unused facilities in hotel room.

Judge: Who said that?

Judge switched off the radio. Noise pollution. All the better to write the judgement. She switched off the lights. Power pollution. All the better to see in daylight. He recycled the hotel soaps and towels and envelopes and stationary into his suitcase. All the better to bath at home write letters later about the divorce. The judgement was terse…

Judge: www. we waste water. I spied and caught her out. I spied and caught him out.  I spied and caught you together In memoriam of old times, before the end. The grand finale.

We spied and caught you out.

No interruptions. Contempt.

Contemplation of life without a wife even an environmentally unfriendly wife.

And a wife without a husband to nag and brag about, to badger and slander. Miss Judge, please do not go on We are one in waste and want.

Judge:  Judgement you asked for            Judgement you will have!            Neither of you is truly green            You are extravagantly mean,            Remove them from the scene            They are selfish            Leave them without a stitch.             Recycle, recycle, recycle. Pity us. Mercy.

Judge: I see no grounds for divorce. Of course, you are austere to the point of kleptocarbononmania. And you are free and easy to the point of carbon carelessness. But together you are, Jack Sprat and his wife, the average natural family of pluses and minuses, positives and negatives. Together your footprint is even. Your marriage has saved you but needs the oxygen of love. Plant or pay for a tree to be planted everyday for the rest of your union. Have plants in your room, love needs oxygen.  What God has joined together the environment will not put asunder.  Next case…

The case of sex as a waste of oxygen, Judge.

Judge: Let the case begin. My Lord, my client pleads that you restrain her husband from having frequent sex with her as it is destroying the environment by contributing to increase in carbon dioxide levels and reduction in oxygen levels aggravating global warming and hastening the demise of the world as we know it.

Judge: What is her definition of frequent sex?

Anything more than annual, Judge.

Judge, may I join my husband in this suit.

Judge: Are you still here? You have leave to leave my court.

You just cannot win.