Saturday afternoon and I still don’t have a plan. I still don’t have any Great Idea for ‘deeds not words’ to sort Attie out.

But I have to go visit my father. Pa is in a care-home now. And every second Saturday of the month I go see him. Not that he even notices I am there …

“Hi Pa,” I say.

He is on the veranda in the sun. The nurses have put a blanket over his legs. But they forgot to wipe away the saliva drooling from the side of his mouth.

“Hi Pa! How are you? Did you watch last night’s rugby?”

He stares at me with those pale blue eyes of his.

Even now I am a grown man, that stare turns me into jelly. He used to stare at me like that when I was little. He used to shake his head and say, “How did I end up with such a moron for a son?” He used to say maybe I was dropped on my head when I was small.

“I swear, Dennis, you don’t have two working brain-cells to rub together! You never concentrate – you are always going off at a tangent. Focus, boy, focus!”

But now, now he just says, “Are you the night nurse? When is breakfast? Because I must get dressed to meet the Company Manager.” Even though it is already afternoon and Pa lost his job, like, twelve years ago.

See, my pa has early-onset dementia. That’s what the doctor told me. His brain hardly works at all now. It is all confused and jumbled.

So how’s that for a sick cosmic joke? All the years my father mocked me for being thick. But now he is the one without two brain-cells to rub together.

How is that for … for …

Damn! What is that word? There’s a special word for things that are a sick cosmic joke. It’s some kind of figure of speech. I can remember our English teacher Mrs Hewlett telling us. I can even remember the story she told. She said this story was a perfect example of … of … damn!

I hate it when this happens. When I know somewhere inside my brain, the right word is hiding away. And I just can’t find it to say it.

But at least I can tell you Mrs Hewlett’s story.

See, there is this husband and wife who love each other very much. But they are very poor. It is Christmas, so they each want to get the other one a special surprise present. Even though they are so poor.

The husband wants to get the wife a silver brush for her beautiful long blonde hair. And the wife wants to buy the husband a silver watch-chain to hook on to his antique watch.

But how will they each get the money? You guessed it! The husband SELLS his antique watch to buy the brush. The wife has her hair cut off and SELLS it to the wig-maker to buy the watch-chain.

So, both their gifts end up being useless! How sick is that? Imagine: a silver brush when all your hair is shaved off. And a silver watch-chain when you don’t have a watch anymore.

And that story is Mrs Hewlett’s perfect example of … of that figure of speech that I can’t remember the name of.

It’s another sick cosmic joke, just like my Pa sitting here brainless and drooling on the veranda – after all the years of calling me his brainless son who can’t concentrate!

***

Tell us: Do you know the figure of speech Dennis is trying to remember the name of? Here’s a clue – it’s one of these: irony, metaphor, pun, sarcasm.