From Another Point of View

  I am Carpet.

  Red.

  Red is my first name – Carpet is my family name of course. Don’t you have a family name - like “People” for instance?

  What’s my address? What do you want to know for? Eh? Eh?

  “Just curious.”

  The last time I answered that question for someone who was “just curious” I found myself rolled up in the back of a truck that smelled of pig’s feet that hadn’t been washed in a year.

  “I wanted to know because I am writing about you and I can’t just write about carpets I don’t know about.”

  Writing about me? You know I’m famous then?

  Carpet preened a bit and tried to look in the big windows he used as a mirror

  “Of course”

  So you want to write my biocarpetography then? You want to put me in print then?

  “Yes if you will let me”

  Ah. Well my address is Cannes. THE Cannes.

  “Ah?”

  Yes. THE Croisette (there is only one) and I – I – I (said Red Carpet, ruffling his threads so as to point at his chest had he been a people) am on the steps of THE Palais de Festival and even if it does look like a blockhouse, it looks MUCH better with me on its steps and I go all the way from the top right down to the

  street. In red of course, because I am red you see.

  “Oh! Ha!”

  E.V.E.R.Y.B.O.D.Y. who is anybody (and a lot of people who are nobody too) go up and down my steps. I’ve got stories to tell, I can tell you. Anybody who is worth their weight in hot air and publicity craves to go up and down MY personal stairs during Film Festival week.

  I get two kinds of people.

  There are thin ones with front bumpers – they tend to have a thin weave – and then there are thicker ones. I’m not sure why the thin ones have bumpers. I think because they are thin, they are sensitive to bad breath so they wear bumpers to make sure the thick ones stay at least a breath away.

  What do I see?

  Well, an awful lot of legs of course.

  What’s up the skirts of the thin ones?

  Why ever do you ask that? What’s wrong with you? Why, leg’s of course. That’s obvious.

  What about bottoms? What are these “bottoms” you are talking about?

  They are at the top of the legs? Don’t be completely silly, how can a bottom be at the top of a leg? On the bottom of the legs are feet and tires or what passes for tires in people. I think you are completely mixed up. I’ve never seen any of these “bottoms” you talk about.

  First you have tires, then you have legs, then you get a bare bit in the middle with the wiggly thing in the center where they tied off all the knots when they wove it, and then you have the bumpers and you finish that off with the top trim, just like I have a gold edge trim. The thick ones are just the same except they have no bumpers and usually cover up their middles. But quite often, when a thick one gets near a thin one, its legs go all wobbly. It must be the bumper effect because I can’t see anything else to account for it.

  Anything else you don’t understand? I can go on explaining you know, if you want.

  My neighbors? You want to know about my neighbors?

  My neighbors across the way are nice. There’s Chanel for one, but all the nice gang – well, a lot of them I can see from where I lie. Now Chanel, there’s a one. All that designing done by a fella who has holes in his gloves with his fingers poking through. You’d think they’d pay him enough to buy gloves with complete fingers, knowing how much they charge, wouldn’t you? I mean, if somebody photographed me with some holes where my steps are peeking through, I’d go crimson with shame I would. But what I most like about that outfit is the vocabulary. If you go in THERE, my de-ah, you have to be prepared to talk Chanel. In Chanel, there is no such thing as a NICE handbag. Oh No. “Modom, that handbaaaaaag looks absoluuuuuuuuutely DI-VINE on you arm.” “that dress is so SOOOOOOOOBLIME on YOU!” I know this you see because us carpets talk you know, late at night when there is nothing to do. That is the quiet whispering you hear late at night when sometimes you wonder if you heard a noise. Well you probably did; it’s just us carpets having a chat and if there is a rug or two he’ll join in because those guys get around. Mind you, it costs them because if you’re a rug, they often pick you up and beat you to death with a lettuce stick or something, all the rugs I know claim it really hurts. Well those Chanel carpets talk – they are a snobby lot. So lately I’ve been practicing my Chanel. They clean me a lot because – you know – well, we won’t talk about that. So when Vacuum Cleana came to give me a suck and brush – oh I felt so much undustier afterwards ! I tried it out on him.

  “Vacuum Cleana, you have such a DE-VINE whirly brush!” I think I caught him by surprise as he practically ate his own power cord by accident.

  I tried again later with the shoes of the cleaner as he walked by picking up bits of yucky things. “OOOOOO,” I said, “you have such Soooooo-Blime leather soles.” I think I caught them by surprise too because they looked at one another instead of looking where they were going, and as a result they got tangled up and their owner fell flat on his edge trim and I got the contents of three trashcans all over step 32.

  There!

  Now the Stars. You can always tella star 1) because they walk up my middle 2) their shoes are always brand new and obviously just came out of the box ten seconds before walking on me (I see things others do not, you see, and I can tell you to a minute how long a shoe has been worn before I see it) 4) they step out of a car at my end and 5) they always take as long as possible to get from my bottom to my top. And 6) if they are on the way up they swirl and wiggle and giggle and primp and show their tires and a lot of the thin ones – well, I don’t understand why they don’t just wear a three foot long red arrow pointing at their bumpers and carrying a label saying “LOOK HERE!” . They might as well.

  Then there are the ones who are shy and they run up me like they have just taken their feet out of the fire and are in a hurry to get to the pool. They wear dark windscreens to avoid getting blinded by the photographer flashes.

  But the one’s I really like are the ones who come after.

  There’s Mrs. Mum and Mr. Dad and Jill and Joe.

  There’s Senora Mum and Senor Dad and Joe and Jack.

  There’s Mademoiselles Sally and Sarah, and Von Billy and Philski

  And Jenny and Joe and they just got married and are not quite sure which is who.

  They’re usually not rich, in fact, judging from their soles they’re a bit poor.

  And mostly they talk about being “on holiday”.

  And they walk up me, and stand around in a group.

  And they look shy and they kind of puff themselves up a bit and giggle

  And the kids look at one another and sort of puff up too

  And some of the thin ones whirl around as the stars do (the ones with bumpers)

  And one of them breaks away, and takes a photograph of the others.

  And then the one with the camera goes back to the group and they look at the photo.

  And then another one breaks away, and takes another photo.

  I think they are pretending, just for a few moments in their life that they are a star.

  It puts a bit of color in their life

  It makes a nice moment for them

  So I kind of puff up for them.

  I try and make them look that little extra bit good

  I try and look redder and cleaner and smily-er

  I send out the kind of vibes I feel when there are stars all over me

  That way they can feel like a star too if only for a moment.

  And some old people do the same thing too

  I like the old people.

  Yesterday it was a little old couple.

  They moved awful slowly. It was clear they would not be living very much longer.

  But they loved one another – you could see that.

  She was bent over and helping her husband who ha
d a stick.

  He took a photograph of her.

  She took a photograph of him.

  I puffed up extra extra really very hard.

  He looked me over critically

  I checked around fast to make sure there wasn’t a hole in a stair somewhere.

  He bent over a little – I don’t think he could actually bend over to far.

  I think he was looking for bare threads.

  In the carpet world, that is equivalent to walking around with your underwear showing.

  He looked here

  He looked there

  He smiled.

  I’ll always remember that smile

  He is the man who made me.

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