I was woken this morning by the hairy warmth of Thoughtful Man nuzzling into my back and a stinky breath dachshund intent on licking the sleep from my eyes.

“Bad news,” he whispered in my ear. “David Bowie’s dead.”

“What?!” Eyes and mouth suddenly open, Poppy took it as a come on for a French kiss. I wiped mouth and attempted to sit up in bed. “What?”

“Yeah, cancer.” He paused. “That’s two now,” he looked at me solemnly.

“Two what?” I lightly batted away Poppy’s energetic attempts to snog me some more.

“The ‘CD of Death’,” Thoughtful Man explained. “I made a CD up for the cab just before Christmas. The first song was ‘Ace of Spades‘ and the second track was ‘Starman.’

“You called it ‘The CD of Death’?” If it wasn’t for the insistent tongue exploring my right nostril, I could have sworn I were still dreaming.

“Well, I do now!” Thoughtful Man pulled Popstar off me, expertly turning her over for a calming belly rub.

“Shit. Well, who else did you put on it?”

He took a deep breath. “George Michael, Barry Manilow, Taylor Swift…” He reached out to the bedside table before placing a silvery disc in my hand. It was blank save for a thick black marker pen ‘X‘ on one side.

“You’ve marked it with cross? Isn’t that a bit morbid?”

“No.” Thoughtful Man looked affronted. “I did that at the time to show which way up to put the CD in the player.”

“Oh, okay. So then, who’s next?”

*******

Round Two of this ‘Pointless Exercise’ will be available later today. As I mentioned on Part 2.1 – it’s a ‘Words’ round.

CYL 😉

*******

It’s the 18th of September 2016 and I’ve just read that Andy Peebles – sounds like ‘andy pee–poles – reckons DB was assisted by persons unknown in taking his own life.