Poem: Shampoo in the Computer

A poem about there being shampoo in the computer

There was a disc in the box of computer games
that wasn’t labelled. And one day I put it in the drive
to see what was on there. And this weird whirring
started-up. Richard called out to his mum, “Simon’s put
the shampoo disc in  the computer!” And she said
we’d have to pay for it. So I was on the phone to my dad,
he could bring our Commodore64 up the road
for the sleepover. And  just like that, Richard was happy.
He said, “she’ll never actually make us pay for it –

they’ll get the computer fixed, and meanwhile we’ll use yours”.
As far as he was concerned it was all over. Sorted. But
one problem remained. I couldn’t understand why the
shampoo disc was in with the others. Richard explained
that it had got mixed up on a trip, in with the toiletries.
But that didn’t justify why it wasn’t simply thrown away.
Then he said they kept it - as a lesson. Their own game
of Russian Roulette. It was always a matter of time.

Every single time. And I thought, often, about how
even a tiny dose of chaos, measured out like
a handful of shampoo, was still
chaos; was still madness.
“That”, Richard said, “is what’s funny about it.
It’s a game brother.
It’s all a game”.