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Benny was talking about. It sounded good. It felt good as well, like letting down somebody’s tyre. Tssssss. God, he used to do that all the time, him and Benny, back in school. Some laugh, that. If a teacher gave one of them lines, then they’d go to the car park and—
    Des felt warm water skoosh onto his forearm, giving him enough of a fright to drop the knife. He saw the manky radiator water land all over the white carpet, and he panicked. He couldn’t make up his mind about whether he should reach for the knife to screw the thing tight, or reach for the pot to catch the water. He decided to go for the pot, then realised that he had forgotten to bring the fucking thing through from the kitchen. But then rather than just quickly grabbing the knife and tightening the wee screw like anybody else would, he ran away to the kitchen to grab the pot. Then, when he was only about two paces away from the pot, he realised he should have just grabbed the knife, and he doubled back. And when he got to the living room, he couldn’t find the knife, even though it was right fucking there in front of him. He was flapping. The white carpet was being ruined, his landlord would take it out his deposit, and it would probably drip down to the neighbour below. Add that to everything else he’d fucked up, and he was definitely getting booted out the building, unless he did something and did it fast. He didn’t know what to do, so he did the first thing that came to mind.
    He started drinking the water.
    He could have just held it in his mouth to buy him enough time to find the knife and screw the wee thing tight then run to the kitchen and spit it out and brush his teeth and all the rest of it, but the thought never occurred to him. Instead, he just lapped it up frantically like a thirsty dog drinking out a tap. His hands scrambled around underneath, out of vision, and eventually found the knife. He began screwing the wee thing, but it made no difference. He’d broken it! There’s no way he’d be able to keep drinking, the water from the entire central heating thing would flood downstairs and … then he realised he was screwing it the wrong way. He screwed it clockwise, the water stopped, and he fell back onto the floor, exhausted.
    Des, Des, Des. You silly, silly man.
    He lay there for a minute, wondering about how he was going to get the stain out of the carpet. It also dawned on him that he could have just held the water in his mouth instead of drinking it. But it was too late now. He drank it, and it was fucking minging.
    But.
    Wait a minute.
    Wait.
    It wasn’t minging.
    It felt minging, aye, and it probably looked minging, drinking water from a radiator. But did it taste minging, Des? Did it?
    No, it didn’t. In fact, as he licked his lips and swirled his tongue around his mouth, he concluded that it was far from minging.
    It was delicious.
    Really delicious.
    It was perhaps the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. Des couldn’t believe it. Wait till he told Benny about this! Des picked up his phone, but then thought against it. What if he was talking shite? Like, it might not be the manky radiator water that was delicious, maybe it was some delicious food he ate earlier that was trapped between his gum and cheek and the radiator water dislodged it. But it couldn’t have been that, because all he’d had to eat that day was baked beans and a pear. Or maybe the manky radiator water was tasty because he’d just brushed his teeth, and sometimes when you brush your teeth then taste something, it tastes different. But he hadn’t just brushed his teeth; that was a stupid thing to think. Or maybe it was just the whole stressful situation that had just happened, and it was all in his mind, because sometimes stress like that can make people see things that aren’t really there or hear things that aren’t being said, or taste delicious things that are in fact manky.