Gareth was white and proud of it. In the scramble to the top of the evolutionary ladder white came first. Not black or brown or red or yellow. White was supreme, superb, superior. White was marvellous, magnificent, majestic.
If human races were birds, white would be an albatross, gliding above in the azure heavens; soaring above the grey pigeons and brown sparrows and black ravens that blighted the scrapyards of the lower world.
White was the colour of weddings, angels, and goodness. Black was the colour of death, demons, and evil. And brown? Well, brown’s the colour of shit, innit.
White was the mother of all colours. Black the evil stepfather. And brown? Well, brown was the pimply obese kid that no one talked to.
White was a towering beacon, a light house that guided and showed the way. Black was the temple of doom. And brown? Well, brown was the disused hovel made of cowpat.
White was Wimbledon; white was test cricket; white was purity; white was innocence; white was virtue; white was monumental alabaster.
But white was also virginity. And Gareth suffered acutely from this condition.
For, in the chessboard of life, Gareth chose to remain firmly and resolutely on the white square and disdained to step foot into the black realms; which is why he never won and always lost.
And Gareth was a loser;—a sore, sorry loser at that. Footie was his life, the telly was his constant companion, and larger was his best friend. He’d have loved a girlfriend, but any woman who spent more than half an hour with him thought him a plonker or a tosspot and left because they couldn’t stand his bigotry.
It didn’t bother Gareth, because he knew he was the best. He was white, after all: a white diamond on the white sands of a white beach.
Speaking of beaches, Gareth liked to swim. But he daren’t go outdoors or he’d tan and freckle up. So he chose to go to one of the many indoor swimming pools that dotted the city.
He dived into the pool and flopped about in the shallow end.
Picture his shock; imagine his horror; and conceive of his revulsion when he suddenly noticed a black person in the pool at the deep end, who’d in fact been there long before Gareth.
Gareth summoned his sense of outrage and called on his feelings of indignation and disgust. In a state of high dudgeon he paddled as close to the deep end as he could and called out to Neil, the person of African heritage.
“Make sure you don’t colour the water, a’right!” yelled Gareth.
Neil was aghast. He thought he didn’t hear right. “What was that, mate?” he called out.
“Make sure you don’t colour the water, a’right!” repeated Gareth.
Neil was speechless—but not before he managed to splutter, “Make sure you don’t fade in it—you’ll contaminate the gene pool.”
