Grimbeau

New Grub Street records below for future delectation; and on the ruby doorstep, a letter for Professor Phipps containing a packet of pulverised sage to keep the lonely onion happy & engaged in crazed seasonal endeavours lies. A nuclear fog subsumes Trollenberg as zombies fill the diswashers incanting the curses of Mali and smiling on the memory of Nkrumah’s wizard foxtrot.

‘Maradonna’s dead’

‘Good, but what of little Diego?’

‘Mudlarking, no doubt. Slicing dentures from washed up concubines of the East Indian in inky sepia drab. A crow observes from a tendrilled groyne. All is muted, unspectacular. Waters lap. A heat pipe giggles in Abrasia.

‘Will he wash?’

‘In good time, when opportunity arises.’

‘The crusty stench is beyond the daily luminal’

‘Crud!’

‘Poor wee Diego’