Grimbeau

On the ruby doorstep before you stands a parcel for Professor Phipps, It contains a pouch of pulverised sage intended to keep your lonely onion amused over a plague infested Yule.

A thermo-nuclear fog envelops the sleepy town of Trollenberg as erotic zombies fill dishwashers incanting the curses of Mali and smiling on the memory of Nkrumah’s wizard foxtrot.

‘Maradonna’s dead’ They chant.

‘Good, but what of little Diego?’ Prompts the whip cracker.

‘Mudlarking, no doubt. Skipper. Prizing dentures from washed up concubines of the East Indian mob enshrouded in sepia drab.’

A sable crow observes all of this from a tendrilled groyne. The ocan is muted, unspectacular, vivid. Waters lap. A heat pipe chortles in darkest Abrasia.

‘Will he wash?’ Chant the wanton zombies

‘In good time, when the opportunity arises.’

An emphatic whip crackles.

‘The crusty stench is beyond the pale of the daily luminal’

‘Up here on Waum Wen we call it crud’

‘Crud!’

‘Poor wee Diego’