Pulling the ice axe from my leg, I staggered on, spindrift stinging my remaining eye. I finally managed to reach the station, only to find that the bus replacement service had broken down. After wondering to myself whether or not it should actually be called a "train replacement service", I walked out onto the concourse and noticed the giant screen seemed to have been tampered with - probably by a junior employee. Disgruntled commuters were being regaled with some dismal TVM, involving a tug-of-love-custody-battle (Stockard Channing held sway). Down in the High Street somebody careered out of Boots without due care or attention. I suggest that they learn some pedestrian etiquette, i.e. sidle out of the store gingerly, embrace the margin. Fat kids with sausage rolls, Poor sods conducting polls...
Therefs a man with a mullet going mad with a mallet in Millets.
I try to put everything into perspective; set it against the scale of human suffering, and I thought of the Mugabe government, and the children of the Calcutta railways. This works for a while, but then I encounter Primark FM. Overhead a rainbow appears. In black and white.
I got a letter from Stringy Bob: gStill on suicide watch. Screws not happy. Spotted a Marsh Fritillary during association. Was roundly ignored. What news you?h I felt sorry for him. Hefd only been locked up for public nuisance offences, one of which saw him beachcombing the Dee Estuary; found a dead wading bird, took it home, parcelled it up, and sent it off to that rubber-faced irritant Phil Cool, with a note inside which read: gIs this your Sanderling?h
Another time saw him answering an advert in the music press: gKeyboard player required: Doors, Floyd, etc. Must be committed, no time wastersh. You can guess the rest.
Ifd always imagined he would simply wander off some day into the hills, to be found months later, his carcass stripped by homeless dogs, his exposed skull a perch for the quartering crow. I folded away the letter and put it in my inside pocket. All of a sudden I felt brushed by the wings of something dark.
May the Lord have mercy on Stringy Bob.