4th May, 1990
It was a lovely day, the grass was yawning in the early morning sunlight as the trees stretched their cramped limbs and woke the birds nesting in the dachau nearby. Fortunately the winter was not too cold and they survived their swim in the lake without ill effect. Overhead the clouds began forming little groups, knowing that their deadly enemy would soon arrive and start nibbling at their tail, for it was a nasty and vicious beast, cruel and uncompromising. It was large enough to dominate these tiny creatures, to extort ruthlesslessly. Its demands were insatiable: to own the latest in swimwear, to arrange South Sea cruises at a moment's notice, and to perform mystic rites on Anzac Day. The latter, although popular with men over the age of 93, bored everyone else to tears. Men under 93 were too busy watching Elle's lingerie, and the women, tired of baking pumpkin scones, were pouring the scone mix into the lingerie. This had an interesting effect upon the person who was wearing the articles, as the cold paste began to congeal in very interesting places. This managed to attract even more attention, much to the baker's disgust. Meanwhile, back on the farm, Mary-Ellen and John-Boy were discussing whose turn it was to change the nappies, and should they trade it in on a new self-changing baby. The interest rate was enormous (23%), but it sure saved on new linen.
Meanwhile, in a little-used section of the forest, the elderberry raiders stumbled upon the remains of a scone-mix covered theodolite and asked for forgiveness. This was not to be, as the naughty evil Robert had already killed three people for breakfast, and was in a bad mood. The bacon was overdone, the eggs were underdone, and the sausage charred beyond recognition. It was absolutely outrageous that a hobgoblin should have been able to cause such a calamity, but they had always considered themselves above the law - acting aloof and supercillious. Beyond that, they were just assholes like everyone else. Robert decided to ignore them and concentrate on his sculpture. He was very artistic for a dead person; in fact, the way his corpse was splayed over the chain saw brought accolades from many critics of the genre. His estate became well known as fans flocked there to watch re-enactments and weep vociferously to Australia Post reporters. The Picture reporters however never knew if they should use Panchromatic film or slide, so always were left in a quandary, which was marshy, icky, goopy, and often underexposed. It was odd how such quandaries always seemed to be located in Devon - or was that downtown Croyden...? Meanwhile, rumours were afoot and that gave Robert tinea.
The Croyden massacre was slowly winding up and save for the odd volley of flying razor blades, all was still. The chainsaws suddenly screamed in unison, and the thud of an axe was not heard at all. This was due to a vacuum passing through the district of Columbia, picking up all that nasty dirt and grit, though the carpet could definitely do with a good steam cleaning (in Robert's opinion). It appeared to Patrick that Robert could jolly well go off and play in a vat of Nitric acid, but he kept this though quietly to himself as he peevishly whipped up a batch of pumpkin scones. The scones were understandably upset about being whipped, and decided to protest this by boycotting the tennis tournament being held in the nearby China shop and instead taking the afternoon off to play Whist in the park. ``Beware rampaging elephants named Claude'', intoned a wizened hobgoblin. ``It is May Day, and strange things will befall you'', intoned a troglodite. The birds stared in amazement at such curiosities and promptly laughed until they died.
A paragraph later, the corpses were buried by a kind and gentle passing elephant named Claude, who was enjoying the balmy May Day.
Another paragraph passed.
And another.
``That's odd'', thought Claude. ``What are all these paragraphs doing here when they should be out earning kudos by appearing in leading newspapers?'' Sadly, they had all lost the will to perform their typographical roles, and instead collected in little knots as was seen above. Many years of investigation had shown that superstrings are just enormous chains of these knots, and they account for all the missing mass in the cosmos. Of course, the knots knew not what they knew and thus got themselves into knots which they already were, and so were unable to cope with the Great Unraveling of '67. Meanwhile, back in the park Claude was reading `Elementary Cosmology for Idiots' and finding it very rough going. It didn't help that he was blind, but them's the breaks. Instead he was listening to it on a cassette tape recorded by Carl Sayduck, the well-known cosmologist and huduck-rights activist. Carl was a great mime artist, but the nuances of his performance were somewhat lost on Claude, whose aesthetic sense of duty led him to end the story in which he was appearing. He did.