I pluck my hat and coat which hang on a hook by the door. Liquorice-black fur and top hat with a silver sash. I gaze at myself in the looking glass while he fumbles nervously behind me,
I am magnificent to look at.
The mirror cracks down the middle.
Makes me a zig-zag.
Meanwhile…
Mr Loveheart takes a stroll by the Thames
It is a day of custard! It wobbles!
Today I wear electrical blue (I sizzle!). My trademark hearts are splattered up the sides; they ooze into the fabric. I am also sporting a rather fetching set of thigh boots. I like to strut long the path, twiddle my ancestral sword and then LEAP! and hide behind a bush: JUMP! out on random strangers! HA HA! ha ha ha
It is so funny!
An old man screams! His eyes of jelly wibble and quiver.
I have come into London for a spot of cake. I was getting bored at home and I have no servants to talk to. I found one of them dead near the pond, half-eaten. I was quite unnerved and had a conversation with the remaining lower half of the corpse and, of course, apologised profusely for his being eaten and in my garden no less! And so, I am quite alone and I feel unable to employ the lower half of a torso as a butler, as it would perhaps not be altogether practical. He would have considerable problems boiling an egg and roasting a crumpet over the fire (being dead and having no arms, he having being consumed by something as yet unidentified).
The Thames is a fat ooze. Greenish slop waters, occasionally pulling with it dead bodies, purple with bloat. And eels! See them wriggle and flop; see them slither!
London, you are a City of the Dead. Creatures hop and scuttle; jump out their graves; dance over black waters.
If I dip my hands into the Thames, my skin would prickle under the slime water. It would shrivel; feel globular vegetation; growths of slithery lumps.
London, London (and I twiddle my sword in a loop), London, London, London, You are an EATER of the dead. CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP. How unique you are; how horrible! how dazzling! Show me your teeth: expose your tongue to me. UNROLL YOURSELF.
I dance! I dance along the path. Do I hear music?
I strike a pose! Spear a clergyman’s hat. Hold it aloft. He screams and crosses himself. Becomes hysterical. I enquire where I might find an excellent piece of cake and after he has recovered his senses (and his hat) he points me in another direction. MAKES ME TURN.
Oh, London, your foul underwater botanical gardens are charming. Bruised purples, blubbery greens, violent turquoise, acidic yellow swirls. Vivid and slimy. Let me count the insects that hum over you. The low buzz of your tiny messengers; the shimmer of their wings.
ANGELS! THEY ARE YOUR ANGELS!
A pigeon lands on my head!
I strut along the path. Twirl. Shoot my pistol in the air. BANG!
The naughty pigeon flies off, craps on the clergyman.
I walk the path. Big Ben strikes. Moves us forward. Time, time, time, you are malleable, misunderstood.
BANG! (I shoot my pistol again.)
I see a fiddler ahead, bashing out a tune near a bench. He taps his spindly leg, plucks a string. It snaps! Thwacks him in the forehead. I hear his swear words on the air: “You f— b—!” he screams. Marvellous!
Heaps of plum coloured clouds swirl above me: marshmallow soft. Hot chocolate! I hear the clanging of bells sound from the church. I raise my head, spy a raven, a gloomy thing glaring at me from a rooftop. Small plucky blue flowers sprout near my feet. Am I a toadstool? A magic mushroom perhaps?
The air whiffs of bubbling jam. I am hungry. I can think of nothing but pudding! I think of custard, cream and the goo of melted chocolate. My mind wanders to jelly beans and strawberry tarts. My stomach rumbles. I flash a smile at an old lady in a bonnet. I bow very low. “Madam, could you direct me to an interesting bit of sponge?”
She bashes me over the head with her umbrella.
“Thank you, my good woman!” I reply. Composing myself and straightening my beautiful coat I head along the path towards the fiddler. I smell fish bones, sea snails, lobster pots, eel pie and mash. A spot of gravy! A splat of mushy peas.
I shout out to the Raven, “WHERE IS THE STRAWBERRY TART, YOU VILLAIN?!”
He caws back at me rather sarcastically.
I spin my ancestral sword and approach the fiddler. He eyeballs me with… is that some sort of suspicion?
“Good morning!” I say
“Got a penny for me to pluck a tune, sir?” he replies grinning with his remaining teeth.
I fling him some paper money in his upside down battered top hat.
“Blimey,” he says, staring inside the hat,
“Do you know the tune ‘Boil Him in the Pot’?” I ask.
“No sir, but for this amount of money I can make it up as I go along!” and he picks up his fiddle.
“Wonderful,” I reply and lean on my sword, glance at the copious amount of weed life that blooms near the wall.