His fiddle creates music no sane mind could cope with. A screech and twang from the very depths of Hell.
I hum along, go mad with it. The fiddler clicks his tongue, screams out the tune. A brick soars through the air! Hits him between the eyes. GOOD GRIEF! He falls backwards. Perhaps dead!
I spin! Look for the person responsible. Hear laughter. See a pair of eyes peer over the wall. A street urchin sticks out his tongue and runs off over a graveyard, leaps over the dead, out of this world.
I keep moving, wave goodbye to the river, to the ooze. I pluck a windfall apple, squeeze it in the palm of my hand, as though a human sacrifice. I pick up the pace, move faster.
Oh day of custard. Take me to your tearooms. SHOW ME YOUR CAKE!
I am rather lonely. Yes, lonely. LOnEly. LoNelY. Lonely. Lonely. LONELY. Odd word, that.
I am lonely.
lonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonely lonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonelylonely
What does it mean to be this way?
What flavour ice cream am I inside?
SCOOP ME OUT & FIND OUT
I prod my lacy cuffs. Wave at a ghoulish nanny with a squeaky pram. She shrieks, goes faster. Does she hear music too? I wave goodbye to the nanny and the pram. Wave at the pigeon. Wave at the gloomy raven. I have no one to play with.
My only servant is dead: half-eaten, lying on my lawn. I must remind myself to get him buried, perhaps near the deformed cucumbers near the pond.
I peer across at the Houses of Parliament where my father gave speeches. Monocle wobble and click of silver cane. Lord Loveheart.
DADDY DADDY DADDY.
And now that is my name. I have taken letters, become meaning. Inherited words. Daddy.
I am the richest man in England. I am a Prince of the Underworld and yet, I am only a series of letters.
Rearrange me and make some other word.
Invisible music moves me forward.
If you cut open my brain, what would you find I wonder?
Am I made of jelly? CAN YOU MAKE ME WOBBLE?
I feel the underneath. I feel London’s layers. The hot, hot, hot. The sizzle red. Underneath your footsteps are dinosaurs. Fossils of monsters; ribcages of man eaters. Strange spiral shells, deformed looking rocks, horned pieces of another species. The imprint of monsters. MAN-EATER, MAN-EATER, MAN-EATER
I cut the air with my sword.
“BEWARE what is underneath!” I shout to nothing and no one.
We are
sinking
below.
DARWINISM
Evolution theory
COMPETE, SURVIVE AND REPRODUCE
Or, become finger food
I walk the path; I walk the dark coils of London, her black ribbon entrails. I move into her stomach. It’s surprisingly warm here.
The tearooms appear! Manifest before me. A pot of tea and an enormous slab of chocolate cake will be mine, for I am a Prince of the Underworld, and I do love a moist piece of cake.
My loneliness, the empty space inside me needs something to fill it. Squeeze out the air. Overeat. Feed myself love. Replace kisses with sugar.
Mr Loveheart and Zedock Heap meet by strange coincidence
at the Stuffed Fig tearooms
The moon is a lollipop. I hold it on a stick. Lickety split. It tastes like pieces of me.
I am sitting by the window of the Stuffed Fig tearooms, an enchanting hovel near London Bridge. Low ceilings, unstable foundations, could quite possibly collapse at any moment. How exciting! I am informed it is also a magnet for poets and authors of the macabre, for the property is apparently haunted. Built on a plague pit. Isn’t that wonderful? So much character. Ghost hunters have been rumoured to frequent this establishment in search of evidence of life beyond death. My own suggestion, if you’re seeking such evidence, is that you need look no further than to sample the homemade cakes.
I prod my slice of chocolate fudge cake. I slam it against the wall. It makes a dent in the brickwork. This fudge cake is not of this world.
“What black magic is this?” I say with glee.
The patisserie chef, a meat-faced wall of muscle, emerges from the kitchen. “Is there a problem?”
“This cake is remarkable! It should be worshipped as an ancient god. It will not yield!” I slam it against the table and it bounces off, undamaged.
“Are you taking the piss?” His heavyset lower jaw crunches into a line.
“No. I am expressing delight. It’s not really a cake. It’s almost, dare I say, A BRICK! You could build a pagan temple with this and it would withstand the lightning strikes of the gods,” I cry aloud. The customers look a bit nervous. Why is that, I wonder?
“I think he’s saying it’s a bit dry,” coughs a little bespectacled man in the corner.
The chef removes a cleaver from his apron. “Well, well. We’ve got a comedian.”
“Sir, may I enquire what a pastry chef is doing wielding a meat cleaver? Is this not a tearooms?” I ask, examining a sugar lump to see if it too holds occult powers.