Wasp Securities

I store my wealth in specially-hollowed out wasps. Only I know which wasps they are. At the end of Wasp Season I put out a special jamjar.

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Only my wasps are attracted to the unique jam, made according to a recipe I keep inside the chrysalises of an unknown species of moth.

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The fruit that goes into this jam is a rare and difficult to cultivate variety of berry irresistible to hollowed-out wasps.

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I grow the berries in my secret laboratory, concealed inside a glacier, an hermetic space that only I know the combination to.

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Each number is tattooed upon the internal organs of people who fall asleep at airports by an ingenious keyhole surgical tattoo device based on the mosquito’s sting.

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No-one suspects they have become carriers of my secret codes. I preserve their names and addresses on a rock at the bottom of the ocean.

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I retrieve and reinscribe this rock by invisible bathysphere, a craft I attach to the hull of oblivious cargo vessels crossing over the site.

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Loose change I keep in cowfish, a coin per fish. Being by definition ‘loose’ I keep no record of where my change is at any given time.

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And yet, because the cowfish I have chosen love me, all I have to is waggle my hand in the water, and they will come and spit out coins.

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So strong is our telepathic bond, the cowfish always know exactly how much change I need. All I need do is be by the seaside…

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…beside the sea. So I’ve constructed glass tubes which channel seawater and therefore cowfish to all my loose change-requiring locations.

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Unfortunately, the expense of all these secure delivery systems has bankrupted me: all my wasps are empty and my cowfish carry no more change.

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Sometimes I lie out in the park all day, and let the empty wasps crawl all over my face and hands, stinging and stinging but without venom.

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At other times I bury myself in the sand and let the cowfish leap from the waves and struggle up the beach, their little yellow horns waggling…

. nothing found .

i searched for the ravages of time,

it seems a phrase i have not used recently.

it seems i ought to keep quiet,

and get on with it any way.

there are enough disturbances in the world,

without another.

butterflies.

sbm.

Big Bill Backward’s True-Faced Western Tales, 5: Albatross Express

‘Waal, I remember when we used ta deliver the mail by Albatross Express,’ said Big Bill Backwards suddenly, startling the Macaroni Penguins.

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‘Used ta be small n wiry in them days, which was just as well, cause those albatrosses was mostly bone n balsa, twenty, thirty feet across.’

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‘They was mostly cross, too, ornery birds it took a lot a sardines to control. You had two bags full – one a the fish, the other a letters.’

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‘Sometimes when I wus worst for the wear, I’d feed ma albatross the mail and deliver the dried sardines. Nobody preciated that…’

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‘But those long silent flights over the ice n the sea, jest clingin to the albatross’s neck n lookin down – them wus thinkin times…’

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‘Mostly I’d think: “What am I doing here?” Specially when the narwhals ambushed, firin their bone lances all round yer bone albatross.’

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‘But the mail had to get thru, or the sardines, or you. It was our sacred duty to deliver them special offers on breadband n double gazin.’

Seven fabricated accounts of the Bird King’s death

           

    

 

Saw Dust: an Old Song

I’m the sawdust from when the magician sawed the woman in half: I’m no longer part of the box, so am I part of the woman?

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I’m the jar the woman keeps the sawdust in. She takes me out of the cupboard and unscrews my lid and weeps into me, but only from one eye.

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I’m the eye with which the woman weeps into the jar. Since he sawed her in half every part of her feels independent from every other part.

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I am the lake deep inside the sawdust inside the jar, formed from the great tears. I am a sphere of weeping, I am an eye that never opens.

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I’m the fish the magician catches when he lets a line down into the lake within the sawdust. No-one can figure out how he got into the jar.

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I am the fish’s eyeball: the magician will saw me in half tonight on stage and the woman will step out unharmed and I will weep sawdust.

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I am the saw who saw how the trick was done. Later I will sing to the magician and the woman and the fish. They will keep the song in a jar.

The Adventures of Doc Moreau & I, 12: The Klassified Ads

Inarticulate Arthropods! Restricted by clumsy shell ‘mittens’? Free your inner fingers with Doc Moreau’s Patented ‘Crab Gauntlets’!

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‘Now I can grip AND flex!’ says a leading spokescrab. Also suitable for lobsters and giant scorpions!

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Do you need a regular, dependable supply of stainless steel robins? Doc Moreau’s Stainless Steel Robins are guaranteed 100% cat-proof!

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Now available with scratch-resistant breastplates fashioned from the finest Robinium! Can flutter n singe!

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It’s statistically possible that up to one in 10,000 passers by may not be able to tell your Stainless Steel Robin from the real thing. Surely.

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Do you now or have you ever suffered from Ephemerrhoids – piles that appear n disappear too quickly for conventional treatment?

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If so, try Doc Moreau’s Patented Lightning Cream! WARNING: Doc Moreau’s Patented Lightning Cream may contain actual lightning.

Cheese Robotics: An Expert Speaks

Who will say a piece of machinery might not one day be developed capable of differentiating between the enemy and a cracking piece of cheese?

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I’m not saying it could be done, but I’m not prepared to say it couldn’t be done. And if a machine can do it, why not a cheese?

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And therefore is a ban on cheese robotics which has yet to be full developed to maturity an appropriate course of action? I suggest not.

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There may only be a narrow window of opportunity between developing nuclear Cheese Robots and global warming rendering them lethally unstable.

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But for that fortnight we would be Lords of Creation! Therefore I urge you to invest in Autonomous Cybernetic Death Cheese technology.

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In your press packs you’ll find a prototype processed cheddar processor which may enable us to hack into your higher centres of reasoning.

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This nutritious instrument of experimental mind control comes with a delicious sea salt cracker and is quite irresistible! Eat! Enjoy!