Fantastic Metropolis

Soot. This is Uncle Sam. They left his brains painted on the ceiling. Put your chipped mug there let me take a photograph. Our enterprising opponent having found a breach in the walls soon perished the victim of aya ito tori* in the hands of a practical joker. Here goes the flash.

Encouraged by the death of uncle sam the Kelpie and the doll went round the piebald beast with difficulty clockwork rats had begun to eat his brittle wings. They lit slow torches.

* cat’s cradle in Japanese

8

Dressed in white Miss Everso slipped from an empty chair heaped with thick dust. A thousand cut glass chandeliers hung down over a spacious hall. Persian carpet flowed to marble walls. A very long billiard table used the length of the room to entertain fosto the tin man. He was playing against an invisible hand with unerring control. They talked.

Rum smuggling listen to me on the heavy sea I was famous for crossing more platefuls than you could even hint at Theodora. I barked at the petrified tree I was an abominable snowman. With the revenue kept carefully out of sight gentry who pretend to be descended from Jiminy Plantagenet go on suffocating make believe rabbits simple sober staid and dumb they sup with their fast friend the watchman having given the sun a beautiful sunshiny day it was now arranged in a manner that said Frida. Oh but it is good to talk again I am the meaning behind a very confused story trying to get back to the stars on horseback. That said Miss Everso explains the white crocodiles in the moat. Dream about me softly break my heart darling I will never forget you.

It all happened between floors. Raymond rousselfish. Your imagination is out of print. These made up words ought to be hidden from the bystanders. The sinking ladder seats two sitting cross legged on the even steps which we call either or. Beautiful in the night like moonlight on chemicals he retorted too beautiful to resist. If only she had returned my stare.

9

A dream the old valet continued a dream falling on a threadbare effalunts ear pressed against Miss Everso in the window seat. Preserved here in the hothouse living on moat rats and muscatel I have spent many pickled years going bad. When I was sixteen the sky was free of foreigners. After the stuttering ventriloquist disappeared completely hard boiled readers took her luggage. We draw lots. All four of them were talking at once. When she sits beside me on the ceiling I am happy. If the biographers can find time to read our letters they do no such thing. When the pods sang out fell sick and died in the street I—I—limped away to safety. If one of them so much as fingers the leaves our hero frowned the eldest porter with a sword will kill all the fowl. The story got dense and invariably the slack workman was in the process of making tea. Burnt rolling pins fell into the fog. May we—may I rebel? Orange paint and seventy four shaped like the letter S. Be hanged if I’ll be employed. I loathe the residue of my short life. Kicking your monster instead of you. Human nature is beneath us.