The Ballad of Larry the Pigeon

Larry the Pigeon sat high above ground on the small ledge atop the cluster of offices on the very edge of town. From their windows the office workers would only see the smoggy pavement, smeared with the vomit of the alcoholic homeless, but Larry could see much more. So very much more. From the residential district where they’d found that woman trying to interbreed with a fence, to the place where that man got ran over by a tram and they erected a muffin shop in his honour, the immense horizon was always within Larry’s reach. It was frightening, dangerous, vast, wonderful. Larry’s city. Larry’s kingdom.

The Sandwich People are on Holiday

The first day I had ran in and got in a flap over milk. I had made my way from the office across the street, the pouring rain having driven me into the first shop I could find: the newsagents. I fell into the shop, hands shaking, my brain leaking milk information. It was my first day of my new job and if I was going to get seven coffee orders right, I was going to need milk. Lots of milk. More milk than I could physically carry. It was a good job I had magic milk carrying powers.

The old Asian man behind the counter didn’t look up from his paper as I put the milk bottles on the counter. I had a quick glance round the shop: booze lined the walls and a thin carpet of shit lined the floor. The newspaper headline read Sweetcorn Shortage in Russia gets Worse, and there was a fridge full of sandwiches just behind me. He said, ’That’ll be £4.83’ and I gave him the money for the milk and left the shop.

It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

Mouse Tower

In the town of Mainz the sun shone undauntedly upon the burning flesh of the beggars in the town centre. Casual and fanatical, the crowd watched as the fires gradually enveloped the skin of the suffering. It was a hot afternoon for those being blistered, and those watching the blistering alike; there was little else for the villagers to do than observe people being burned alive. Later many would go home and fornicate due to the unchanged lack of general activity.  For the time being however, watching people being burned would pass the time contentedly.

Archbishop Hatto looked upon the scene with coolness and disinterest upon his face, yet upon his heart danced a fervent awareness. He saw the bubbling of flesh and the blackening of bone; heard the screams of the beggars growing more incomprehensible as their bodies grew more disfigured. Some carcasses shrunk with the heat, others still barely alive fought against their restraints. The flashes of fire licking at the heels of the persecuted reflected in Hatto’s eyes, and suddenly he could not control himself. He had burned these men, and they were leaving this life in a horrific and violent fashion. He rose to his feet…

‘Listen to my mice!’, he exclaimed with delight, ‘Listen to my mice squeal!’