Now, With Wings:

The first cup barely hits the sides, these days.  It’s the second cup that provides the little kick that gets me into the afternoon. This one contains 3.9mg of caffeine, brewed to 93 degrees.  Food is an afterthought, in this most excellent coffee shop. The chain is called Clarence’s.  Not all of them are this good. Their slogan is ‘No-one is a failure with coffee!’

Through the huge, plate glass windows, I’m watching people, traffic going by.  It’s almost like a lens on a pensioner’s glasses, it obscures real life, in a way. 

Whatever real life is, these days.  

The couple at the nearest table are in love, I can see that much immediately.  They are fated, meant to be together.  Not that it ever played out that way.  She’s preening her hair, as she speaks.  When he speaks, he uses his hands a lot.  A hand gesture is almost avian, to the untrained eye.  

The steam is leaving my second cup.  The quirky cover version of a Bob Dylan song plays, for both the first time today and the twenty-eighth time this week.  The young kid who clears the tables hovers, looking to clear the crockery that’s already piling up on the table.  I wave him away, firmly but politely.  

He’s only doing his job, poor lamb. He’s doing this, to pay his way through college.  Later in life, I can see him making some important, scientific discovery?  Ok, he’s looking at a test tube, unblinkingly.  

Global Warming?  Cold Fusion? Cancer? Not sure. It’ll come to me. 

I look up again and see another couple.  Slightly older.  A little bit happier. Some imperceptible change has taken place.  Less touching, but these are longer, more meaningful stares.  Caught in the slipstream of those, are the fragments of smaller, human lives and the rise and fall of empires.  It’s like a reverse earthquake; something is shifting, whilst something is remaining the same.  

Maybe it’s me.  I am the centre of this liquid, wooden universe, after all.  OK, so maybe that’s a little supercilious.  But if you ever felt what I could feel, how would you describe it?  

Their table is now surrounded by children, at least four of them.  I can see glimpses of their futures.  Maybe another cup, another time; it would be simplicity itself to do this.  This, however, is not the time.  This couple - for whatever reason - are the focus.  Personally, I don’t know the reason for this.  

As I always say, not in my air force.  The children have faded away, the numbers and faces of them are unimportant.  I focus again.  

I look up again and another couple are there.  Slightly older.  You can notice the fading light from the eyes, a little.  Maybe next time (it’s always next time, isn’t it?) I’ll bring some sort of gadget or doobrie to measure that.  Human lives are short.  Brutally, criminally short.  But they pack a lot in, you can give them that.  

These two, I’m afraid aren’t going to change the world (like the lad clearing the tables.  Cure for Cancer, that’s it) alter another person’s perceptions of what it means to be human.  That’s an oxymoron if ever there was one.  These two are just punctuation.  

Another cup.  

You can see the physical changes now, some sort of loss of elasticity in the soul, never mind the skin.  I feel almost sorry for them, in a way.  To place someone into the stream of eternity, like a paper boat in a storm is a cruel experiment.  These two have loved each other, became parents, lost parents, became grandparents: in a world where once upon a lie there was death outside the windows, in another human’s touch.  

How do their tiny, fragile, cardboard souls live through these events? How do they crumple and come alive in rotation? They dreamed different dreams, once upon a soul.  They decided to share each other’s dreams.  And look where it gets them.  Every day a tiny death.  

They are fading away as I leave.  It’s almost as if they were never there in the first place.  It’s weird watching that, like smoke hanging in the air after a ceremony.  Once that scent, that delicious twist of chemicals has gone; what is left?  Mere memories.  

I’m walking down the road as it hits me (the thought, not the road): who would be human?  Not me, but they don’t have any choice in the matter.  I’ll see the process repeated; with more success, less pain, but with the same effect.  

Same again tomorrow?   

Apex Predator:

In my dreams, I am always running.  The smell of burning wood is in my nostrils.  People are screaming for help and water, in equal measure.  I reach the corner of the lane. Within seconds, he is on me and I am no longer human.  It’s appropriate that the last human emotion I should feel is the smallest, weakest one. 

This is of course, a reverie of sorts.  A house full of packed boxes and a removal van booked for the following day; always fills one with memories.  This is not the best house I have lived in.  A Victorian mansion, overlooking the park. At night, I can hear the mice chewing through the skirting boards.  The first few years, after my death that sort of thing annoyed me.  The preternatural sense of hearing is hard to switch off at first.  It’s only later, you realise it’s a skill: part of that thing that makes you an apex predator. 

My name is Howard Palmer Grimes.  In my life (if you could call it that) I have been a chandler, socialite, diplomat, businessman (several times), novelist (moderately successful), and captain in the British army and most recently funeral director.  The business is closed and I am moving elsewhere.  Where elsewhere is at the moment, I don’t know.  The complexion of this country has changed.  A different, purple flag is flying and the time has come to tie mine own, in a different country. 

One step ahead of Goodchurch is always a good idea. 

Until recently, I felt safe here.  I voted Leave (of course), because I knew it would give me licence to operate with impunity.  Lawlessness, instability, mild anarchy suits me.  It is the sea I swim in.  However, when the water gets too bloodied, I tend to leave.  I always remember being in Chile in the 1970’s.  Pinochet. Charming man.  He invited me to afternoon tea, on occasion.  On occasion, he invited me to torture sessions.  I stood there, bored shitless as a child and his Mother was tortured together.  Smoking a Sobranie as the electricity travelled up and down, down and up the metal frame of the bunk bed they were both strapped into.

Up and down, down and up.  I went back to my hotel room and read a Graham Greene novel.  Ironic, really.         

My life, as much as you could call it that has been one long, infinitely complicated, cosmic joke. I remember a Priest, trying to convince me (once, he knew what I was – clever boy, Father Michael) that ‘The resurrection was proof of God’s love for man’.  I replied, looking over my sunglasses, putting down the acceptable - but not outstanding - glass of red:

‘Father’, I said.  ‘This may be the case.  But war is proof of his hatred, also.  There may be ‘no atheists in foxholes’, but Satan digs the trenches’ 

Touché. 

I attract attention, sometimes.  Most attention can be dealt with.  I walk the streets of South Liverpool, in a trench coat (my own), a top hat (again, my own) dark lounge suit and sunglasses (see the above) and British Army boots (World War One Ammo Boots).  On reflection, I do not walk: I glide.  I do not fit in, because I choose not to.  Under Marxist principles (Groucho, not Karl) I am not a member of any club.  The other day, an arrogant young pup said to me: ‘Were ya goin’ lid? Goth fancy dress party?’

I seized him by the throat and pulled him into a piss-stinking back alley.  A rat scattered by, looked at me in admiration.  ‘Your funeral, little boy’.  I dropped my sunglasses and let my pupils roll back, glow red.  ‘Insult me again and I will rip your throat out like a paper bag’.  I threw this arrogant young pup against the refuse bins. The same rat, scattered back looked at him in disgust and went elsewhere. 

During daylight hours, I may be like a smartphone in low power mode.  But I can still threaten.  I can still wound.  I can still feed (if necessary).  I can still kill, out of honour (or boredom). Living opposite a park, is akin to that of a gourmand living next to a restaurant.  As the sun goes down, I become myself.  My power rises, the senses become heightened. I shall walk through the gates and I shall feed.  Dog walkers.  Joggers.  Lost children.  Lost adults.  There is no difference in the quality, or quantity of the source; it is the existence and availability that is more important. And that is why, over many years I have drifted into different jobs.  By charm, rather than skill.  The dead are always with us.  And those of us, who need the dead to live, will always know where they are. 

However, I sense this country changing.  Its statehood and leaders have changed, but there is something imperceptible, blurred at the edges of the frame.  Whilst anthems are chosen and flags are stitched; the supernatural is edging in.  Take my last business for example, a decent respectable funeral business.  Reasonably priced and adequate if not spectacular job done.  Until Coffin Supermarket opened in the next street.  The business closed within weeks, due to a tawdry, chiselling bunch of little shits. 

I digress.  The boy who worked for me, Croxteth.  A decent young man.  Indecipeherable, yes.  But trustworthy enough to do a good job.  Once I announced I was closing the business, he disappeared.  I mean, I can hardly blame him.  But every time I looked at him, I saw something behind the eyes.  And I could never really, completely work out what it was.  Something eldritch, something undefinably alien. 

I do not think I have met him before, but he seems of the same genus as me.  I have a feeling we will meet again. 

At the end of the day, it is all about connections.  In the small amount of time I recognised him as a fish out of water, he had dived back into it.  Sometimes, it is the second fish that is the most useful.  His friend, Cheesy Carl.  A shifty youth, of uncertain employment informed me that he had a ‘man and a van’ business.  I gave this slippery eel a bundle of cash for services rendered.  And then, I recognised another koan of my long, long life.  It is the least remarkable, whom prove the most useful.

The noble have their place: with statesmanship, works of charity or art.  But the same fate awaits us all.  Austen may have written a handful of delicately crafted satires of English society.  But in the end, when she was dying: she knew the truth. ‘Why is life so delicate and savage at the same time, Mr Grimes?’ she said, on the last time I saw her.  Clinging to the edge of precipice and wishing against gravity. 

Churchill is a hero to some, but not to me.  A bigot, a man haunted by his own dark thoughts and the viscous hatred of his own soul.  A slow, painful death was what he deserved.  Both that of the soul and his own ambition.  I had vague, unformed ideas of killing him.  When I saw the slaughter at Normandy, with children bobbing in the waves behind me: I planned it.  I considered a sudden, savage death.  By the time I reached the bocage, the death that came to him was the one I had planned.

Who says God isn’t listening?

So, as I finish this last cup of Earl Grey; as I lie in the coffin and pull the latches on the inside; I will wait.  I will wait for ‘Cheesy Carl’ to pick me up and deliver me to the docks.  If you think as life as an ocean, mine is endless, deep, rolling, eternal. 

The deepest, darkest sea swims in me.  Always empty, always stormy.    

There She Goes:

I felt the baby kick for the first time this morning.  She (I know, somehow it’s a she) was reminding me of her existence as I the radio was shifting gears, up from the emergency broadcast system and into something bland, apolitical, quite beige on 6Music. Lauren Laverne was talking in an unusually earnest style, announcing this week’s sessions by Hot French Dad’s, Coastal Fatalities and The Taste Of Plums. 

It’s been a matter of fact for the last few weeks that I am pregnant, so the kicking was no surprise.  The fact that I’ve got another soul, kicking inside me like a little bird still disturbs me.  My cat Behemoth sits on the duvet.  Licking my face, green eyes staring back at me.  Love me, it says.  Love me. 

It reminds me of Gabriel.  Needy and greedy at the same time. 

I’ll make a cuppa, in a minute.  Today is going to a busy day.  I’ve got to nip down to Limey, pick up our Bernie.  There will be two of us in the house for a while.  She’ll get on my nerves, I’ll get on hers.  Then, there will be three of us.  She’ll be telling me where she reckons I went wrong.  I’ll be telling her where I think she went wrong.  Then she’ll tell me to fuck off.  Then she’ll offer to make me a cuppa.  Before she left, for Devon - to move in with that blurt – I told her she was ‘giving up her power to a man’.

Well, I can fuckin’ talk, can’t I?

I’m looking out of the window at Orbital Sandra.  She must be an arl biddy and she is still putting the bins out.  Too old for a task that might not even happen today anyway.  The soldiers have gone, but no-one knows when the bins are going to get emptied.  She places them against the wall, which has the word ‘#Anfieldverse’ sprayed on it.  This is new graffiti, red paint shining with the morning dew.  The old stuff, is like Egyptian hieroglyphs.  Memories of a more magical, simpler time.  When people in power made sense, in a way: whether you agreed with them or not.

Something is aching and twanging.  And it’s not the baby.  I wonder where he is now, Gabriel? Wonder if he knows, in his darkest, happiest, quietest moments – he’s going to be a Dad?

I live in the shadow of football grounds.  When The Unravelling happened (that’s what they’re calling it these days, sounds like something goths would listen to), football was cancelled.  Which pissed off the Liverpool fans and was a source of quiet relief to The Bluenoses?  When they couldn’t pay the player’s wages, the rarest, most talent and expensive beasts went abroad.  Football stopped, the grass turned into wildflower meadows and they became Helipad1 and Helipad2. 

 I was volunteering in the local food bank when I met Gabriel.  Not the best start to a relationship, when you meet the love of your life (if he is that) stacking tins of beans.  He poked his head in.  A youngish lad, with green eyes, clad in urban camouflage. Another followed through, then another and another and another.  Weapons pointed at the floor, but it still made me feel a little uneasy.  These were called CROW’s (Combat Recruits Of War – skinny Scottish kids from the war of independence, given three meals a day, a gun and a licence to use it).  They were looking for someone called Cheesy Carl, labouring under the assumption that everyone in Liverpool knows each other and is aware of each other’s whereabouts. 

If I could preserve that point – pack in it ice, take a photo of it – whatever.  I could work out that was the start of our romance.  If you want to call it that.  I mean, we didn’t have a date as such.  There was no shy corner of a recommended restaurant.  Certainly no book recommendations (did he even read?).  No flowers, no mixtapes.   No basically, there was a build-up, an explosion and then nothing.  It wasn’t a relationship.  It was a gas explosion and I am still climbing out of the wreckage. A white-walled room, with frosted glass windows and strip lights.  Sometimes, I dream of that room.  Sometimes, I want to go back to that draughty, womb like space. 

It was heaven, in a way.

Captain Trundle called by the next day alone. He asked me to call him Gabriel.  Which was good really, as Captain Trundle was too formal.  Plus, it sounds like a character from a Thomas Hardy novel.  I got to know him better, over cups of tea.  He was from Glasgow; he talked about football a lot at the start. I remember the first touch, a friendly hand on my shoulder as he left one day on some pretext. I’m not even sure what it was.  He walked through the door, into the back jigger and into the early darkness of a September afternoon.  I think then I knew.  And I don’t have to explain to anyone else what I knew, because we’ve all been there, haven’t we? 

That point where you know where your heart is in the hands of someone else.  And there is no way back, even if you wanted to. 

And so, it continued.  A touch here, a little touch on the hand there.  A hand on the shoulder.  For a lad from Barlinnie, who kills people for a living: he’s got hands like a little boy.  I can’t remember what he said, but I remember what happened next.  He angled his head and kissed me.  An open mouth on an open mouth.

 And things were never the same after that. They never are, really. 

I suppose you’re expecting a list of who did what and where.  I respect my own privacy too much to give you what you’re looking for, you dirty bastard.  Let’s just say a) It was it enough to get me pregnant and b) I didn’t know you could have so much fun on cardboard boxes. 

Is that enough for you?  Probably not.  Tough shit. 

This kind of furtive intimacy, under strip lights continued for a few months.   No, I wasn’t careful.  Who does? An ex used to say ‘a hard dick has no conscience’.  Which is why I dumped him.  But when you really love someone – and I think that’s what it was – rational thought goes out the window, in favour of some kind of Panglossian spirit.  The end (whatever that may be) is not considered.  There is just, now and then. 

And it’s more then, than now. 

I woke the following morning to the sound of slamming doors and heavy diesel engines.  Leather boots on broken glass.  I looked out the window to see military trucks being packed.  Not at leisure, but at haste.  In the background, I could hear church bells.  It was then, I saw Gabriel waving his crew of CROW’s into the truck.  They ran across the road, like khaki clad children: obedient, devious at the same time. 

He’s leaving.  I thought.  The bastard.  I ran downstairs.  He never told me he was leaving.  They never do, blokes do they?  At this point, I’m running down the stairs in a pair of old slippers, pacing to get the door as quickly as I can.  I open the door, to see the truck revving and moving down the street. 

‘Gabriel!’ I’m shouting now, like I’m in a Tennessee Williams play.  Louder, that little clutch at the back of the throat. ‘GABRIEL!’ Full throated, with italics and capitals. 

Too late. The truck turns the corner, one in a line of many.  And they’re gone.  I slump onto the doorstep; the sheer emotion of a few moments has worn me out.  I cry like a toddler.  And in that instant, Orbital Sandra is running across the empty, lonely, street.  She picks me up, hold me close and says:

‘Come in love.  I’ll make you a cuppa’. 

It takes more than one cuppa.  It takes three, with a tot of gin in the last two. Over the space of a morning, that the whole thing comes tumbling out like dirty washing. It’s the first time I’ve confided in someone for a long time.  It’s a weird, sort of scary feeling. She asks me for my plans and I say I don’t know. I look away, the sunlight is breaking through the clouds. 

‘Of course’ says Orbital Sandra ‘Now Liverpool is a country-‘

‘What?’ I’m questioning the validity of this sentence.  I’m running through scenarios and thinking that Orbital Sandra, this Scouse matriarch is away with the mixer.  But now: The Unravelling is over.  Each council in the UK is an Independent state.  A government is in charge and negotiations with the EU will begin imminently.  It’s a lot to take in, on top of a lot to take in.

‘Best get yourself checked out’ says Orbital Sandra.  ‘The last thing a nice girl like you wants is to be up the duff in a different country’.  She takes a sip of tea. 

I was up the duff.  A pregnancy test, just about in date at the back of the bedside drawer; gave me a clue.  And then a visit to the Doctors.  In the midst of the human wreckage of the last few years.  It was confirmed then.  I’m gonna be a Mum.  Citizen of an old city, carrying the citizen of a new country. 

And then, when I got home, I’m looking through the cupboard for something to eat.  I’m rifling through packets and boxes, that may or may not be in date.  The phone beeps.  It’s a messenger. 

Bernie: Coming home 2Moz.  OK to stay with you?  

And at that moment, it’s all plans and questions.  Part of me is relieved she’s not staying with that blurt.  And then part of me realises, we’re exactly the same. We’re both coming down from a broken heart.  We’re two halves of the same soul.  God alone knows what’s going to happen. 

A few short messages confirm that she’s coming next week.  I clear out the spare room, fresh duvet and a pile of books I think she’ll like.  I try to source the ingredients for a healthy diet for a guest.  Which isn’t easy, I can’t even source a healthy diet for a pregnant woman.  I try my best, but there’s at least one afternoon a week with crap daytime telly and bad ice cream. 

I’m leaving the house, at the crack of dawn.  A winter’s morning.  Only the street lights to guide me to the bus stop.  The floodlights are on at Anfield.  Maybe there’ll be football soon.    I checked the timetable yesterday and Orbital Sandra assured me that it was twice a day, no service on Saturday or Sunday. 

Before I know it, I’m at Lime Street.  Standing by the ticket barrier, holding a coffee.  I’m watching one of the few trains to come in, watching the hordes of people being marshalled onto the platform.  And there she is, my big sister.  Holding a red rose, singing along to There She Goes.  As loud and as proud as I am. 

We’ve been separated by hundreds of miles and we’re still separated now by twenty feet of concourse.  I don’t know where Gabriel is.  And I know, I will love him till I die.  But there is a question mark growing inside me.  The only certainty at this moment is my sister.  And as the song comes to an end, She Calls My Name. She Calls My Name, the crowd sings. 

And it’s then, I know what love is. 

Et In Arcadia Ego:

Despite current circumstances, I start the day in the normal fashion: prayers and shares.  The caveat to that however; is that they don’t necessarily have to take place in that order.  I utter a momentary blessing, however as I look through my current portfolios on the tablet (oh, the irony).  Post Brexit, they are all performing well.  I had both the foresight and wisdom to invest in a mixed portfolio (military industrial, biofuels, private security).  Jesus be praised, they are thriving.  I feel slightly sullied, but Aurum Omnes Victa Jam Pietate Colunt (‘All men worship gold, all other types of reverence being done away’). 

Alas, the same cannot be said of my career as a Father.  Assumpta took both The Bentley and Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus, Quintus and Sextus a few days ago.  I have heard nothing since.  I am still in bed when Nanny brings me breakfast.  She enquires on the last instance of me changing my nightgown and I say I will do it tomorrow.  She tells me to do it now.  I say I will be busy today.  She tells me to do it now.  Somehow, she is the only female I have been scared of.  Even though; I have both the skill and foresight to look after myself. Grimes House, with its fine grounds overlooking the glorious English countryside is now part of my soul.

I met a member of the family recently.  Splendid chap.  He recently sold his funeral business in Liverpool.  Although thriving through suicide and starvation, he felt he needed a change of direction.  Which is understandable, really. The art of business is knowing when to cut one’s losses.  Sometimes, the soul needs refreshing.  

After a long bath, with a good book on medieval history (I have yet to read a bad one) I am dressed like a mere rapscallion.  A pair of overalls I use for gardening, I push the wheelbarrow across the grounds towards the fence.  The flower beds will need tending. A gardener’s work never ends, even in late Autumn. 

It’s then, I notice the hole in the fence.  Slightly bigger: than to allow a small mammal access, but not big enough to allow one of the local yahoos in my property.  It has happened, I know this.  I was advised, shortly after All Souls Day to check my security.  I will speak to Mr Kelly, the loutish Celt who handles the odd jobs around the grounds.  His mobile, the one he accepted from me with a grunt; appears to be inactive. Today will involve pruning roses, Mr Kelly was supposed to have started a bonfire this morning.  Where is he?  If he is incapable of work, then he should indicate this to me, the man has both the means and initiative to do so. He should be aware I am providing him with gainful employment at a time of national emergency. 

It’s on the way back; I find Mr Kelly’s body.  What remains of it, at least?  He has been ravaged, torn to shreds and only the parts of him that were left behind are across the South lawn.  There are reports in some parts of the country (Liverpool and Manchester mainly, small pockets in Glasgow) of cannibals; such as that which occurred during the great famine on 1315-17.  Whilst I tend not to believe it; I believe I may have found some established evidence here.  I make a call on my Smartphone to the local constabulary.  A recorded message tells me my call is being re-routed through to the CPA.  What is the CPA? My friends in Westminster - of which there are, many – never informed me of such a development.   

I am on hold, and told I am currently sixth in the queue when I hear the woman’s screams.  It takes a mere second to process that it is Nanny. Disposing of Mr Kelly’s body will have to wait for another time.  Nanny (I have never discovered, nor need to know her real name) is being chased across the West Lawn.  By what, I am not sure I have neither both the skills or knowledge to understand what.  They appear to be human snakes. 

Yes, human snakes that would describe them. Naked as new born babies, hundreds of them slithering across the lawn.  Growling and snarling like dogs.  Nanny stumbles and they are on her in instant.  The noise is horrifying, her screams mixed in with the tearing and ripping of flesh. 

There is a moment of silence.  One – which appears to be female – rears its head and sees me. It snarls and the rest of them snarl in response.   I am running towards the door and bolting it, double bolting and placing an old bookcase against it before I can settle. 

What the Dickens is going on?  Who are these people? I pull the phone from my pocket.  I’m still on hold and told that lots of people are calling us today and your call is very important to us.  I’m still on hold and SIXTH in the queue. I throw the phone on the table and formulate plans.  All ground floor doors and windows are barred and shuttered.  I’m opening the gun cabinet and loading an antique Purdey.  I place a box of cartridges in my breast pocket. I won’t fire till I physically see one.  Firing at the widows merely increases the chances of them gaining entry. 

There is a banging somewhere. Slow, insistent banging.  Which is coming from The House Of Office on the ground floor?  They are coming though the drains.  I hear something, wet, hungry and inhuman slithering across the bathroom floor.  I edge towards the door, with no military training.  However, I have the breeding of an English gentleman. 

The door is edged open, by something from Hell.  I fire.  Its remains are splattered against the wall.  I’m reloading for another shot, when I see one and then another and another.  There is another line coming from the study.  A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi (‘A precipice in front, wolves behind’. At this point, I urinate myself.  It’s something that I’ve not done since Eton, When a future Prime Minister, used to bully me.  I am surely dead and offer a silent prayer to my creator. I place the shotgun in the bath.

It’s then, I notice instead of swarming all over me. They are bowing down, these agents of Satan.  Slurring something, an phrase of introduction, a chant: ‘We… are…The Starving…’

‘Please to make your acquaintance.  My name is-‘

‘Your name is not important; Oh King Of Chaos’ says the one nearest me. It’s the lady snake from earlier. ‘Be silent’.

‘No need to be so rude’.

‘SILENCE!’ the cove screams and comes near me, like a cobra.  Dear god, the smell from its breath, reminiscent of Stinker Johnson, in the lower house. 

‘You created pain, misery and death.  You profited from this.  You are already a dead men.  We would eat your soul, if it existed.  We will settle for your flesh.  When you die, you will be a painful, hated memory in the hearts of humanity.  Your death will be a grain of sand on a beach. There will be no Heaven, no hell.  Only death’.

‘Isn’t this a bit Biblical?’

‘No Heaven, no Hell.  You were already told’.

‘How about if I offer forgiveness?’

‘A pointless exercise.  Already, your ‘friends’ (it spits this word at me, small globules of spit hit my face and burn like bleach) are facing show trials and the bloody hands of executioners.  Your death will be quick, clean and tasty’.  It laughs at this point, like a second hand car turning its engine over and over. 

It’s in my last moments, as my flesh is torn to ribbons and burned by that acid like spittle, that I realise I have taken the wrong path.  I have been a hypocrite, I conclude as my head is ripped from my body and thrown in the direction of the study.  As they eat through the layers of skin and feast on my organs I realise the motto of my old schoolmaster Et In Arcadia, Ego. (Even in Arcadia, Here I Am).  As my little life begins to blinks out of existence, neither rising or descending; I realise its grim meaning: death is inevitable, be it temporal or spiritual.

There is a small, last moment of pleasure, as the lady monster performs a service Assumpta refused to provide on several occasions.  Not quite this roughly, however. 

I’d like my last words to have been eloquent.  But: I feel nothing, absolutely nothing. I feel the weight of eternity, pressing down.

Oh. Bugger.