Listing

It’s 6.50 am, and the wasps at the window are still here.

They arrive at my drawing room (so called as it’s the room I commit art in) window at 5 am on the button, half a dozen of the bestriped buggers. If there are any vespulaphiles reading this, perhaps they could enlighten me as to why I am visited by this microswarm every night/morning. Gasp! Maybe they're angels! That has to be it! They’re my comic book angels, dispatched by Jesus Himself via waspapult to my domicile to watch over me and my sequential storytelling ways. I shall rue the day the stripey seraphin cease visiting me, and my artwork plummets ever-further from acceptable.

Left the house today. Wasn’t going to, but my doting progenitors drifted up towards Dublin, where I’m currently stationed, on their way to swinger’s haven, Malta. (Dad had a new keychain made specially.) As a result, I went to meet them for a meal, and we retired back to my sister’s squat. She lives in an area o Dublin called Smithfield, and my sidekick, Whittle, had an experience there on Friday night, where she was mistaken by a kerb-crawler for a frisky biscuit. She was shocked and appalled, as those days are long behind her.

But this story sparked off another tale from my younger brother, the Egg-Child. Egg was returning home to his apartment complex from…I’m not sure where. I’m wont to say badger-baiting, or breezeblock-dropping. Either way, he was heading home with the spoils of war clutched in his clammy claws; two cans of Dutch Gold.

(Dutch Gold is the drink of those who have given up, or have been given up on. Egg lives on the shit.)

As he winded his way toward home, he was hailed by a chap in the courtyard of the complex, who urged Egg to part with one of his cans. Egg scoffed loudly in the gent’s face, and urged him to make him an offer. The stranger fisked himself for some cash, but only had a twenty on him. Egg decided that was a fair price for one can. The thirsty man explained that the twenty was all he had on him, as he’d just spent a bundle on a prostitute.

Egg’s eyes widened. “A hoor? Where?!”

“In one of the apartments back there.” The chap gestured in the direction he’d come from. Egg’s apartment complex. There were hookers plying their trade right under The Ovoid’s brittle shell nose. Egg was astounded.

The man pressed on: “Yeah, I’m about to get into a serious relationship, with all the commitment and stuff. And I freaked out. Me head was all messed up. So I went out, got hammered, bought a big bottle of whisky and came down here to visit a prostitute.”

Egg raised his eyebrows, equal parts surprised and impressed.

“After all that though,” the man looked at the ground, “I couldn’t even get it up.”

Egg handed him one can of Dutch Gold.
And walked on.


You’ve Been Nicked.