Sunday, August 21, 2005

Spoil 1.48

I was level with a lawnmower contraption when a shaggy giant in groundman's overalls rose from the Earth like Ye Greene Knycht. He was removing the remains of a hedgehog from its blades with his bloody hands. 'Off somewhere?'
'You bet I am! To the land of the living.' I strode on. Leaves turned to soil beneath my feet. Thus it is, trees eat themselves. I was disorientated to discover how the drive wound back to the dining-room annexe. I had taken a bad turn. The Undead of Aurora House watched me through the wall of glass. 'Soylent Green is people!' I mocked their hollow stares, 'Soylent Green is made of people!' They looked puzzled - I am, alas, the Last of my Tribe. One of the wrinklies tapped on the window and pointed behind me. I turned and the ogre slung me over his shoulder. My breath was squeezed out with his every stride. He stank of fertilizer. 'I've better things to do than this...'
'Then go and do them!' I struggled in vain to get him in a neck-lock, but I don't think he even noticed. So I used my superior powers of language to chain the villain: 'You cruddy ruddy rugger-bugger yob! This is GBH! This is illegal confinement!'
He bear-hugged me several degrees tighter to silence me, and I am afraid I bit his ear. A strategic mistake. In one powerful yank my trousers were pulled from my waist - was he going to bugger me?
D. Mitchell, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, 179


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