Five easels stood around roughly in a circle. The thin watery sunlight angled through the windows of the studio and played merrily with the shadows on the floor. Irina stood back from her easel and looked at the paper with a critical eye. She frowned perplexedly and put a charcoal-black fingerprint on her face. That second nipple just was not right.

Fortescue closed the pantry again. He had forgotten that he had placed the heads in there. It was a mistake to open it in the first place and now that they were giving off an unpleasant odour he decided to apply the key to the lock.

A flimsy bit of plastic ribbon fluttered in the breeze, unrestrained. The barriers erected around the hole overnight had been moved in preparation for work. The workmen were preparing for work by having a brew and brief discussion on the Turner exhibit. Peregrine, hurrying along as usual, suddenly found himself descending, like Alice in Wonderland, into a rather deep dark pit. It was not very deep but above his head height by a couple of feet. It was not very wide either, about person-sized, as though it had been dug specifically for perpendicular burial. Perhaps it had he thought. Could it be that people were being buried under the roads and pavements to save space? He felt a warm oozy feeling on his head and a tingling, stinging sensation above his eye. He put up his hand to his touch the place and felt the sticky trickle of blood. He hated blood. He had been in the hole several minutes, stunned by this sudden departure from the norm, before he thought about the getting-out-again procedure. He looked up expecting to see concerned faces preparing to rescue him but all he saw was a patch of blue sky.

The guests were beginning to arrive and were still at that awkward small talk stage. Bernard stood behind the buffet table and carefully placed his penis amongst the sausage rolls. Garnished with a little parsley it looked rather good, he thought. And satisfied with the arrangement he looked up and smiled with expectation.

The reflection in the mirror looked back at Minerva with the same half-admiring half-critical gaze she wore herself. The make-up was suitably invisible and worth the expense. She turned and whipped the curling tongs out of her handbag irritated by a slight imbalance in the bob. Dead straight hair was a curse. It was a handful of minutes before she was completely satisfied. ‘Yes’ she thought and a slight almost imperceptible nod. An almost-smile. One more thing before perfection. She slightly raised one buttock and let out a tiny and very ladylike ‘peep’. Now she was ready.

The small boy happily spun the new toy in his hands. He was absorbed by the little glassy ball that winked up at him. Gregor looked up with one eye and was just in time to see his other eye go spinning into the air, turn a few times and then plummet back to the floor. He was beginning to doubt the wisdom of allowing his son to play with his eye, as it rolled inevitably under the piano – again.

Fluffy catkins covered the small tree and they trembled in the slightest of breezes. Margery sat on the fence. It was deliciously uncomfortable as it was one of those spiky wooden ones.

Electra sat at the bottom of the stairs gazing up at Mary with the ‘pleading-for-breakfast’ eyes. It was odd that Electra was down stairs at all in fact and didn’t bode well. Mary came haltingly down the stairs fully expecting to find a chewed and bloody present somewhere on the route to the kitchen. And there it was…a grungy squished mouse, which Electra walked past without a second sniff. Mary sighed and reached for the kitchen roll and tearing off two sheets of it carefully scooped up the cold little corpse and pushed it into the rubbish bin. Electra was not impressed with having to wait a moment longer than necessary for her breakfast which this morning was a delicious gourmet meal of minced goose in a tin tray.

Florence sat on the edge of the bed, she was bare. She was smiling as she coated her lips with chocolate flavour. Then rolling over to her roly-poly friend she planted a big chocolate kiss and said 'what do I taste like'.
'That's an easy one' he said 'chocolate!'
Florence reached down and took in hand the smallest bag of nuts she had ever fondled and the real smile slipped from behind the smile that still sprawled itself across her face.
'Oh dear' she thought..........