titania's dream

The meal was exquisite. The salmon had been a good choice; it was light and flaky and melted in the mouth. And the tender salad leaves had come fresh from the garden. The guests were impressed, she could see, and she smiled a satisfied smile. As she carried in the tray of individual chocolate mousses, garnished with glistening mint leaves, she looked up and glanced at Esmeralda. The smile froze on her face. She had just remembered that Esmeralda always, when presented with a chocolate dessert, turned the topic of conversation round to her bowel movements.

It was a glorious day for September. Light fluffy clouds drifted across the wide blue sky and the gulls swooped gracefully over the sea. Sylvia stepped out with a light step and a sunny smile. A smile of anticipated pleasure. A nice herring for tea. Sylvia liked a nice herring. She set out boldly and confidently along the sea front towards the fishmongers but the pavement was full of mischief and tumbled her, hurting her shoulder. She went back to the house and told her sister all about it. Her sister listened with concern; they were neither of them young. ‘Did you get the herring?’ she said.

Arthur placed the bone china cup of afternoon tea on the rosewood table. A fine patina of dust lit by the setting sun as it fell through the window made him tut quietly to himself. Another job for tomorrow. He reached gently across to pat his wife’s hand. He had learnt to be more careful when doing this since her finger had fallen off.

Alicia carried the bottle of lemonade through to the kitchen. She placed it next to the bottle of lemonade that had been delivered the week before. As she straightened up she realised that very soon it would be necessary to have another shelf for them. There were two dozen bottles now on this shelf alone. She didn’t like lemonade but didn’t like to tell the milkman to stop delivering.

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.