Arriving at a Thought

I am being chased by an impatient fire-place. The impatient fire-place wants to explain to me why pink is not my colour but has so far been unable to do so. The impatient fire-place only speaks aboriginal sign-language and my aboriginal sign-language is, at best, non-existent. I try and explain this to the impatient fire-place but find it difficult to talk as I am breathless from giving a piggyback to a rhinoceros. The rhinoceros is in a huff about people spelling his name incorrectly.

            “How bloody difficult can it be to remember that it’s ‘rhino’ plus ‘ceros’?”

            “You should try being a rhododendron with diarrhoea,” I say.

            The rhinoceros has no reply to this. Instead, he starts communicating in Spanish semaphore with the impatient fire-place. The fire-place throws embers at the rhinoceros. The embers burn into the thick skin of the rhinoceros. Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, today’s amazingly accurate horoscope bursts forth from inside the rhinoceros’s skin. I read the horoscope with interest.

            Taurus – Beware the inaccurate spelling of rhinoceros. A fire-place will offer unwanted advice. You will walk into a brick wall whilst reading a horoscope.

            The wall shouts “Viva Espana!” as I walk into it. It collapses.

            Beyond the wall is the county of Cornwall. The county of Cornwall is chatting up a moustache. The moustache is attached to the most beautiful lady in the world and the most beautiful lady in the world is having none of it. She is not interested in the unwarranted advances of the county of Cornwall. She prefers to comb her moustache and sing lullabies to her late, lamented, lost love, who is secretly hiding.

            I see none of this as I have been knocked out whilst simultaneously walking into a wall and reading my horoscope.

           

When I wake up, I am in space looking down at the Earth. The word Whoops has been graffitied onto it although, there’s no exclamation mark. This infuriates me, as I find that I have become tediously pedantic. A transistor radio is playing a tinny version of a Beatles’ song: “And I Love Her”. I climb inside the transistor radio. It is dark. I light a match. The Beatles are playing “And I Love Her” in the Shea Stadium inside the transistor radio. The Shea Stadium is empty apart from me. The Beatles finish playing “And I Love Her” and I clap.

            I am too surprised to ask them to play another tune and the match burns the tip of my finger as it goes out. I light another one and see Cornwall sitting listening dejectedly to a transistor radio. He looks up and sees me. “How’s the head?” he asks.

            I find that I can only reply in Spanish semaphore. Cornwall converses with me fluently in Spanish semaphore about the parlous state of his existence.

            “Become a Beatle,” I sign, and Cornwall puts his thumbs up a la Paul McCartney and starts singing “Mull of Kintyre”. Instead of bagpipes, he plays a glockenspiel solo. I am so moved that I jump into the sea to swim.

            I start to drown, as it turns out that I have forgotten how to swim.

            The sea tastes of hot chocolate, and as I lose consciousness, a thought goes through my head. This bothers me. My dying thought, and I do not know what it is.

            A rhinoceros takes me up to heaven. “Are you sure?” I ask.

            “No,” it replies. “I am your last thought.”