02 May 2000

Into the Woods


We, my Canadian friends Len and Kev and I, were all three of us out in a sparsely-wooded area, the ground covered in bare dirt and fallen leaves, the trees thin, spindly, yet bearing foliage to shade the area, their trunks no wider than my leg. There was a track through these quasi-woods, wide, covered in mulch, along which we were travelling. It forked, and we were to take this fork. At the branching, there was a police car, driving around in a tiny circle. Over its loudspeaker it was issuing a toad warning. A toad had been sighted in the area, so we were all to beware. I believe the fear was that toads all secrete mind-altering chemicals from their backs, so if we were to have our tongues out for some innocent purpose, say, a toad could hurl itself at our mouths and alter our neurochemistry before you could say Jack Spratt. Len, Kev and I paid little heed to this toad warning, but proceeded on our way, searching for two gentlemen, Bobo and The Gum...We wound up in the heart of a metropolis, standing between parallel-parked cars on a street lined with office blocks and skyscrapers, very grey and lifeless, colourless even, when Kev became unwell. We had to get him to the Boys' Hospital where he was being treated; there I reported his condition to the doctors in the reception area, and they said they'd take care of him in a jiffy, bundling him off into a back room. I had my suspicions about those doctors, though, because of the way they were taking their trousers down. Why, I don't believe they were doctors at all, but fiends bent on Kev's molestation! Len and I were going to break down the door and mount a daring rescue when I awoke.

I can't be sure about this, but I do believe that at one point in the woods Kev bore a striking resemblance to H.P.Lovecraft...