They didn’t tarry long at the café as Cleb, who now insisted on calling himself “Clebatra”, was pouting his orange lips and fluttering his winsome eyelashes at the proprietor who’d consequently developed a dangerously lascivious leer. Chiding the proprietor and refusing to pay him on the grounds of lechery, TP dragged Clebatra pennilessly away for them to concentrate on their long and futile journey. TP was feeling peckish, thanks to Cleb’s snack-foiling antics at the café, so was forced to improvise by knocking up a string of sausages out of the intestine still hanging round Cleb’s neck, together with some unidentifiable meaty mush he’d found by the roadside. They were soon tucking into barbecued mystery bangers on sticks. After the meal, TP broke wind loudly to express satisfaction and was surprised to hear a telepathic message emanating from the stone he was sitting on: ‘Do you mind? If you must park your hairy behind on me, at least have the decency to observe rudimentary decorum.’ TP leapt up and telepathically apologised profusely to the stone. He’d heard of these communicating lumps of hardness which had somehow managed to evolve intelligence, simply by being around for a very long time. There were a mere handful of them known to exist so TP counted himself lucky to have come across one. This particular stone, not having had an awful lot else to do, had been contemplating the mysteries of the Universe for at least 2 billion years. TP and he discussed anti-matter, event horizons, and females in some detail until TP could hold back no longer and asked: ‘So, Professor Quickpins, what, in your opinion, is the meaning of it all?’ ‘Ah..,’ said the stone, ‘everyone asks that…tell me…what shape is Earth?’ ‘Round, I suppose.’ ‘And the Sun?’ ‘Spherical, round?’ ‘Every star, planet and moon in the Multi-verse?’ ‘Well, they’re mostly spheres…apart from the rhomboidly-shaped second moon orbiting the planet Trigon.’ ‘And, finally…what shape are Leatherback turtles’ eggs?’ ‘Round?’ ‘There’s your answer then…the sum total of all existence is: A load of balls.’ ‘Oh, OK…Right. Got it. That’s quite profound,’ said TP, frowning above his rounded eyeball. ‘Well, that about concludes our conversation, wouldn’t you say?’ said Quickpins, stonily. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than sit around chatting. Oh, before you leave, would you mind picking me up and placing me on the other side of the track? This view’s starting to get a little tedious now and that cute lump of limestone opposite has been giving me the come on for millennia.’ Generously, the heavy-paw-handed catanoid obligingly picked up Quickpins and dropped him on the other side of the track, accidentally crushing the shameless limestone bint to a fine white powder. Choosing another stone which wouldn’t protest so much at his sittingdownness, TP sat and gazed at the sky, contemplating Quickpins’s insights. One of the Department of Health and De-population’s shuttleplanes was flying overhead…that usually meant trouble. Seemingly, TP’s meddling in the time-machine hadn’t prevented Parliament from carrying on its business as usual. To save costs on doctors, the DHD ran a policy of general drug distribution, whereby, whenever there was an outbreak of a particular ailment, be it foot-rot, honesty, benevolence, loss of temperament or anything else, the medication was sprayed directly above the area, readily being breathed in by everybody and everything. Not mad keen on inhaling unwanted pharmaceuticals, TP waged a constant battle against these “Doctor Shuttleplanes”, bringing them to ground whenever he could. He thought he’d best nip up and see what they were up to. Concerned that Cleb would stray whilst he shot off into the sky, TP handed him a large test-tubeful of nitro-glycerine and instructed him not to move a muscle until he got back.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 16:35:43 +0000