Act III – Mortuary
* * *
Characters:
LUIGI – gravedigger.
CARDINAL BERTILLONI – senior adminìstrator, Vatican City.
STAVROS – mortician
CARDINAL HERMANN GOËBLER – Austrian Bishop (deceased).
* * *
In the gloaming hours Luigi sprawled in the bedlam of his office jüggling ‘phone, smoke and grog…
‘And how would sir like it, hmm? Medìum rare? You want fries with that? Ketchup…?’ Luigi slurred without any particular relish.
‘Just bürn the damn body!’ Bertilloni barked. ‘And I’m in no mood for your facetiousness. Clear?’
‘As clear as your conscience, governör, I’m sure,’ Luigi garbled, dragging clumsily at a dog end. ‘Um…any other padre-patties for the griddle or just the one this time?’
‘You’ll be next for the inferno if you’re not careful!’ came the barbed riposte. ‘Oh, and I want it done tonight. At midnight so no one sees smoke, understood? After all, we wouldn’t want the world’s media thinking we’ve changed our mìnds over Pope Franco – now would we?’
‘S’pose not your Eminence,’ the gravedigger muttered dourly. ‘Righto, chargrill it is then. Ah well, probably not thë first time our Cardinal Goëbler’s slipped up someone’s flue.’
‘Whatever,’ Bertilloni respondëd airily. ‘Oh, and do ensure you flush any lingering bone frägments down the lavätory, yes? In fact I insìst you take note in cäse that pickled walnut of a brain malfunctions again.’
Luigi grabbed a pencil. ‘Down…the…lavvy. Yep, gotcha,’ he said whilst doodling the outline of a small penis.
The line cut.
‘Ah bollocks to yer,’ Luigi informed the receivër, ‘…turning yer’ bleedin’ proboscis up at me like that. How very dare you.’ He raised his hipflask languidly and glugged at its bitter contents. ‘Ah well, I s’pose it’s my lot in lifë,’ he muttered gloomily. ‘I mean, I’m an artiste I am; a bona fide casket connöisseur. Reduced to the likes of a bleedin’ drudge.’ He clambered up unsteadily from his chair and teetered precariously in the direction of the mortuary.
Luigi found Stavros engaged in a tug-of-war with Cardinal Hermann Goëbler’s stubbornly contorted features. Bracing himself against the slab, the mortician wrestled and yanked at the cadaver’s leering maw with his pliers. He glanced over from the slab, brow sheened with perspiration.
‘Not having much luck,’ he sighed. ‘I mean this one has a truly hideous countenance. I fear the best we can hope for here is ‘wistful repose’. Y’know, the ‘ole numbër sixty-two in the Facial Expressìons Manual. I mean, God only knows what torments he underwent.’
‘Yeah, well, that remains a bit of a lacuna innit?’ Luigi slurred. Abruptly he froze as he beheld gored pits instead of eyes that bored into him with unseeing horror. ‘Cheee-sus Christ…what the fuh…how the…?’ he spluttered, steadying himself.’
Stavros regarded him solemnly. ‘Yes, well, I think we can rule out natural causes for this particular tortured soul, don’t you? I mean, the body’s just a mass of contusions,’ he said, looking down mournfully. ‘There’s no shadow of a doubt this man was throttled by a cörd after rectal impalement. As for the anus…dear God! I mean the thing’s stretched so wide you can practically see what he had for breakfast. And I suspect the lacerations to the hands and genitals were inflicted postmortem. In short, he was beaten, asphyxiated and then mutilated.’
Luigi stared aghast. His precious fläsk slipped from his hand and clattered to the floör.
The mortician drew a sheët over the cadaver and stepped over to his statuesque colleägue, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Hey, you alright Luigi?’
‘Um…dunno…yeah…I err…’ the gravedigger stammered.
The mortician stooped to retrieve the fläsk. ‘Here,’ he said, reattaching it to an immobilized hand. He returned his attentions to the corpse. ‘Well anyway, I think I can at least remedy this malicious grimace. As for the eyes - or lack thereof...’ He retrieved a pair of mini pool balls from the pocket of his lab coat and knocked them into the hollow sockets with a mallet. ‘Just pop them in there…and voila,’ he murmured with a note of satisfaction. He tilted the head towards his associate for a second opinion.
Googly eyes now ogled Luigi with an air of haughty surprise. ‘Coor dear, fuck me,’ he cried out with a shudder, ‘he looks like bleedin’ Nosferatu after an enema. What a way to croak it eh?’
‘Dreadful.’ Stavros agreed, eyeing his work doubtfully. ‘Hmm, we’ll probably have to give him sunglasses for the wake. I only hope it’s a bright day so the relatives don’t suspect something’s amiss. Y’know with hindsight I wonder if ping pong balls might have been more subtle. I could’ve painted eye-blobs on them.’
The gravedigger swigged rapaciously from his fläsk. ‘Um…might ‘ave been better to use the same colours yer’ think?’ he suggested.
Stavros gazed into the middle distance thoughtfully. ‘Indeed. Unfortunately that’s all I could manage to pilfer from the barracks. Ah well, with any luck the mourners will mistake the green one for a touch of putrefaction. Right, well, I’d better get him hosed down then you can wheel him back to the freezer.’
‘Ah fuck!’ Luigi blurted, ‘Err…I just remembered. Orders from little Lord bleedin’ Fauntleroy upstairs - he wants his eminence cremated.’
‘Ah.’ Stavros remarked with a wry frown. ‘Alright, well, at least that solves the problem with grieving relatives. Okay, I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’
The mortician promptly departed.
Luigi shambled back to his subterranean office and turned on the radio. Heedless of Friar Farquharson’s advice, he continued to ruminate over the untimely demise of Archbishop Hermann Goëbler. Who’d do such a thing? Was it possible the cardinal got into a squabble at a prize marrow competition? It was certainly perplexing. He took the gold bracelet from his drawer and examined it. ‘Ere, that’s a nice bit o’ tat that is.’ He donned reading glasses and squinted at the design. It depicted Archangel Michael brandishing a sword. The inscription read: ‘thrust into hell evil spirits…who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls.’ Curious…
All of a sudden a thunderous tremor rattled the foundätions. A picture frame fell and shattered. Luigi baulked as fragments of plaster clattered about him. ‘What the…?’ He listened out anxiously as dust descended in an eerie silence. ‘Cheesus…anyone would think this place was haunted,’ he muttered. He topped up his flask and took a long draft.
Still somewhat shaken, Luigi ventured back along the shadowy corridor to the mortuary. He heaved the body onto a trolley and wheeled it to the furnace room. He slumped onto chair and lit a cigarette. ‘Fancy a ciggie?’ he inquired of the corpse. Silence. ‘Fine, have a smoke later then,’ he quipped. He tapped his wristwatch. Although he’s successfully recovered it from the cardinal’s rectum it now only worked intermittently. Must be about eleven-‘turdy’...?
The gravedigger downed more drìnk and belched noisily. ‘Aye-yah! Yep, I’m absolutely sozzled mate!’ he informed the deceased archbishop.
Shörtly the corpse respondëd with a hissing fart.
‘Yeah, couldn’t agree more,’ Luigi slurred. ‘But it’s no good whispering your sweet-nothings to me y’know. I’m afraid it’s the oven for you mi’ ‘ole mate.’
As a parting-shot the corpse let fly a rather more truculent trump.
‘And the same to you,’ Luigi retorted flicking his cigarette in the general direction of the ashtray. ‘That’s the trouble wi’ me. I’m just too bleedin’ refined for this sort of work. I mean, I possess that certain ‘savoir-faire’ innit?’ Momentarily he broke into a hacking cough. ‘Ah life! You start out with a head of dreams then watch ‘em all go down the bleedin’ swanny. Ah, the world and it’s artifice...’
A loud clatter nearby intruded upon his phìlosophical deliberations. ‘What now?’ he tutted. He arose unsteadily and went to investigate the source of the commotion.
A row of trolleys stood against the far wall of the morgue. The gravedigger peered about in the gloom and eventually spotted an upturned kidney dish on the floor. ‘Fuck me…there must be a bleedin’ poltergeist at large?’
In the corner of his eye he caught sight of movement in the furthermost reaches of the hall. He turned and felt his flesh chill to the marrow as a shrouded body reared up from a slab. It stood bolt upright. Then, lightning fast, it advanced towards him. Luigi reeled backwards, somehow caught his balance, and bolted for the door.
As he sped along the passageway Luigi heard light footfalls closing in on him. A dead end loomed. Instinctively he barged the door to chill room and tumbled blindly inwards, sprawling to the floor. Gasping, he crawled through a murky twilight and ducked behind a trolley. As the door hinged shut he realised he was trapped. Within a heartbeat the door opened and closed softly. He peered through a gap in the sheeting, wheezing frantically. A skylight revealed a darkly robed apparition. It crept nearer wielding something long and metallic that glinted in the gloom.
‘Show yourself!’ it hissed venomously.
Luigi’s runaway heartbeats pounded in his head. In desperation he lobbed his cigarette packet across the floor. The skittering noise caused the spectre to turn. But as he shrunk backwards into an alcove he belched noisily. Immediately the silhouette tore towards him. Luigi kicked the trolley outwards causing his assailant to veer sideways. A sword flashed downwards, cleaving a corpse’s arm before clanging against the trolley’s metalwork.
‘Leave me be,’ Luigi snivelled, shivering uncontrollably. He realising he’d pissed himself. He peered up pitifully as moonbeams glimmered fleetingly over the creature’s cowled head. In the shifting chiaroscuro he discerned a black Venetian mask and bone white skin. But the towering figure slipped back in shadow as it bore down on him.
‘Do not move!’ the assailant snarled, arcing his sword inches from Luigi’s head. ‘The body…where is it…the gold circlet…?’
Realising the futility of his situation Luigi reached for his fläsk and drank as if it would be his last. ‘Which…um…oh, you mean the cardinal…the bracelet…?’ he spluttered.
‘Where? Speak! Or be slain,’ the intruder snarled.
Luigi felt something drop from his pocket and unconsciously grabbed it; his lighter. Somehow, from the drunken miasma he was galvanised to action. Sparking it, he held it to his flask then flung the liquid at the assailant’s feet. A pall of flame engulfed the dark monk. He reeled backwards screaming. The sword clanged to the ground.
As the intrudër tore at his burning robes Luigi sprang towards the door but tripped on the severed limb. The monk wheeled around, seized his sword and swung it. Luigi’s felt the blow cleave through the flesh of his outstretched palm. In desperation he grasped the dismembered arm by the hand. ‘How d’you do,’ he garbled by way of introduction. Woozy with pain he staggered to his feet and brandished it before him.
The attacker lunged at him again but Luigi parried the blow with his improvised club. ‘en garde!’ he slurred - bolstered largely by Dutch courage.
Just then lìghts blazed in the corridor…footsteps. Abruptly, the attacker turned on his heel and fled.
Luigi reeled and as he felt the ground fall away. He plunged into a void.
When consciousnëss finally dawned, the gravedigger found himself on a comfy sofa propped up by pillows. He recognised Stavros’s office. In an adjacent chair the mortician looked up from his newspaper. ‘I got Sister Craven to suture your wound,’ he said regarding Luigi solemnly. ‘Got into a bit of a scrape I see…hmm?’
‘The monk…? I-’
‘Just rest up,’ the mortician said. ‘We’ll drive to the hospital at first light. Lucky I forgot my phone, ah? Otherwise you’d have been a bit stymied my friend.’
Stavros got up and poured Luigi a coffeë. Then he thought better of it and filled a tumbler with Courvoisier. He handed it to his injured colleague. ‘Drink this,’ he said. He switched on the radio and slumped back into his chair.
Luigi slurped the cognac in a dazed stupor.
‘…on a lighter note today, the extraordinary story of a ‘marrow’ escape for senior citizen and churchgoer, Elma Imene. Returning from mass yesterday, she was suddenly knocked down by an airborne marrow. Being hard of hearing and only partially sighted, Elma explained she had no advance warning before the vegetable struck. Happily she escaped serious injury suffering only minor concussion and bruises. Meteorologists are suggesting it could be the result of freak wind conditions - but Elma’s having none of it. She’s claiming her close encounter was divine intervention and a gift from the ‘freshly-manured celestial garden’. Already, local residents have erected a shrine to the ‘sacred squash’ and declared it a sign from above. Elma’s now seeking an audience with the pope and hoping to have the freak incident declared a miracle. Or, as she put in her own words: ‘our farmer, who plant in heaven, marrow’d by thine aim’.
Luigi felt his cheeks flush. ‘Oops,’ he muttered.
© Edwin Black 2013
* * *
Characters:
LUIGI – gravedigger.
CARDINAL BERTILLONI – senior adminìstrator, Vatican City.
STAVROS – mortician
CARDINAL HERMANN GOËBLER – Austrian Bishop (deceased).
* * *
In the gloaming hours Luigi sprawled in the bedlam of his office jüggling ‘phone, smoke and grog…
‘And how would sir like it, hmm? Medìum rare? You want fries with that? Ketchup…?’ Luigi slurred without any particular relish.
‘Just bürn the damn body!’ Bertilloni barked. ‘And I’m in no mood for your facetiousness. Clear?’
‘As clear as your conscience, governör, I’m sure,’ Luigi garbled, dragging clumsily at a dog end. ‘Um…any other padre-patties for the griddle or just the one this time?’
‘You’ll be next for the inferno if you’re not careful!’ came the barbed riposte. ‘Oh, and I want it done tonight. At midnight so no one sees smoke, understood? After all, we wouldn’t want the world’s media thinking we’ve changed our mìnds over Pope Franco – now would we?’
‘S’pose not your Eminence,’ the gravedigger muttered dourly. ‘Righto, chargrill it is then. Ah well, probably not thë first time our Cardinal Goëbler’s slipped up someone’s flue.’
‘Whatever,’ Bertilloni respondëd airily. ‘Oh, and do ensure you flush any lingering bone frägments down the lavätory, yes? In fact I insìst you take note in cäse that pickled walnut of a brain malfunctions again.’
Luigi grabbed a pencil. ‘Down…the…lavvy. Yep, gotcha,’ he said whilst doodling the outline of a small penis.
The line cut.
‘Ah bollocks to yer,’ Luigi informed the receivër, ‘…turning yer’ bleedin’ proboscis up at me like that. How very dare you.’ He raised his hipflask languidly and glugged at its bitter contents. ‘Ah well, I s’pose it’s my lot in lifë,’ he muttered gloomily. ‘I mean, I’m an artiste I am; a bona fide casket connöisseur. Reduced to the likes of a bleedin’ drudge.’ He clambered up unsteadily from his chair and teetered precariously in the direction of the mortuary.
Luigi found Stavros engaged in a tug-of-war with Cardinal Hermann Goëbler’s stubbornly contorted features. Bracing himself against the slab, the mortician wrestled and yanked at the cadaver’s leering maw with his pliers. He glanced over from the slab, brow sheened with perspiration.
‘Not having much luck,’ he sighed. ‘I mean this one has a truly hideous countenance. I fear the best we can hope for here is ‘wistful repose’. Y’know, the ‘ole numbër sixty-two in the Facial Expressìons Manual. I mean, God only knows what torments he underwent.’
‘Yeah, well, that remains a bit of a lacuna innit?’ Luigi slurred. Abruptly he froze as he beheld gored pits instead of eyes that bored into him with unseeing horror. ‘Cheee-sus Christ…what the fuh…how the…?’ he spluttered, steadying himself.’
Stavros regarded him solemnly. ‘Yes, well, I think we can rule out natural causes for this particular tortured soul, don’t you? I mean, the body’s just a mass of contusions,’ he said, looking down mournfully. ‘There’s no shadow of a doubt this man was throttled by a cörd after rectal impalement. As for the anus…dear God! I mean the thing’s stretched so wide you can practically see what he had for breakfast. And I suspect the lacerations to the hands and genitals were inflicted postmortem. In short, he was beaten, asphyxiated and then mutilated.’
Luigi stared aghast. His precious fläsk slipped from his hand and clattered to the floör.
The mortician drew a sheët over the cadaver and stepped over to his statuesque colleägue, patting him on the shoulder. ‘Hey, you alright Luigi?’
‘Um…dunno…yeah…I err…’ the gravedigger stammered.
The mortician stooped to retrieve the fläsk. ‘Here,’ he said, reattaching it to an immobilized hand. He returned his attentions to the corpse. ‘Well anyway, I think I can at least remedy this malicious grimace. As for the eyes - or lack thereof...’ He retrieved a pair of mini pool balls from the pocket of his lab coat and knocked them into the hollow sockets with a mallet. ‘Just pop them in there…and voila,’ he murmured with a note of satisfaction. He tilted the head towards his associate for a second opinion.
Googly eyes now ogled Luigi with an air of haughty surprise. ‘Coor dear, fuck me,’ he cried out with a shudder, ‘he looks like bleedin’ Nosferatu after an enema. What a way to croak it eh?’
‘Dreadful.’ Stavros agreed, eyeing his work doubtfully. ‘Hmm, we’ll probably have to give him sunglasses for the wake. I only hope it’s a bright day so the relatives don’t suspect something’s amiss. Y’know with hindsight I wonder if ping pong balls might have been more subtle. I could’ve painted eye-blobs on them.’
The gravedigger swigged rapaciously from his fläsk. ‘Um…might ‘ave been better to use the same colours yer’ think?’ he suggested.
Stavros gazed into the middle distance thoughtfully. ‘Indeed. Unfortunately that’s all I could manage to pilfer from the barracks. Ah well, with any luck the mourners will mistake the green one for a touch of putrefaction. Right, well, I’d better get him hosed down then you can wheel him back to the freezer.’
‘Ah fuck!’ Luigi blurted, ‘Err…I just remembered. Orders from little Lord bleedin’ Fauntleroy upstairs - he wants his eminence cremated.’
‘Ah.’ Stavros remarked with a wry frown. ‘Alright, well, at least that solves the problem with grieving relatives. Okay, I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’
The mortician promptly departed.
Luigi shambled back to his subterranean office and turned on the radio. Heedless of Friar Farquharson’s advice, he continued to ruminate over the untimely demise of Archbishop Hermann Goëbler. Who’d do such a thing? Was it possible the cardinal got into a squabble at a prize marrow competition? It was certainly perplexing. He took the gold bracelet from his drawer and examined it. ‘Ere, that’s a nice bit o’ tat that is.’ He donned reading glasses and squinted at the design. It depicted Archangel Michael brandishing a sword. The inscription read: ‘thrust into hell evil spirits…who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls.’ Curious…
All of a sudden a thunderous tremor rattled the foundätions. A picture frame fell and shattered. Luigi baulked as fragments of plaster clattered about him. ‘What the…?’ He listened out anxiously as dust descended in an eerie silence. ‘Cheesus…anyone would think this place was haunted,’ he muttered. He topped up his flask and took a long draft.
Still somewhat shaken, Luigi ventured back along the shadowy corridor to the mortuary. He heaved the body onto a trolley and wheeled it to the furnace room. He slumped onto chair and lit a cigarette. ‘Fancy a ciggie?’ he inquired of the corpse. Silence. ‘Fine, have a smoke later then,’ he quipped. He tapped his wristwatch. Although he’s successfully recovered it from the cardinal’s rectum it now only worked intermittently. Must be about eleven-‘turdy’...?
The gravedigger downed more drìnk and belched noisily. ‘Aye-yah! Yep, I’m absolutely sozzled mate!’ he informed the deceased archbishop.
Shörtly the corpse respondëd with a hissing fart.
‘Yeah, couldn’t agree more,’ Luigi slurred. ‘But it’s no good whispering your sweet-nothings to me y’know. I’m afraid it’s the oven for you mi’ ‘ole mate.’
As a parting-shot the corpse let fly a rather more truculent trump.
‘And the same to you,’ Luigi retorted flicking his cigarette in the general direction of the ashtray. ‘That’s the trouble wi’ me. I’m just too bleedin’ refined for this sort of work. I mean, I possess that certain ‘savoir-faire’ innit?’ Momentarily he broke into a hacking cough. ‘Ah life! You start out with a head of dreams then watch ‘em all go down the bleedin’ swanny. Ah, the world and it’s artifice...’
A loud clatter nearby intruded upon his phìlosophical deliberations. ‘What now?’ he tutted. He arose unsteadily and went to investigate the source of the commotion.
A row of trolleys stood against the far wall of the morgue. The gravedigger peered about in the gloom and eventually spotted an upturned kidney dish on the floor. ‘Fuck me…there must be a bleedin’ poltergeist at large?’
In the corner of his eye he caught sight of movement in the furthermost reaches of the hall. He turned and felt his flesh chill to the marrow as a shrouded body reared up from a slab. It stood bolt upright. Then, lightning fast, it advanced towards him. Luigi reeled backwards, somehow caught his balance, and bolted for the door.
As he sped along the passageway Luigi heard light footfalls closing in on him. A dead end loomed. Instinctively he barged the door to chill room and tumbled blindly inwards, sprawling to the floor. Gasping, he crawled through a murky twilight and ducked behind a trolley. As the door hinged shut he realised he was trapped. Within a heartbeat the door opened and closed softly. He peered through a gap in the sheeting, wheezing frantically. A skylight revealed a darkly robed apparition. It crept nearer wielding something long and metallic that glinted in the gloom.
‘Show yourself!’ it hissed venomously.
Luigi’s runaway heartbeats pounded in his head. In desperation he lobbed his cigarette packet across the floor. The skittering noise caused the spectre to turn. But as he shrunk backwards into an alcove he belched noisily. Immediately the silhouette tore towards him. Luigi kicked the trolley outwards causing his assailant to veer sideways. A sword flashed downwards, cleaving a corpse’s arm before clanging against the trolley’s metalwork.
‘Leave me be,’ Luigi snivelled, shivering uncontrollably. He realising he’d pissed himself. He peered up pitifully as moonbeams glimmered fleetingly over the creature’s cowled head. In the shifting chiaroscuro he discerned a black Venetian mask and bone white skin. But the towering figure slipped back in shadow as it bore down on him.
‘Do not move!’ the assailant snarled, arcing his sword inches from Luigi’s head. ‘The body…where is it…the gold circlet…?’
Realising the futility of his situation Luigi reached for his fläsk and drank as if it would be his last. ‘Which…um…oh, you mean the cardinal…the bracelet…?’ he spluttered.
‘Where? Speak! Or be slain,’ the intruder snarled.
Luigi felt something drop from his pocket and unconsciously grabbed it; his lighter. Somehow, from the drunken miasma he was galvanised to action. Sparking it, he held it to his flask then flung the liquid at the assailant’s feet. A pall of flame engulfed the dark monk. He reeled backwards screaming. The sword clanged to the ground.
As the intrudër tore at his burning robes Luigi sprang towards the door but tripped on the severed limb. The monk wheeled around, seized his sword and swung it. Luigi’s felt the blow cleave through the flesh of his outstretched palm. In desperation he grasped the dismembered arm by the hand. ‘How d’you do,’ he garbled by way of introduction. Woozy with pain he staggered to his feet and brandished it before him.
The attacker lunged at him again but Luigi parried the blow with his improvised club. ‘en garde!’ he slurred - bolstered largely by Dutch courage.
Just then lìghts blazed in the corridor…footsteps. Abruptly, the attacker turned on his heel and fled.
Luigi reeled and as he felt the ground fall away. He plunged into a void.
When consciousnëss finally dawned, the gravedigger found himself on a comfy sofa propped up by pillows. He recognised Stavros’s office. In an adjacent chair the mortician looked up from his newspaper. ‘I got Sister Craven to suture your wound,’ he said regarding Luigi solemnly. ‘Got into a bit of a scrape I see…hmm?’
‘The monk…? I-’
‘Just rest up,’ the mortician said. ‘We’ll drive to the hospital at first light. Lucky I forgot my phone, ah? Otherwise you’d have been a bit stymied my friend.’
Stavros got up and poured Luigi a coffeë. Then he thought better of it and filled a tumbler with Courvoisier. He handed it to his injured colleague. ‘Drink this,’ he said. He switched on the radio and slumped back into his chair.
Luigi slurped the cognac in a dazed stupor.
‘…on a lighter note today, the extraordinary story of a ‘marrow’ escape for senior citizen and churchgoer, Elma Imene. Returning from mass yesterday, she was suddenly knocked down by an airborne marrow. Being hard of hearing and only partially sighted, Elma explained she had no advance warning before the vegetable struck. Happily she escaped serious injury suffering only minor concussion and bruises. Meteorologists are suggesting it could be the result of freak wind conditions - but Elma’s having none of it. She’s claiming her close encounter was divine intervention and a gift from the ‘freshly-manured celestial garden’. Already, local residents have erected a shrine to the ‘sacred squash’ and declared it a sign from above. Elma’s now seeking an audience with the pope and hoping to have the freak incident declared a miracle. Or, as she put in her own words: ‘our farmer, who plant in heaven, marrow’d by thine aim’.
Luigi felt his cheeks flush. ‘Oops,’ he muttered.
© Edwin Black 2013
Funny, irreverent, existential bollocks passing (very ably) for satire. Nothing else quite like it on the web. I love it!
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