by Andrew Gallix (12/20/00)

Paris, Gare du Nord. Imperious, impervious, Girl on the escalator going up, pulling her case behind her like a lapdog on a lead, going up. Nifty, shifty, eyeing up Girl going up, naughty, haughty, hoity-toity.

Did she condescend to look down upon you as she went up, angel at a 25º angle? Did she even so much as acknowledge your existence as she plucked celestial chords on her flyaway hair and breathed honeyed tones down her cellular phone? Did she, fuck! No: your eyes did not meat. You looked at me looking at you looking at her looking up, all high and mighty, pulling her case behind her behind like a slave on a lead, soaring up -- she mighty high, you mighty sore. Looked at me you did, with your chastised eyes, all hot and bothered, hot, hot under the collar, your face a slapped arse.

My sister once made a gaggle of gingerbread men I imagined to be destined for doughy, doughty deeds so gallant were they. I simply could not bring myself to eat them, had neither the heart nor the stomach to do so. A moratorium was declared by sisterly decree and the spice boys remained in battle formation on the kitchen table pending mum's final verdict. You could smell the sensuous, exotic aroma from my bedroom, even behind closed door.

That night, I had this vivid dream in which the gingerbread men rose from the baking tray Galatea fashion. Still under the influence of the self-raising flour, they legged it upstairs to gang-bang the Play-Doh model of the Girl Next Door I had lovingly sculpted and kept secretly beside my comics and sensible shoes.

Breakfast, the morning after, was a truly religious experience. I binged on the randy homunculi, biting off their heads with sheer abandon, tearing away at their limbs ravenously and washing them down with enough glasses of Ribena to incarnadine the multitudinous seas.

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