act i !
"You're a complete waste of space!"
"Sorry," replied Phlegm in a blanched, sheepish tone, deeming
it best not to antagonise his mother lest her present good humour should
wane.
"You'll never amount to anything, you pathetic piece of dribblepiss."
"I know."
His mother paused and pursed her serpentine lips, a trickle of venomous
saliva oozing slowly from the comer of her crooked mouth. She resumed,
"Your father wrote you this letter of recommendation. You're to
take it to the florist in the city and see if you can get an apprenticeship;
it's all you're fit for."
She proffered the letter with a sneer: Phlegm gingerly prised it from
her talon-like grasp and placed it in his pocket.
"And don't dare do anything half-arsed like trying to eat it or
use it as toilet paper: I know you. I just hope you appreciate how much
effort it took your father to
find something nice to write about you. He'd give you the letter himself,
incidentally, but he's busy skinning the cow."
"That's OK."
"Go away."
"Righto. Pip pip."
"Yes."
Phlegm stepped outside and gulped in the fresh evening air, its scent
a pungent and heady mix of lavender and cut grass, tinged with the scent
of blood,
tantalising and exhilarating, wafting by from the garden. Behind him
he heard the scraping of a satisfied bolt drawing shut; and from his
father's vicinity droned a
distressed moo, which then ceased abruptly. Phlegm strolled down the
garden path towards the lane, threading his way amongst the russet-tinted
boulders strewn along its course. He paused to hop airily over the corpse
by the gate and continued ebulliently along the lane for another twenty
seconds or so until he reached the edge of the hamlet, where he was
greeted by the vicar.
"Good morning, young Phlegm."
"What ho, vicar!"
"Off to seek your fortune in the big city?"
Phlegm nodded vigorously, a look of constipated glee disfiguring his
countenance.
"Well, good luck. I wish I had something to give you, by way of
a keepsake..." He patted his pockets pensively, his rather ugly
features knotted in consternation, then smiled. "Ahh. Here you
are, young Phlegm."
Phlegm regarded the potato, deeply intrigued. "Is it magical?"
he asked eagerly.
The vicar, a simple man, had clearly not anticipated this line of interrogation.
"Erm, not...not as such, no. Not exactly 'magical' per se..."
He brightened, feeling that a little inventive encouragement could do
no harm. "However, the sorcerer who bestowed it upon me did mention
that it would bring good fortune to whomsoever
should bear it."
"Gosh! Thanks, vicar!" Phlegm pocketed the potato and trotted
affably off along the path towards the city. The vicar waved, following
him with a gaze of
paternal bemusement. |
Act ii !
Phlegm bounded into the city two days later, his buoyant spirits but
slightly dampened by the trifling unpleasantries which he had encountered
en route. Phlegm you see, had been born with the sort of face that one
simply couldn't forbear to forcibly rearrange; the inevitable upshot
was, of course, that whenever he had What Ho'd at the lumbering and
less articulate elements of the peasantry, their primal instincts had
brooked no civilised protest of restraint, but insisted that Phlegm's
incisors should be made to protrude in a most unflattering fashion from
the back of his silly little face.
And so it was, as noted, a surprisingly unruffled Phlegm that sauntered
along the thronging cockroach warrens of the city. He gawped in astonished
admiration at the enormity of the buildings, his mouth agape in awe
and his tongue lolling flaccidly like a plump, pink slug. Phlegm was
also pleasantly surprised at the hospitable amicability of some of the
local businesswomen, who stationed themselves on comers so as to welcome
as many people as possible.
Eventually he made his way to the bustling city square, and stopped.
Having made it thus far, he was keen to scurry off and seek his fortune
as a florist and would have done so promptly and briskly had he, in
fact, known what a florist was. There had never been a florist in Phlegm's
hamlet, and his hamlet was as far as Phlegm had previously travelled.
Nor could he have learned what a florist was from books, since he had
not been encouraged to read: on the rare occasions when he had tentatively
ventured the proposal of acquiring some reading material, his mother
had kicked him cursorily then replied "Don't be such a greedy little
pigshit. Paper's for burning cows with."
Phlegm resolved, therefore, too seek assistance, and entered into a
nearby
tavern with a view to doing so.
It proved to be a cramped, dingy establishment, such as an optimist
might term "rustic", and staffed by a burly, but cheerful,
barman who sported a truly repugnant aroma of drudging sweat and rat
urine and who looked, in short, as though his family brain cell was
under a mattress for safekeeping.
"Hallo," said Phlegm. "My name's Phlegm."
"Phlegm?" rejoined the barman incredulously.
"Phlegm." affirmed Phlegm.
"Well, you'll probably be wanting a drink of cough-ee, then. Hur
hur hur."
The surrounding gaggle of inebriates chorused the chuckle.
"Um, no. Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me 'a' what
a florist might be and 'b' if one could be found nearby."
"Well, Phlegm, a florist is someone who sells flowers, and there
just happens to be one right next door to this fine alehouse. Quite
a spot of luck for you, I'd say."
"Oh of course it is, sir: I've got a potato," Phlegm replied
earnestly. He thanked the barman and left. |
Finale !
This crisis of uncertainty resolved, Phlegm stepped timidly into the
florist’s shop and was met by the sight of a smallish man with
delicate features and excessively blonde hair. Phlegm cleared his throat
(haha!)
“Excuse me, sir. I’m Phlegm and I was hoping that you might
be needing an apprentice and that, if you’d be so kind, you might
allow me to be that apprentice. My mother says it’s all I’m
fit for. Oh, and I also have this letter of recommendation from my father.”
“Oh yeah, thooper, fantathtic. Wow, yeah, I wath jutht looking
for an apprentith, tho u’ll do jutht fine. You can thtart thtraight
away.”
“Golly! The potato really did bring me luck!”
And Phlegm and the floritht lived happily ever after… |
