Mad Calum

Sitting with his favourite log in Trinsic Park, Cecil gazed into the little pond that had almost taken his life on the fateful day he had decided to take a bath. Never would he make that mistake again.

The world had become a much more complicated place since he had started asking questions. It seemed that the more things he eventually learned, the more things he became hopelessly unsure of. Cecil had been rather fond of his notion that the world was bathed in light from a big friendly peach that happily flew round and round with a big torch. He even had a notion that the esteemed Duke of Trinsic may have been involved in such a stunning feat, but alas, the vision was shattered when the ever-bubbly 'Gwynnie' had pointed out that all along, Cecil had been a 'silly little poppet.'

The sun was no peach.

What was it then, a big melon? Somehow, Cecil felt a little uneasy about this idea, and he wasn't particularly sure of how melons had got into his mind in the first place. Anyway, the sun didn't jiggle. It was ridiculous.

Suddenly, amidst his deep insightful musings, the sky erupted with a loud clich?d clap of thunder. Rain pounded the ground with such force that for several seconds, Cecil was unsure whether it was coming up or down. Pausing for a moment, he took an old pink cloak that had been carefully stowed out of his ever-mean Commander's sight, wrapped it around his faithful log and held 'him' close to his chest. As he watched big drips of water run off the end of his nose, memories of a long-forgotten past came flooding back to him. How long had it been since that night that had turned his already strange and confusing world upside down? Oh, manuh years...


"Cecil! Fer the love o' picklewash, where the soddin' hell are ye' this time?"

'Picklewash' was perhaps the most endearing term that ever escaped the lips of the giant that stood framed in the cold stone doorway. Many of his more subtle features could not be recognised in the dull light of the crescent moon, although a more cynical narrator might have said that 'subtle' and this gentleman never quite saw eye to eye.

"If I come over there an' sees ye' in that farkin' chimneypot one more time, I swear yer thick head's going te' do the job of the anvil yer clumsy hands smashed te' smithereens!"

There aren't many men on the face of Sosaria who could truly stand six feet away from the giant without feeling the need to relieve themselves, although even fewer men could say that they are as true to their word as this behemoth, especially whilst looking into his bulging blue eyes. He did not believe in idle threats, which was a fact that had been quite hammered into the young Cecil time and again. The unflinching honesty of the man was, in itself, terrifying.

A deafening silence hung in the air for several long and stomach wrenching seconds, until it was finally ended by the slightest shuffle of gravel. A moment later, a large upright chimney was tipped on its side a little and a small orange-haired boy crouched and stepped out, with apparent glee.

"Ah'm Cecul!"

The chimney toppled and smashed behind him.

"Aye... I bet ye are."



To be continued!