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HEROICS INC.

Part Fourteen

Approaching Ashton, Iowa : Early 21st Century, October.


The Judge at their second trial had seemed to have only two 
options with regard to the hapless Casper and Blossom Titwilleger.  
He could bring back hanging, or he could try burning them at the 
stake.  Fortunately for the reluctant visitors from Iowa, a gentlemen 
from the Home Office had intervened at the request of the 
Titwillegers British law firm, "Snatchet, Grabbet & Scarper Q.C." The 
Home Office Rep had pointed out that a public execution in Leicester 
Square of two tourists might possibly cause some damage to the 
reputation of the British travel industry and thereby harm the 
country's balance of payments.  The Judge, much against his will, had 
been prevailed upon to consider a second attempt at deportation, 
adding an impassioned, "...AND STAY OUT!" to the normal sentencing 
formula.  This time, the U.K Government had taken no chances, and had 
sent the Titwillegers home by Royal Navy Destroyer, handcuffed and in 
leg-irons, with an armed S.A.S escort.  For Casper, in spite of the 
discomfort he had been through, it was all made worthwhile as, 
released from his restraints, he made his way down the gangplank, 
solemnly kissed the New York ground and mouthed with heart-felt 
relief, "God Bless America."
        Not that the U.S. had been any more kind than England in those 
first few days.  Admittedly, The Statue of Liberty had not thrown her 
arms up in horror as they passed by, but the stoic operatives from 
the F.B.I had not been ecstatic about their return to the shores of 
their Homeland.  Casper and Blossom had provided their, by now, 
polished response, "We don't know", to all questions and had been 
finally, if grudgingly, released to find that the tabloid editors 
were possibly the only people in the country who were pleased to see 
them.
        "The Wacky Wizard of Iowa", as he had been dubbed by leading 
journals up and down the land, sat in brooding silence, watching the 
scenery pass by, hidden by a huge and unlikely looking beard, Casper 
was on a train bound for home.  He knew that whatever the eventual 
outcome of his recent adventures, one thing was certain; he would 
never fly or go overseas, again.
        Distantly, Casper listened to the radio, scanning the news.  
Had he been right to insist that they travel separately?  That she 
take the bus?  He felt guilty but safer.  There was no news of wildly 
inexplicable traffic accidents to be heard.  But when one was 
obviously dealing with a Witch, a brimstone-blackened servant of the 
Anti-Christ such as Blossom, it was wise to take precautions. Weeks 
of incarceration had made things clear, there was no other possible 
explanation.  Blossom Titwilleger, bearer of his name and love of his 
life, was a foul sorceress.  He did not know what to do first, 
exorcise her or divorce her.  He knew that he was going to do one of 
them as soon as he got back to Ashton.






Blossom Titwiliger had managed, with the help of a baleful 
glare acquired after many years of matrimony, to get a seat on the 
Greyhound to herself.  She managed to radiate a scornful indifference 
to her situation that she was in no way feeling. Casper had always 
been different; he seemed to like stuffing dead things a little too 
much, but now he had gone totally crazy.  There was no other 
explanation for the way her husband was behaving.  It was plain 
weird.  He would not come near her, jumped when she spoke and the 
rest of the time stood around praying, mouthing incantations and 
crossing himself.  She knew that brother Wilbur did that sort of 
stuff, but at least he made a good living at it, never let it 
interfere with daily life.  Now, she did not know what to do, her 
life felt like her furniture; transformed, scattered and thrown out 
of routine.  Casper and she had been just normal folks.  Now they 
were treated like some sort of alien life form.  It was all very 
confusing.
        The bus swerved wildly like her thoughts, having picked that 
precise moment to get a puncture.  Whilst the driver was outside, 
cursing his fate and the mother of every bus mechanic he could think 
of, Blossom made her escape.
        She just slowly got off the bus and walked away. There had to 
be more to life than this, and she was going to find it.








After everyone disappeared there was a moments silence.  The 
notable, the great and the ingrates, all were silent.  They had lived 
with Surd, with his bad jokes and general bad habits for decades.  
His voice, his posture, his actions were central to their existence, 
Now, he was gone, without even saying goodbye. They all felt a little 
afraid.  Even Al Capone's voice had lost some of its usual roughness 
as he spoke,
        'Any of youse guys wanna play cards?'
        'What's the point?' asked Richard the Third. 
        COMS, in an attempt at historical fairness, had provided the 
medieval monarch with a hump that constantly appeared and 
disappeared.  Now, the undulations of Richard's back were the only 
movements in the room.  Scarface Al could not answer. 
        What was the point? They were entertainment models with no one 
to entertain anymore.  They had no purpose.  They all decided to wait 
for something to happen, about two minutes later, something did.







The great blue bolt of necromantic energy scared through the 
Martian air and crashed thunderously into the centre of the bar.  
The blue light, changed shade, great fizzing charges of violet 
skipped across the ceiling, sensing, searching.  Then the light began 
to wane. The shapes of figures gradually became discernible, glowing 
eerily, detaching themselves from one another, becoming individual.  
At last, the light abruptly vanished, depositing its newly shimmering 
cargo.
        They were an awesome sight.  An ancient culture, lost for over 
a thousand years, living again.  Rugged men, powerful women dressed 
in rich plaids, with plaited hair and blue tattoos, had kept an 
appointment, coming armed to the teeth, just in case.  Slowly, 
suspiciously, they parted, keeping their ancient and beautifully 
lethal weapons ready for use, weapons whose effectiveness was proven 
by the human heads that hung from their costumes.
        After a while, a space cleared among the visitors and a woman 
strode forth, their leader.  This woman almost outdid Queen Sharon 
for grandeur.  It was fortunate that the personifications had been 
exposed to the side effects of Merlyn's linguistic spell, for the 
tongue that she spoke was long dead.
        'These are my people.  Merlyn summoned us.'
        Wyatt Earp, who was nearest, spoke up for his personified 
compatriots.    
        'Howdy, folks!  We're sure happy to entertain friends of 
Merlyn.'
        One of Sir Bastable's first-generation cronies stepped forward, 
hand out-stretched, smiling as he spoke.  
        'They call me Lancelot du Lac.  Pleased to meet you.'
        The visitor did not take the offered hand.
        'My name's Kinata.  Where's Merlyn?  Are we too late?' She 
said.







        "Where are they?" The Purple Thingy hated tardiness, especially 
when it suspected that there was an orange tentacle involved in it 
somewhere. The Orange Thingy, did its best considering its gruesome 
appearance, to look vaguely innocent.  Once again, the Purple Thingy 
tried communication with Will's sword and once again there was no 
reply.
        "Where are they?"
        The Purple Thingy impatiently saved up its speculations on the 
whereabouts of its hired heroes.  Instead, it turned its acid-
dripping eyeballs onto the vast surface that was more than equal to 
even a Thingy's vision.  Spoggle was certainly impressive, in an 
extraordinary kind of way. It was huge, massive, tremendous; quite 
simply the largest planetary mass in the Universe, or one of them.  
There were actually eight such spheres scattered throughout 
existence.  All equally mind-boggling in scale, all exactly the same 
in size, down to the nearest micromillimeter, all a rather dull 
opaque shade of grey.
        Whatever else the creators of Spoggle had thought about, it had 
not been providing a brightly decorative touch to this area of 
creation.  No planet or planets were so mysterious as this vast drab 
sphere, none knew what happened on it surface, what trials, what 
dangers. Not even the combined efforts of a convention of multi-
colour Thingies' would dare to breach its secrets.  Many had gone 
beyond that grey outer atmosphere, in search of the MADID or the 
strange glory that attends a discoverer. None had returned. 
        Despite, or perhaps because of, the absence of factual 
information, myths had sprung up, Galactic gossip had flourished and 
no legend was more potent than that of the MADID and its powers.  
No one knew what it looked like, but everyone knew that the MADID 
could do anything. Perhaps it could even explain the riddle of the 
planet's name. The Purple One thought.  "Spoggle", the word was said 
to be a statement; popularly believed to be a profound but 
indecipherable comment on the nature of life in the universe, yet 
since it matched no known tongue, no one had ever been able to 
translate it.  Spoggle; the name was like everything else about the 
place, an enigma and chief amongst all its unanswerable questions was 
just who had created it or its seven identical copies?
        Once the universe had been full of Gods.  It was as if someone 
had opened an academy for existence engineers and everyone had 
qualified at once.  All wanting to go out and try their new powers of 
life, death and creation on the poor unfortunates invented as play-
things for their amusement.  Thousands of these Gods had vied with 
each other to show their talents, and more and more unlikely races 
and worlds had been called forth to exhibit some imagined refinement 
or piece of deified one-upmanship.
        The Thingys had known many of these gods personally and had 
tried to avoid their pretentious arty posing whenever possible.  But 
none that they had met had ever claimed responsibility for Spoggle.  
Spoggle seemed to have always been there, before anything else, when 
all was just darkness or nothingness, the eight grey worlds spun 
ponderously in space.  Spoggle's mysterious creators, like all the 
other universal creative artistes had long disappeared, but perhaps 
their fate was something more than a retirement home for clapped out 
Gods, with endless supplies of hot-cocoa available and interminable 
arguments over who had won the latest board game.  There had to be 
more than that to the creators (or creator) of Spoggle.  It was 
obvious that they were much more powerful than any showy run-of-the-
mill deity.  Maybe the human and his companions would find some clue 
to their location, which brought the Thingy back to Its original 
question.
        "Where are they?"






Aldershot, England: Early 21st Century, September.

        

        'Where are they?  That's what I'd like to know.' Cecil Bland 
was once again venting his petty self-righteous fury for an 
unlistening audience of one.
        'Where's who, dear?' Primrose Bland did not let her attention 
wander from the Bible she held in her hand, "The Official - Church of 
mystic Enlightenment Via the Fundamental Freakout and the Love of Jesus: 
Sourcework of Spiritual Peace".  The five hundred dollar deluxe bound 
edition had been a personal gift from Wilbur Prince and had come 
complete with addendum detailing his thoughts on an upbeat 
interpretation of the Hereafter.  Not for the first time, Primrose 
touched the hand-writing on the fly leaf with trembling hands and a 
feeling of reverent tenderness, not many people could claim to have a 
personally autographed edition of the Bible, signed by a contributor 
to the good book.  Primrose did not care that Wilbur's contribution  
came centuries after any other, because for Primrose, Wilbur was 
greatness personified.  She felt that what he had to say was of far 
more interest than some stuffy old apostle.  Meeting Wilbur had 
altered Primrose's life, although some parts of that life remained 
obstinately unchangeable.
        'They're not a who; they're a what.'

        'What's a what, dear?'
        'Traditional, good, old fashioned moral values. Where are 
they?'
        Cecil had more reason than most to ask the question.  Nothing, 
in his rigidly brought-up background, had prepared him for the events 
set in motion by his decision to swap homes with the Titwillegers.  
He had half expected to come home and find incantations written in 
blood over the lounge and the remains of a sacrificed goat on the 
kitchen table.  Instead, thankfully, things about the home had 
remained as reassuringly nondescript as when they left.  A detailed 
police search of the American's luggage had offered up no reading 
matter more dark and satanic than "The Taxidermist", quarterly.
        Of course, the fact that the dreaded Casper and Blossom had not 
ruined his home did not mean that no damage had been caused.  As far 
as Cecil was concerned they had ruined his life.  The publicity had 
made things very difficult at the "Ministry of Ag and Fish", he had 
been called to account for his actions by that oily twerp of a 
Minister in person.  It had not been a pleasant meeting; as far as 
the civil service was concerned, Cecil Bland had been implicated and 
tarnished by his inexplicable involvement in, what had nearly become 
a major diplomatic incident.
        Problems at work though, were only the half of it.  He was 
persona non grata at the golf club, had been black-balled at the 
Conservative club, and had been told point-blank that he had lost all 
hope of ever becoming a mason.  It was a sign of the times, the 
disintegration of moral standards, standards of decent Britishness 
which had eroded to the point of extinction as far as Bland was 
concerned.  It was probably something to do with the importation of 
burger bars and racy American films all those years ago.
        To make things worse, the nightmare consequences of his holiday 
choice showed no signs of diminishing.  The news had been announced 
eagerly of the disappearance of Blossom Titwilleger.  Conspiracy 
theorists already pointed to her assassination by British Security 
Services or the CIA covert operations unit. Both organisations 
vigorously denied their involvement, a fact that only increased the 
general publics suspicions and the media's appetite for sensation.
        "IS THIS MAN BLOSSOM'S LOVER?" The morning headlines had 
screamed, featuring a picture of Cecil Bland that looked distinctly 
unerrotic. His family had not seemed to bother about the revelations.  
Primrose had dismissed thoughts of her husband having a lover with a 
level of amusement that had done nothing for his ego.  Even little 
Camilla had been unsupportive, hardly stirring from her copious 
writings, her scrawls bound for the attention of yet another Prince 
family member, that peculiar youngster called Sulphur.
        The whole world, or rather, the whole of Cecil Bland's world, 
was going mad.  It was time for action, for a true Brit to defend his 
hearth, his home and his livelihood.  Cecil Bland was not going to 
take this lying down.  Drastic measures were called for.








        KAAAABOOOMM!!! 
        The energy bolt that hit the spaceship, thoughtfully provided 
by the Purple Thingy, had looked suspiciously orange.  The Purple One 
dismissed it from Its minds, just contenting itself with a long 
awaited arrival.
        It was all very well for the Thingys to get impatient, but the 
adventurers had covered an unimaginable distance.  It was 
unsurprising that they were feeling somewhat travel-fatigued as they 
resumed their physical shape, vital bits of their reformed anatomies 
felt as if they had been tossed round more than a grain of rice in a 
Wok.
        The ship's bridge was hugely impressive, the latest in 
spacecraft design by one of the few benighted races that needed this 
laborious means of transport, a mixture of the technical and the 
homely.  For every hardworking bank of flashing lights, there was a 
potted plant or some other personal touch.  This was not how ships 
looked in films.  There was none of the sterile gleaming neatness of 
some movie vessels or the lived-in depressing grunginess of others.  
All was spic-and-span, looking slightly like a suburban cottage owned 
by a mad scientist or wealthy industrialist, out to rule the world.
        Will could have done without some of the designer's house-proud 
flourishes.  The chintzy curtains that masked the billboard-sized 
viewing windows were a bit much.  But it was somehow comforting to 
sit in a captain's chair shaped like a sofa rather than a metal 
bench.  It was quite nice to have a biscuit barrel by his side, full 
of double-choc cookies and custard creams.
        Certainly, the adventurers needed something to ease their 
return to form and consciousness.  Looking blearily around the 
bridge, Will could not escape the impression that, somewhere along 
the route, they had all stopped off at some terrific party; they 
definitely all looked as if they were battling with the ultimate 
hangover.  The drunken analogy was carried further as Will struggled 
to speak with a tongue that seemed fifteen foot thick and forty foot 
wide.
        'I wonder where we are?'
        The voice of the purple Queen suddenly sounding in his head 
gave the human a terrific shock.  It had seemed so long since he had 
last heard from the graven image, or thought about the Queen's 
"gifts".
        "You are on a vessel that I have provided for your entry into 
Spoggle."
        "Where's Spoggle?"
        "You mean you haven't opened the curtains yet?"
        As if gripped by a pair of powerfully impatient hands, the twee
hangings were thrust aside revealing mullion windows.  Will did not
know what he expected but he had looked forward to land-masses, to
stars and stunning views.  All that he could see was greyness.
        "Do the windows need cleaning?"
        "Why?" the sword sounded peevish.
        "Where's Spoggle?"
        "In front of you."
        "What!  That grey stuff?"
        "Yes."
        "I hope you're providing a map."
        "No map exists."
        "What are we supposed to do?  Ask for directions?  Excuse me, 
we've come to steal the MADID.  I hear it's really valuable.  Can you 
direct our spaceship please?"
        "You may not be able to use the spacecraft on the surface. 
There may not even be one."
        "Well. I'm not walking. My contract said nothing about a 
footwear allowance."
        The Queen ignored Will's statement.  He was now an official 
hero.  He would do whatever needed to be done.  In a few brief words, 
Sharon's image detailed what was to come next. 








While this was going on, the others waited patiently for Will 
to speak. No one interrupted as his face tripped lightly through its 
telepathic tango.  Even Sir Bastable was mute, sensing, inexplicably, 
that something was going on.  At last, Will pointed at the screen.
        'That's Spoggle.'
        'What is?' Surd asked.
        'The grey stuff.'
        Grendella was unimpressed.  'It looks a bit drab.'
        'It doesn't look like a planet to me,' commented Abel.
        'Its a very big planet.' Sulphur hoped that he would not have 
to explain everything in life to the father, as he had to the son.
        'It makes Neptune look like a pebble,' Balidare shook his head.
        'I can't say that it's a nice view.  What happens next?' asked 
Magda.
        'We sit down.  The ship moves.  We get there,' Will summed up 
what Sharon had told him.
        'Well', Sulphur wagged a talon in warning, 'I just hope that 
it's that simple.'







The Purple and Orange Thingys ware solemnly silent as they 
watched the ship start on its journey.  Within a minute it had 
disappeared, totally enveloped by the greyness.  
        "What do we do now?" stenched Orange.
        "There's nothing we can do now.  We've got them here.  They do 
the rest." Farted purple.
        "So we just stay here. Wait for the outcome." 
        "We watch and we wait.  Yes."
        There was silence for a very long time.
        "I'm bored," slimed Orange.
        "So am I," admitted Purple.
        "Let's go have some fun. Come back later."
        "Okay," agreed Purple, "but remember, this time it's for the 
future of the universe, so no cheating."
        "Would I cheat?" came the scandalised reply.








Things had seemed to be going well for the heroes.  The vessel 
effortlessly breached the dull atmosphere and morale was on an 
upturn.  Then a powerful voice spoke, echoing out of the mist: 
"Conditions compromised", and suddenly, the ship faded into nothing.  
None of them even got a chance to scream as they fell, still seated 
in their comfy chairs.  The grey fog slivered eagerly into their open 
mouths, probing their insides and choking out their life.
        For a moment Will blacked out.  Then, as if from somewhere deep 
inside, he heard the voice speak again, "Parasitic organisms 
isolated."
        Instantly, Will stopped floating.  All around him were thick 
transparent walls.  Nearby, dimly through the haze, he could see 
Sulphur, also suspended in some sort of long clear tube. He could not 
see the others but somehow knew that they were out there, also held 
captive, probably cursing his name.  Then the voice spoke again.
        "Stage one initiated."
        It was the last thing he remembered.








Will was lying in bed at home. A new law had been passed: "THE 
WILL BILL", decreeing that a human being could stay in bed as long as 
they liked, could eat whatever they liked from the GRUB machines, 
however unhealthy.  Could shower for hours without worrying about 
rainfall statistics.  A human could even take a lift just for one 
floor. It was a lovely dream.  Then he woke up.

        


        The first thing that Will noticed was the smell.  It seemed to 
stride over in heavy boots and say "What are you sniffing at pal?" 
before head-butting him between the eyes.  The stench was terrific, 
more noxious than a pair of Thingys' used Y-fronts.  It took a while 
for Will to collect his senses; he was too busy trying to breath. As 
time passed, he slowly got used to it.  His eyes still ran in torrents, 
his insides still slipped about like a skate-boarder on butter and his 
chest still flapped about like a sail in a cyclone but at least he 
had stopped vomiting.  Then he did something really brave, he stood up 
and opened his eyes.  It was not a pretty view.
        He was lying on a mountain of refuse, stacked up to a 
staggering and unlikely height.  All around him, for as far as his 
watering eyes could see, similar piles of garbage thrust their way 
into the grey air. This was no haphazard collection of junk.  That 
was obvious from the careful layout and arrangement of the mouldering 
mountains, as well as from their content.  Each pile seemed to 
contain a planned assembly of discarded items. Will momentarily 
thanked a merciful fate for not depositing him on the decaying mound 
of soiled nappies that formed his nearest neighbour.  Finally, he 
managed to climb to his feet, slipping and sliding on a surface made 
up of neglected plastics.  He opened his mouth, suffering a full 
infusion of the richly fetid air as he called his comrades, but after 
a while, Will gave up.  There was no response.  He was alone.
        Wherever the glass tubes had deposited the others, it did not 
seem to have been in the vicinity.  This then was to be the first 
test of his leadership, finding someone to lead.  Being Chairman of 
Heroics INC. was not going to be easy. He realised that he had never 
been truly on his own before, and shook slightly with fear of the 
unknown.  Then he decided to try and contact Queen Sharon, reasoning 
that, if in doubt - scream help, seemed like a reasonable policy, and 
with this in mind he reached down for his sword.
        Up to this point, things had just been bad, but now they got 
much worse.  The sword and Band of Intangibility were gone.  For a 
while he searched with eager panic, but they had vanished.  In their 
place was a leaflet, stuck in the belt of the overalls that Surd had 
given him, it read: "THESE ITEMS HAVE BEEN CONFISCATED BY OUR CUSTOMS 
DEPT.  WE DO HOPE THAT THIS DOES NOT CAUSE ANY INCONVENIENCE, AND 
THAT YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY ON SPOGGLE." Will stood glumly, sloshed in 
the face by a cool bucket of despair.  He hated being a hero already.









On the Road , Iowa: Early 21st Century, October.



The van had once been painted in outrageous primary colours.  
The blazing orange stars, green unicorns, bright pink flowers and 
indigo peace signs had been shiny new, but now, like their owners 
they were faded and out of date.  It was surprising, if not amazing, 
that they were still around at all.
        The band were called: "The Misbegotten Sons of Hades".  To have 
called them The Misbegotten Pensioners of Hades would, perhaps, have 
been more appropriate.  Like the crumbling van they were relics of 
the Sixties, of a time when people had talked of free love, of free 
everything, in the long ago days before the flower children grew up, 
became lawyers or accountants and started charging with a vengeance.  
Now the only thing that seemed truly free was the band's spirit.  
Too arthritic to trash even the most inoffensive motel room, they 
contented themselves with anarchic memories of the past.
        The lead singer's name was "Starchild" Perkins.  It had once 
been Nigel but he had changed it to make a statement about his 
oneness with the cosmos. A oneness brought about by rather large 
amounts of hallucinogenic drugs.  He was sixty-three.  The last time 
he had tried to smash his guitar, he had put his back out.  That was 
some time ago, when Clinton had been president.
        Once, Starchild and the others, consumed by lysergic acid and a 
desire to preach a musical gospel along the lines of, "Let's be nice 
to each other" and "Don't be heavy", had almost been famous.  They 
had even managed to have a hit record in 1969 - "The Breakdown 
approaching the Station", but although their finest hour did 
occasionally stray on to the oldie stations, it had somehow escaped 
the transition to classic status.  No one seemed to get misty-eyed 
and tearful as they listened to Perkin's sandpaper voice sing: "It's 
emotional derailment, points failure of the heart." The group's lack 
of musical immortality probably had something to do with the fact 
that their music and lyrics were awful. But a want of talent had not  
stopped other groups getting on and Starchild felt that it was more a 
lack of luck, rather than lack of skill, that had impeded their 
progress.
        He took his eyes off the road momentarily, glancing in the rear- 
view mirror at the other band members.  They had met in high school, 
and had first played together in 1962.  Things had seemed simpler 
then; it was possible to move without aches and pains for one thing.  
They had been together for longer than most marriages, longer than 
some lifetimes.  He had watched their long hair turn grey or fall 
out, and their fingers become gnarled around the strings of their 
guitars.  Like old marrieds, they had become close to each other. 
Wives came and went, but there always another tour in the clapped out 
"Cosmic Van", another chance to sing "The Breakdown" in some rundown 
bar.  
        Once enthusiasm had motivated them, recently it was the need to 
pay the bills and the alimony that kept the boredom at bay.  As they 
sang the same songs, again and again and again, to kids that did not 
care, so young that they thought "a Vietnam conflict" was number 32
at the local Oriental takeaway. Of course, there were moments 
that made it all worthwhile.  Some well-preserved matron would 
approach them with shining eyes and fond memories of the desires of 
her youth, of the time when she had dreamt of Starchild's company for 
a few brief minutes; of a time when his body, had been lean and 
stringy, filling his hip-hugging loons in a way that had moved young 
girls to an almost religious frenzy of devotion; an all too brief 
moment of deification, before the Osmonds came along. Starchild had 
been 'The Quiet One" the one with the smouldering looks.  Now, that 
wiry body had turned to fat and the eyesight dimmed, needing the help 
of heavy-duty spectacles offstage.
        The band were out of steam, out of time, out of era.  Something 
would have to be done.  Maybe it was time to give up, to call it a 
day, to cut their thinning hair and finally sell out, settle down.  
Not for the first time, nor for the twenty thousandth and first, 
Starchild found himself searching the road ahead, looking for a sign. 
There was a woman walking by the roadside; a large woman in a floral-
print dress, not your average hitch-hiker.  He looked closer, finding 
something strangely familiar about the way she moved, about the look 
in her electric eyes.  Then, he felt the thrill of recognition shoot 
through his body, galvanising his foot on the brake and prompting an 
explosion of protest from the back of the van.
        Starchild did not listen, he did not care. His attention was 
taken by memories of a face that had become heavier, more rounded and 
lined, as had his.  He had not seen her for almost four decades, but 
he knew who she was: Blossom Pimpleknocker, his old high-school 
sweetheart.

© Gary Cahalane