What is Monkey looking for? Some say it’s justice, other’s the end times, other’s still his clan. I know though, that it’s actually a 20p piece: a special one he’s carried for more than fifty years. Monkey got the coin in change from a sweet shop when he was a kid. The sweet shop owner was the first human of any size to treat Monkey with dignity and respect, and didn’t even ask Monkey for any ID when he bought his cigarettes. So Monkey fell in love with the sweet shop owner, in his strange monkey-like way, and kept that 20p with him for ever and ever after, amen. Until recently, that is. One day, one sad and sorry day I should say, Monkey was playing with the calves of the cows in the Lammas Lands. He was running and jumping, climbing and rolling, and having a real monkey of a time
Here I learnt the story of the kingfisher. He has watched this stream rise and fall, empires of minnows with it. Here, at dawn, the deer come to drink and gossip and speak of where to find the most perfectly ripe buds. Here, the dragon and damselflies whizz and flit, landing hither and thither, dazzling all but the kingfisher with their glitter. Here, where it is always a degree or two warmer, silent people come and sit quietly with their breath, watching the play of light on water. The kingfisher remembers a time when there were thousands of his kin living along the full course of this stream. A time of bustling minnow empires, the occasional trout, and when the stream floor was covered in turquoise and emerald pebbles. This was the time before the miners came and left the stream with nothing but a golden, sandy blanket for a floor.
When I was a kid, I had a board game called ‘I vant to bite your finger’. I thought it was ace because it had a pop up plastic figure of Count Dracula and when you lost, you had to put your finger in his mouth, depress a lever at the back of his head, and he bit you. You were left with two red felt tip marks of pain and blood on your finger. Sometimes I would just go in the playroom by myself and make Count Dracula give me bite marks on all of my fingers without bothering to play the game at all. I think the Count also made a blood curdling ‘mwahahaha’ laugh as he bit you, but that might have been me. I don’t fully recall. Why am I telling you this? Because it proves to you that I am in league with the Dark Lord,
I have been reliably informed that this site is called the Launch Pad. The moss in the foreground serves as a kind of deep-pile-shag-rug-in-waiting, and the light green, clam-shaped pedal-keys which overlook the river are where the action happens. If you want to spectate, the Launch Pad’s location is on the little river as you approach Frensham Great Pond from the west. You can’t miss it, such is the shimmering delight of the residual fairy and pixie dust which covers the area. It’s called the Launch Pad because, every full moon, it’s the site of a great inter-species diving and dance competition. As it was dreamed up by fairies, anyone can join, as the fairies will shrink you down to the appropriate size. When I went, a trio of frogs did an outstanding tap routine and then leapt into the air, jumping from back to back, somersaulting, before enacting the most
This is one of the places dogs go to receive instructions. People say it’s cats who have ulterior motives, but it’s not, it’s dogs. Not that the dogs’ ulterior motives are bad, mind—I’d never be so slanderous as those who talk shit about cats—but you should know that they are here for more than head rubs, ball fetching, stick carrying, inappropriate chewing, and cuddles. This is a true and verifiable fact. As you can see from this extremely rare photo, this Labrador Retriever is in the midst of communion with the Winds of the Pond. If you are a dog, the Winds exert a strong pull on your soul and cause you to enter the water in order for the being within to attach nodes to your paws through which it provides you with instructions. The Winds of the Pond are actually aliens. I’m not sure exactly when they arrived here