A lie must not advertise itself.

Dreaming a word I woke: Encomium? There was no one about and I looked. Maybe I was grateful for waking from sleep again or just from sleep. A fool’s freedom. Both. All. Time now looked like a door. But behaved like a vacuum. Still the consequences were the same. Or were they? I peered through the keyhole. It was shaped like an elephant. I slipped through even though I’m not. This was a door going places. Low and behold an elephant. “Will you do me a favour?” “That’s why I’m here.” It was seamless. The beast melded with the door which nettled a little then melted to the floor and I was gone. Back to sleep. The pages of the book revoked. The Earthquake came as if it on a list of things to happen. First “Encomium” and now this. It was smaller than the elephant at first and not as helpful. I was only aware we were not in a sweet spot on looking out across the ocean from the roof of my house a dolphin looked me in the eye and not the town I’d known. I thought of Dorothy. Would I be set down? Unfounded I stray somewhere off British Columbia. A long time dead. In time my bones deranged by seagulls.

Mark Fewtrell has been messing with words since he was a baby. Blogs at http://mark-wackjob.blogspot.co.uk