A Moment On The Lips

I Monster - The Blue Wrath

"Squawk!" cried the enormous bird, flapping it's scruffy wings and eyeing Kenneth from it's high perch. Kenneth retracted the cue, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the noisy animal that had disturbed play so abruptly. "I don't want it shitting on my baize" said Clive, "let me deal with this." With a few winter vegetables, and the correct seasoning, it made an excellent supper for the three of them; Geoff bringing his home-fermented ale to the table, Kenneth his sparkling conversational white wine and Clive his robust, lusty port. Later that evening, all full of vigour and jollity, it seemed such a good idea to have a funeral for the passing of the bird - especially as they could use the black candles and other accessories that Clive had recently discovered while searching for fairy lights in the attic. None of them would have suspected it might be anything but top larks to read passages from a particular leather-bound grimoire that Geoff had recently retrieved from the charred ruins of an old cottage. And it crossed not one of their tipsy, befogged minds that the innocent bird might have brought about such a bitter and obscene series of events as were about to be unleashed that night and into the rest of their lives.