Oh well, all right. The point that must be made is that although Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan would look quite stunning after a good bath, a heavy-duty manicure, and the pick of the leather racks in Woo Hun Ling’s Oriental Exotica and Martial Aids on Heroes Street, she was currently quite sensibly dressed in light chain mail, soft boots, and a

A quite spacious bookshop. A customer enters and approaches the counter, behind which stands an assistant. Assistant: Good morning, sir. Mr Pest: Good morning. Can you help me? Do you have a copy of Thirty Days in the Samarkand Desert with a Spoon by A. E. J. Elliott? Assistant: Um . . . well, we haven’t got it in stock, sir. Mr Pest: Never mind. H

A bass note sounds. It is a deep, vibrating chord that hints that the brass section may break in at any moment with a fanfare for the cosmos, because the scene is the blackness of deep space with a few stars glittering like the dandruff on the shoulders of God.