And so completed the earth another revolution on its spindly, venerable axis. As day dispersed into night along its septrional bourn, those of its redoubtable inhabitants there charged with uplifting the souls of their fellow men, through fable-telling and lyricism that tugged at their hearts and opened sealed doors within their imaginations, had yet again been remiss in their diurnal mission.

Words unscribed and unread. Majuscules unilluminated and verses unsyncopated. It redounded to the drab scientists, with their want of humour and poetic souls, to track the progress of the hemisphere's activity. Blandly plotting it along their abscissa and ordinate. Trusting blithely to silicon drudges to model it on curving and warped matrices. If they'd had either a sense of humour or an emotional bone in their white-coated bodies, they would have smiled a grim rictus of recognition. At how the poets' indolence before the false god of the sun (which they knew to be a slowly dying star), had ceded them temporal power. And yet their own tapering logicks, of quanta and duality, meant that in time they would have to petition the poets for a provision of metaphors to help them understand their own deputed world of arcana. But if the poets were not to be trusted to fulfil their own nagging needs, then how ever could the scientists hope to prosper their way out of their epistemological cul de sacs ?

Damn that burning nebula and its simpering handmaiden summertide. It only fomented ephemerality, confident in its own further stamina than those weak hearts prostrating themselves beneath it.

You sly dog Sulcus - loved the imagery. Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation - Alasdair Gray

He cocked index and middle finger together like a pistol and pressed them against the side of the tumbler, measuring out the gargle of whisky he poured into it. He employed the same cub scout salute to lever the brim of his hat up from over his eyes. The clock face emerged into his purview. Midnight plus one. The Broad was a no-show. Again.

He cupped a barely shaking hand (the whisky was faithfully adhering to its task tonight), over his lighter. The recalcitrant flint being reluctant to yield its Promethean secret. Like every ugly critter in this town. How many no shows did that make it now, three ? Four ? Not very good recall for a so-called Seamus. His jagged laugh serrated the smoke plume as it wound upwards to do battle with the lightbulb. Draping its cloying veil around the blue lamp, the room darkened imperceptibly. Watts struck back and burned its angry wake through the dissipating gloom. 'Know just how it feels' mused the Private Eye.

Of course. there was no reason to believe that his missing person case had been a Frail. What had he got to go on ? Nothing much. Just a mark in a column. A single barred gate in the cross country run of life's ledger. It's not as though a contract had been signed. He wasn't on any retainer. He just put his card out there, his goading self-publicity and someone had tagged it with their number. The number 1. But then nothing. No further contact.

He drained the glass and cub scouted his hat back down over his eyes. There was always the possibility of tomorrow. Some new client to walk through the door and explain their affairs. The world was full of Broads, Frails and Stiffs. Law of averages says one of them must roll up to a halt at his door.

Yeah right.

He was up on the thirteenth floor. Nose bleed territory. Where the elevator to such high altitudes was perpetually out of commission.

Dazed And Contused ... You know who you are

Mr Nash unclasped the covercle of his fob hunter. The delicacy of his motion, belied the flurry of sensations quivering around the covercle of the fob that was his heart. Midnight. The day has drawn down its blind and snuffed out the reading candle. And yet his secret admirer, they who had surreptitiously marked his dance card while he was gallantly seeking after a parasol for his maiden aunt, had failed to reveal themselves. Even though it was they who had instituted the assignation. They who had insinuated all sorts of rampant permutations, just by the affixing of their shrouded colophon to his notepaper. Oh how the brain runs amok with affections of the heart. Hopes raised and dashed in the blink of an eye. The pulse of a second hand. The stir of a cockerel clearing its throat.

What perchance if it was not a lady who had impressed her mysterious mark ? After all his notepaper was not impregnated with any lavender from a dainty hand. What if it were a man seeking after redress for some perceived slight ? His mind cast back towards his recent encounters, surveying for any that had been less than convivial. Any instances which betokened the height of ill-manners. Yet none were forthcoming.

Mr Nash snapped his hunter shut. On this occasion, a tinge of exasperated impatience underscored his action. He snatched at the kerchief from its cradling breast pocket and mopped at his tremulously throbbing brow. He tapped his cane twice upon the unyielding ground and marched off. In his pique, overlooking to realign his cuffs and kerchief. These accursed games and trials folk are forced to endure. He mused that should the wit once again mark his card, he would inevitably again faithfully traipse a path out to this picaresque spot after one's bed had been turned down for the night and the coals of the bed warmer diffused their warmth. In order to mount another folorn vigil. For that is what the etiquette demanded.