A Small Puddle

I think I need a new look. For too long I have languished in longjohns and bootees, an attenuated toddler with uncombable hair. I wear Snout's underwear and ramshackle trousers and I smell like an old man, of tobacco and wool. Every day I see the college students, poreless and fauny, loping off for another day of i-pods and meow-meow and nubile frottage and I think it's time to get some glamour back into my life, somewhere between the smoke and the snooze.

So I dictate this to my handmaiden from a bath of gin and olive brine, my shellacked lips fellating a pink cocktail cigarette, my talons lacquered carapace green. A clingfilm-clad dreamboat feeds me anchovies and tongue and when I rise queen-like from my salty mire he rubs me down with kittens. Herons dress me in a gown of baby locks and little skin slippers with curled up toes and my suitors' sighs dry my hair, my hair that falls starfish-studded right down to the ground.

Spangled piglets carry my train as I slink from dressing room to boudoir, where I am met by my hooded butler and a flagon of eggnog and ambergris. I sink into the cat-belly cushions of my solid sugar chaise longue and look lazily at the cabinets and the boys and girls inside. I point to the one I like the look of least and run a comb through my hair.