Cedric wasn't quite sure what was going on; he was in fact entirely unsure, which is what made him even more curious. As he approached the boathouse, he could see that something was casting a dim light across the dark water. He needed to find out what it was, because until it went away he wasn't going to get a single bloody wink of sleep, and if there was one thing Cedric really hated, it was people who deprived him of his sleep. He cheered himself up by deciding that he would give whoever it was a bloody good seeing-to, and then poked his head round the wall.

Half-blinded, he could just about make out a small white motorboat bobbing up and down on the water in exactly the same way bricks don't. It was a rather unremarkable boat, and being the sort that floats away if left unattended, it was secured loosely to the boardwalk that it was gently bumping against. Cedric soon realised that the perpetrator of his misery was none other than the boat's searchlight, which was practically pouring light over the noirish depths of the river. Moving in closer, Cedric could see that he was not alone. As he poked his head over the boat, he observed two man-shaped figures talking loudly, with the focus of their heated discussion seeming to be the large sack cloth over which they were standing. Cedric moved closer still, trying to see what was in the sack, but then realised just too late what he had done.

Having been so very keen to work out why his quintessential sleep pattern had been disturbed, Cedric had brushed his head past a rather smelly bottle which had been resting on the edge of the boat. The bottle was now pouring some even smellier liquid into the aforementioned boat but, more pertinently, the bottle had decided to make an ominous clunking sound as it dropped onto the deck. Almost before the sound had reached them, one of the two man-shapes turned to face Cedric, and a broad grin crept across his putrid face. The man grabbed the sack and hurled it into the petrol that was rapidly covering the floor of the boat. Startled, Cedric started to swim away from the boat, but before he could take to the air a putrid hand shot an arc of fire into the boat, and an explosion ripped apart the boat, the boathouse, a nearby tree and one very surprised swan.

—

John Pie slammed the phone down and swore loudly about people these days. People who fired him from his only job, people who carried on demanding money for goods and services even when he was almost completely broke, but most of all people who decided that his name wasn't good enough for page thirty-something of the local paper. All he wanted was one simple advert - bright, bold, to the point, and with his own bloody name in it. Was it too much to ask? John sat down at the table and moped. Noticing that the soggy cornflakes he had left in his breakfast bowl weren't offering too much sympathy, he decided that moping was a waste of time and moved on to self-pity instead. The weather decided to agree with him, and continued with its stint of heavy showers and no bloody sunlight. What a week.

—

Cedric could see the light. It was a pleasant sort of light, and he had already decided that he liked it very much. Naturally, he had thought through its pros and cons, but he had come to the conclusion that there wasn't any harm in liking it, so why not? His next decision was equally grounded in logic, and generally involved steadily waddling towards the light, which he very much enjoyed doing. He wondered if the light would be friends with him. Yes, of course it would. Everybody liked swans.

—

Sitting in the relative comfort of an old oak tree, an owl watched as lightning forked through the air, showing up the silhouette of a distinctly rusty Vauxhall Astra Merit against the otherwise dismal horizon. As a heavy storm pelted the roof of the car, a putrid tongue began to force a series of deep, putrid words past an excessively putrid pair of lips.

'Why didn't I think of that?'

'Because you're stupid, that's why...'

'We're identical, you fool!'

'That proves my point, then. If I am a fool, then so are you.'

'Huh. Fails to explain why you get to have a cool name and I don't.'

'I was born first. That's why. I'm the only one with the power to perform the Evil Summoning of the Ghostly Warrior of the Apocalypse.'

'Oh yes, along with your power to call upon the Radioactive Shape-Shifting Android Possums of Doom...'

'That was an embarrassment for all concerned, but while I remain slightly less than all-powerful, you simply remain an idiot.'

'Yeah, well I can shoot arcs of fire better than you can.'

'No you can't!'

'Of course I bloody well can!'

A bemused owl watched as the car, which had until now been happily pootling along in the distance, caught alight and quickly burst into flames. The owl tilted its head to one side to get a better view, and noticed that a couple of the nice pretty orange things were moving away from the burning car and heading quickly towards the lake beneath the old oak tree. They'd probably scare off the voles.

—

John couldn't sleep. Though his bout of self-pity followed by the hurling of various objects at a copy of the local newspaper had almost tired him out, he still couldn't stop the thoughts from spinning around inside his head. What was his life for? What should he do now? Why didn't he feel happy any more? He was just getting to the point in his thought process at which he realised that his life was utterly pointless, hopeless and generally quite dull when he heard a quack. It came from the corner of the room, near the doorway, and quickly repeated itself in case nobody had heard it. John decided to ignore the noises, reasoning that he didn't want to cope with insanity and depression at the same time. The quack was starting to get bored, so it made itself heard again, then waddled through to the bathroom and started drinking from the toilet. Overwrought, John finally gave up on thinking, thus allowing himself to fall asleep and dream about swans until morning.

On the Subject of Pie Archive

AlexAshman

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