Zits in the shape of Lyndsey de Paul; I’m scared to squeeze them in case they burst into song. Still, beggars can’t be choosers.

We had a barbeque last weekend; drank bargain-bin wine, then pissed on a pile of dead tree-bark at the bottom of the garden, spontaneously generating new life from compost and dark, inorganic compounds. My dad said it was scientifically impossible, but he was wrong: a few minutes later the hedge was swarming with cricket-headed women and triple-jointed ant-creatures that sang ‘No, Honestly’ in ridiculous falsettos. It looked like it was going to rain, so we went indoors.

Andrew’s new wife has got a dick. It was a bit disconcerting the first time I saw it, smeared in tomato and basil-sauce, sat limply in a bowl of pasta-salad. Andy laughed, but I could tell he was embrarassed. Someone put on Fleetwood Mac.

Couples danced listlessly in the kitchen. Russell was sick. “Ah, fuck,” he said, wiping his mouth, “Work’s really getting on my tits right now. Sorry.” Something that looked like a grasshopper headbutted the window outside, then puked up a milky-looking substance. It clicked its mouth-parts against the glass, rhythmically, as if it were singing along in some sad way to Jona Lewie.

I met a woman on the stairs who seemed faintly familiar. “Do I know you?” I asked, checking her out, “Were we at school together?” She shrugged and stared back at me with blank insect eyes. I carefully examined her perm for nits, but she suddenly pissed on the stair-carpet. “Okay, I guess not.”

I went outside for a smoke, but the garden was full of donkey-sized may-bugs chewing on the garden-furniture and polishing off the last of the potato-salad. They parted, almost reverentially, as I slowly prowled back and forth across the crazy-paving, smoking while I watched the red/green lights of an airliner passing overhead. A woodlouse-faced girl glowered at me from underneath her ridged, gun-metal carapace and spat acetic acid into my face. Even though I had lived in this house all my life, I understood that it was finally time to go home.

Somewhere behind me I heard a window shatter as they awkwardly tossed flower-pots at the house, so I retrieved my coat from the woodshed and walked slowly back through a gauntlet of clacking mandibles and vague insect mutterings until I reached the safety of the drive where Andrew’s new wife was waiting for me in her car.