The literature loving policeman who came to tea (to tea).

 

The literature loving policeman who came to tea (to tea).

Page One…

I was sitting in the kitchen of my converted workhouse flat, listening to the pylons humming and watching the rapeseed sprout; when suddenly there was a knock on the door. "Who could it be?" I pondered.

"It can't be the milkman because he can't climb the stairs, which is why I get cartons of goat-milk from the local co-op, along with my vodka and razor blades and toffee crisps and a fresh copy of fertilizer update. Who else?

It can't be the boy from the grocers because that vestigial remnant of bygone civility is not an option to a person of my lowly economic status. Although better times are surely ahead; besides the co-op covers the groceries contingency with sufficient a degree of adequacy as that same hallowed emporium mercifully relieves we itinerants in dire need of lactose enrichment and fertilizer tittle. So it can't be him, because he's a throwback. And he doesn't exist. Or maybe his delivery bike has got a puncture.

Who else could it be? It can't be daddy, because he lives 200 miles away and is probably at work on an oil rig in any case. But enough of this lassitude!
In a concerted act of intent I turned and said to my peace Lilly, *insert Latin name here, (I didn't have a cat in those days) "Lilly," I said, "We'd better open the door and see!" Pause. No response. "Ok then, I'll do it on my Todd, you're clearly incapable of such dexterity because you haven't evolved door opening capabilities yet and I can't be arsed to wait for half a billion years before you damn well manage it!"

So, I left Lilly in the shade to fend for herself and crave some baby bio, whilst I went and opened the door. And there, to my surprise, (because naturally enough I was expecting to see a great big, furry, stripy tiger,) was a rather underwhelming looking police sergeant. "Excuse me Sir," he said, rather gruffly, "but do you happen to know anything about poetry?"

(Next 26 pages omitted due to their singular failure to convincingly describe the soft whistle of non-sequiturial obliqueness which feathered the pale vacuum of incomprehension that the sight of this lost plod catalyzed in the rusty loft of my isolated psyche.

"Of course, come in. Would you like a cup of tea dear tiger, errr, I mean, Sergeant?" I said after a shortish break in the space/time continuum.
"Certainly Sir!" He blurted.
"Do sit down sergeant, never mind the Lilly, she's a bit reticent at first, her leaves were burned by a mad trumpeter following a misunderstanding he had with the most high landlord who told him to throw my vacuum cleaner away and walk barefoot to Israel via Ipswich but I digress; Earl grey, do for you? Sugar?"

Page 28. Flashback.

There was a time, you can call it the olden days if you like, before çomputers turned us all into gibbering, badly collated information receptacles, when people used to use these olde worlde communication facilitators called "envelopes" in which they deposited quaint and primitive artifacts called "letters" - yes, children, "letters", it's true, I've seen them myself and I hope you trust the word of a grumpy old man on this point, there definitely used to exist such a thing, in the olden days, before space invaders, and flashing on and off trainers and Betamax and iPhones and pornhub and virtually everything you ever looked at, said, or thought, got stuck up in a cloud or spy satellite forever and ever until you ran for public office or tried to get a job looking after children. Anyway, I digress, they had these things called letters, which meant writing to people under various pretexts.
It was during this time that I used to send unsolicited poems (aka advanced graffiti) to various organs of the commonwealth, such as hearing aid suppliers and credit card touts, who were kind enough to supply me with pre paid envelopes in the letters which they sent, soliciting my undying allegiance to their corpulent and bloated client base.

For example