I took a notion out of the blue and decided I would pay a visit to my good old friend the Colonel, only to find that he wasn’t in. This was something of a letdown of course but I refused to let it put me off my stride and I decided instead to go and pay my respects to the King, only it turned out that he wasn’t in either. ‘Fuck it’, I cursed, ‘it looks like I’m going to have to hang out with the Clown instead and put up with his creepy clownish ways. Laugh at his jokes and stuff.

By accident – quite inadvertently – I had created the Homunculoid. I had created the Homunculoid and yet the Homunculoid was me. I had created myself, therefore. ‘Whatever did I do it for,’ I wailed out loud, ‘what was wrong with me that I had to do such a thing?’ I was an unhappy ghost. I took a notion and decided that I’d pay a visit to my good friend the Colonel but the Colonel wasn’t in.

I was running off at the mouth, running off in the head, spouting out meaningless mechanical nonsense in a non-stop stream, my mouth apparently working all by itself. The party was only just beginning and I was having a good time. I was in my element. I was mixing and mingling, I was laughing and gesticulating like a maestro. I was the Man of the Moment, a Great Fellow altogether. I was the Homunculus.

The wind had picked up somewhat, I noticed. All of a sudden it had started to wail in the most disconcerting way. I seemed to be walking along the length of a vast desolate valley, a valley full of rocks and crags, stumbling and tripping as I went. But no matter how far I walked the landscape never changed – it was barren, it was harsh, it was unforgiving. There were no green things to be seen, no flowers or trees – only scree and boulders and dust that got in your eyes and in your mouth.

‘I’m the Man of the Moment’, I croaked, ‘I am the King Under The Hill and my time has come…’ Above me flew the crows. Above me flew the crows, mocking me harshly as they circled slowly overhead. They mocked and they mocked and they never grew tired of mocking. In this valley there was nothing else but mockery and I was the butt of it all. I was the Cosmic Fool. ‘I’m a great guy altogether’, I told the crows defiantly, ‘I’m the Hero of the Hour, and the rest of them are no good compared to me…’

The Empire Barber Shop was doing great business. Grim shadowy figures clambered up onto the Chair and then off again in an endless procession. Each taking their turn in the solemn ritual before slinking off again into the surrounding gloom. Business was booming, I noted again, stuck for anything new to say. No shortage of hairy heads here! Dreadful horrible hairy heads – their mouths frozen at the moment of screaming, their eyes staring wildly but seeing nothing. They were mad heads, crazy heads, senseless heads. Heads without a purpose.

The darkness continues to cling to me, of course. It clings to me like a shroud that was tailor made  to fit me and I don’t think it’ll ever let go. Little wispy tendrils of darkness reaching out long spidery fingers, claiming what is rightfully theirs. Because that’s their right. Drawing me down into the nether regions. As I say, I don’t think I’ll ever step out from under the veil to enter the Light of Day. None of us do, after all. None of us ever do…