The Moletji Tenors

Its only a matter of time now before everything falls apart flying everywhere. They’ll be people leaping, hurdling guardrails and banisters, jumping and leaping like two-legged frogs. No one will see it coming, everything falling apart, creeping cater-cornered across the horizon like a milky white fog. They’ll be no time to gather any personal belongings, time will stop, bits and pieces flying every which way. No time to say goodbye, I’ll miss you, truly I will. Its only a matter of time. Slaked Giltrap lights a fat cigar, his mouth rimmed with oniony spittle, nose twitching madly. He found the back of people’s heads unsettling. All he saw were shrove-withered skulls, God’s grace scrimshawed on ashen bone. It made him sick to his stomach. The Moletji Tenors have the names of great composers tattooed on the back of their heads. Bach and Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Mozart and Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin and Handel, Haydn, Scarlatti and Holst, Mahler and Schumann. Other’s irritability irritates him so he keeps his distance from tetchy and ill-humored people. He fears running into Howard χώρα who might solicit him for a loan, or worse, retch on his shoes. ‘tetchy fat bastard!’ Shostakovich, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky. ‘I’ll miss you, truly I will’. Cater-cornered to the church stands a marble bust of King Olaf, his mistresses’ name scrimshawed on the back of his head. Dejesus awoke with a start, his pillow spotted with lice.