Thriving on just grease and finches in the Gobi desert

I have just spent the week in Las Vegas as a fine array of gambling dice.

 

It all began on Thursday, which, this week, came before Friday.  I thought no more about it.  Anyway, on this Thursday, I chanced to visit a rather gnarled and twisted old man who carried a small rose bush wherever he went, down in Peckham Rye.

 

His gait was crooked and his hands were blue, but apart from that he looked just like your average frog.  I was intrigue by his rose bush and engaged him in conversation.

"Bide a wee while ye sassenach," I began, in my best Aberdonian accent.

"Haud yer wheesht!" he snarled, and beckoned me indoors with his bent and cracked finger, peering all around him for snipers and ne’er-do-wells.

 

I followed the old man inside and he threw down the rose bush, which became a chair upon which he sat and looked me up and down as if I were a gnat with no sense of decency.  His home was littered about the place with mouldy books and there were rushes strewn about the floor that quivered with the rats who scurried beneath them.

After a time he spoke again: "Do ye ken who I am, ye revolting specimen?"

I had to admit that I kenned not.

"Aye, a’ thought as much ye pusillanimous weed."

By this time, I was growing tired of his insults and turned on my heel to quit his dingy den.

"Haud a while, ye whoreson scab, and take a wee look at ma kitchen if ye will," he said with a glint in his eye.

Reluctantly I turned back and followed him into his kitchen with a heavy heart.  No sooner had I walked through the door then he rushed behind me and pushed me all the way into his enormous waste disposal unit.

I was immediately cut into several thousand cubes, which smarted somewhat as I was not expecting it.  As I fell into the dispensing tray at the bottom, the wizened old man gathered me into sacks and hauled me back into the living room and began to paint many small dots all over my cubed self.

Thence he bundled me into 14 parcels and sent me to Las Vegas whereupon I became several dice for casinos up and down Fremont Street.

 

I brought many people good luck that night, but I haven’t felt right since.

Advertisement