THE TATTOOED TONGUE.

It was Friday night full of drunken yobs when I finally left
the great office block In the sky set for freed om and frhe blue ,
sky of lazyness offered to the western traveler 'n a fore'gn
lands.                                                .
Three hours to get to the airportand jet to the sun. .stavation
and luxury but at this last moment I was drawn to the last cup
of good greasy tea. . .possibly the last a good Englishman
would taste for several weeks.. .However what made me choose
this particularly stained cafe' I will never know no® I suppose
will I ever know the meaning of this recount of the following
events that night,                                         'j
The tea tasted the same over brewed aid pollution flavour as j
any of the randomly chosen cafe's that donnot use bottled    ||
water as my local does. .but it was helped down by the know-ri

-ledge of my immenant departure and strangely enougth alth-ii

-ough I suppose not for this kind of place by the ramblings of II
a beared drunk fellow that had taken it upon his self to co- ||

-occupy my usual position in the center back of the room.   s!
.Drunk and seemingly misplaced I donot know exactly how I of
all people came to be speaking to such a person...prehaps I ;:'
made a polite passing comment about his unusual habit of    .
keeping his left eye closed, .extremely damaging to the pupil
and I knew instinctify that he did in fact have an eye in that
screwed up socket of his. Or did he just begin his long involved
story, .told as proffessionally as ever but ending no doubt with
the usuall " Have you got a spare 1 Op for a cup of tea guv. "
even though I and certainly the rest of the cafe. to my extreme
embarisment could see that he had had one or a few far too man
"bottles of strong 'tea' already.
I believe his story went like this:

" A while back now. .yes it must have been when I was working
for the government in fact. .was when I began for no reason to
have a terrible pain in the wisdom tooth, not an ordinary pain
but one which cut r'ght through my head and prevented me do'P9
my work. .stop all reasonable thought in fact unt'l one night I
dec'ded and acted upon the insane act of wedging a piece of
blunt Elder wood into my left eye so as I may have a pain in
another part of my body for once. . .it was then that I decided
to break my life long pledge and vist the dentist and travelled

My atoms were spread outand I was unable to think in an ord-

-inary manner, .it was as if I was made of sand. .1 could feel eve
..l-y grain, .see and feel perceive from every grain and the sand
was rapidly being spread out in gas form by the oragige wind in
all directions . Sudonly with my fly's flying eye brain I saw the
grains converge on the jaws of the snake as so many microbes
scattered about a room would converge on a face. I thrust out
y/ith the figures walking stick of Hawthorn which I had managed
to grip at the last conceivable instant before the fragmentation
and with it I was catapulted out of my 'body' with the force of
g thunder storm away from the Hypnotic eye of the snake.     '
Captured by one leg in the hights of the tree the wind dropped . L
and calm decended on the scene. Scene that was rapid in its
disoiving into the television cue count down of 9 seconds.
...321..the scene flicked to another with a diffemet sound
track, .wild pan pipes and the location of a chamber with un-

-known nor seen symbols etched around the outter rm of the
domed roof.These -letters and symbols spun out of view as
the eyes closed and I stood naked ''n front of a full length
mirror with bulging mad eyes and mouth wide opened, .the
piped music of relax-and-buy super-market wound around
my ears closing them the pain of the tooth faded but my tong-

-ue was the swollen snake and on it the adder nscriptions
of the domed room. .symbols of tongue etched 'n as 'ny eyes
lost sight and the humans in the room came and went mutt-.

-erng nonsense of a technical kind with sharp knives in hand
and h-n I.fe'1 into the notthingness of sle^cp dead.

As far I could gain. .they had performed the wrong opper - '•< ' '

-ation on me***.

They did..it want to tell me for fear of law action, instead the
kept me in Hospital for the next few moJnths. .during which
time I realyl did lose my mind. .dream of a frightfull kind .
In real life they offered me thousands of pounds for the use
of my tongue in photographic displays or something, .train-
ing but I took non of it. a little while later I got out of
there for good. .bought a little place with the money from
^Y accident in the south o? France, .here it is. . "
Now my Brain whirled into action as I saw a wonderfull mansion
^th this very man standing outside with a glass in his hand..
' South of France. I'm on my way there now. . " as I reached down
t0 touch my suitcases with the air company eagage stickers _ -

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