'A great oak
tree fell into a river and split open, and a roll of
transparent cling film came out, in a long oval shape. Inside
that there
was a woman made of glass, and inside that woman made of glass
there was a
whole little network of tiny wires. Gradually, the cling film
melted away
and the woman made of glass swam out of the river. She began to
fly and
she developed beautiful topaz wings which lifted her high above
the orange
wood, and she flew all the way to the long white tower and then
she
hovered just above the long white tower.
She was wearing dancing shoes and as she had learned to fly, she
had learned to dance, and she rotated round and round. She had
very
elegant legs and she was an elegant dancer, and the foot of her
ballet
pump came down onto the top of the white tower and suddenly she
froze, she
became a statue and she was glass no more, she was alabaster.
The tower
underneath kind of glowed gratefully, as you would expect, and
the woman
with a beautiful expression on her face turned to stone, and then
the
wires inside her fell right the way down to the bottom of the
tower.
It's not interesting to say what was in the tower, but at the
bottom of the tower was a very very English sort of man with a
couple of
bow ties on and a walking stick and a dog named Colonel. He just
held his
hand out, down came a long copper coil, and he reached out his
hand and he
squeezed it and a look of quite pleasure came over his muted English
features and his toes began to vibrate. Colonel the dog rushed
outside
and barked, something was in the air, and sure enough, floating
down the
river from the opposite direction came an iron submarine which
for some
reason floated.
It was full of Chinese boys who were all growling and gnashing
and
rubbing their saliva on the back of each other's palms. Suddenly
their
overlord, who was called the Pumpkin, came through. He was three
times
their size and he just wore a pumpkin head like on Halloween,
with a grin.
He lashed the Chinese boys and spat on them all and then he pointed
his
whip to the sky and the Chinese boys all looked up.
They saw this bird that looked terribly nervous and suddenly
exploded into a storm cloud, and the storm cloud drifted toward
the white
tower where the woman in the statue was, and it got bigger and
bigger.
And this guy the Pumpkin was egging his Chinese boys on down the
reiver -
"Owee, ooh," like that - and they were getting closer and closer
to the
tower, and the Englishman downstairs did absolutely nothing, just
stood
there holding the coil, and then the storm cloud got bigger and
bigger.
It was a raging storm by now. Little filaments of lightning were
zooming out, and eventually the dog ran back inside and a few
drops of
rain fell and the Englishmean held out his hand, went "Hmmm,"
had a glass
of sherry and went back indoors and shut the door discreetly.
The tower
was now surrounded by yammering Chinese boys, and the Pumpkin
was standing
there overlording them, trying to get his whip round the tower,
but it was
quite greasy - no, it wasn't greasy, it was whip-resistant - so
anyway,
predictably a bolt of lightning struck that statue at the top
and went all
the way down to the man at the bottom. And the tower disappeared
and the
Chinese people disappeared and everyone disappeared and there
was just me,
sitting in a pool of placenta on a table in Paddington. And that's
the
true story, and you're the first person to hear it.'"
