Notes from the Potting Shed

 Good morning, or at least I believe it’s morning — my kitchen clock has decided to restart itself from 1973 (I checked the bacon rind; it's showing Nixon), and the church bells rang thirteen times at dawn, then fell off the tower entirely and landed in someone's allotment. Gerald claims it was his, but he lies about carrots so frankly I’m taking that with a pinch of beetroot.

Terry is still missing.
A full-grown man. Popped to the shop for a constitutional and hasn’t been seen since. You’d think we’d hear him if he were nearby — Terry breathes like a leaking concertina and is normally allergic to everything including nylon and the moon. Yet not a sniff. Except last night when the wind brought the faintest whiff of Old Spice and ashtray round by the duck pond. I investigated, but all I found was a single sock jammed into the door of the phone box, and a scratched-out message on the glass that read:
“THIS ISN’T THE PRIZE I WON.”

Still the children sit.
Still the Punch & Judy booth stands unmanned, with the curtain fluttering slightly like it’s breathing in. Or out.
And still the little ones sit cross-legged and silent in front of it, even through the rain, which has taken on a sort of backwards quality. It doesn't so much fall as gather, slowly, in the air around you. Keith says it’s a “localised metaphysical anomaly,” but he’s been speaking in binary since Wednesday and his eyebrows keep trying to spell something.

Lights continue to shine from the Fayre long into the small hours. Blue, pink, sometimes a green so deep it hums in the knees.
Hettie Swallow tried to peek in through the hedgerow and came back three inches taller and speaking fluent Esperanto.
The fortune teller's tent now has a queue stretching as far as Brunt Fenn. No one remembers joining it.

I passed by the coconut shy and saw no coconuts, only eight badly-painted ceramic heads — one of which had my face.
I did not stay.

The goats have begun sleeping in strict, repeating patterns and refuse to go near anything striped.
I understand. I’ve had similar issues since Cheltenham.

I’ll be potting on some Night Squeezels this morning and perhaps attempting to re-balance the house spirits with a saucer of stout and a whisper of Fleetwood Mac. If any of you have seen time, please return it to the church noticeboard where it was last properly accounted for.

Hold fast, my poppets.
And for the love of all that's brined — don’t eat the pink popcorn.

Yours in mild alarm,
Virgil Twobyfour
Former Shwami, Occasional Bake-Off Judge, and Unlicensed Horologist