How The Universe Should Be

Terence is carried back to headquarters on a stretcher.

He likes it.

This is like flying, he says.

Baby Pierre rides his tiny bicycle under the stretcher.

It's going at just the right pace.

Sometimes the universe is just how you think it should be.

.....

Kong Fu-Zi and Freud are conversing through the open window.

Finished the washing yet? enquires the Great Sage.

Almost, says Freud. I'd give a great deal for a washing machine. This basin is barely adequate. I have to do all the work.

I was snoozing just now, says Kong Fu-Zi, and an old Chinese poem of the Middle Tang  period popped into my head, no doubt triggered by the sounds of your washing.

How interesting, says Freud. Don't tell me till I get out my notebook.

Kong Fu-Zi waits for an adequate interval, then he says, singsong fashion:

I see a lone wild-goose crossing the River of Stars,
And I hear, in the night, thousands of washing mallets.

Extraordinary, says Freud. All thanks to me pounding and squeezing these curtains. Did I sound like thousands of washing mallets?

You must have, says Kong Fu-Zi.

Freud writes the correspondences down in his notebook.

.......

Brad looks up from his ledger.

All over? says Brad? Who's this on the stretcher?

Green Flash, says Alli. He fell in the line of duty.

He wasn't supposed to be playing, says Brad.

What! gasps Iris! But he told us.....

Brad shrugs.

Take him out. Unregistered player. No liability.

We'll see about that, says Victor.

You too, says Brad. I told you not to interfere in the war games.

Him too? says Rex. But he told us he was from......Pee....what was it?

Pee Po, says Opal. He told us this heaps funny joke.

Brad is about to stand up and deal with the situation.

Gaius looks at Victor severely.

I shall accept liability, says Gaius. Come Victor. Come Baby Pierre.

He lifts Terence from the makeshift stretcher, even though he is sticky.

........

Soon they are back at Freud's van, outside the entrance.

Freud is just in the process of emptying his basin.

Wait! says Gaius. Terence could do with a bath!
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