Losing The Trust Of The Evidence

Where is this mystery door? asks the Baw Baw.

The mystery door is a symbol, says the Blue Moon Cicada. But the way has been muddled.

They push onwards and upwards, through the brown watery liquid.

When we reach the surface, thinks the Blue Moon Cicada, I will be dun-coloured.

When we reach the door, thinks the Baw Baw, I shall see if he truly is turquoise.

So, they both have a different agenda.

Bong! The Blue Moon Cicada hits the door.

It moves, with surprising alacrity.

Aaark! cries Terence.

It's his foot, not the door.

He moves it. Where his foot was is the head of the Green Grocer Cicada.

HERE HE IS! shouts Terence. HE WAS UNDER MY FOOT ALL THE TIME!

Give him air! says Gaius.

The Green Grocer Cicada drags his dun coloured body out of the mud-suck.

Swurp!

A head with a large parotid gland running from eye to shoulder rises slowly behind him.

Can it truly be? cries Gaius. A Baw Baw?

I'm not staying, says the Baw Baw. Just saying goodbye.

Do come out just for a moment, my sweeting, says the Green Grocer Cicada.

He judges it not too risky. It's snowing. The mud won't wash off.

She is seduced by his augmented poetical endearment, my sweeting.

What a pity it's snowing. If it was raining his mud would wash off. She would see his beautiful body, all turquoise. A thing to remember.

Most excellent! says Gaius. Someone find me a box, for the Baw Baw.

Terence has a box, says Arthur.

Terence looks daggers.

It's got dinosaur teeth in! says Terence.

No need to upset yourself, says the Baw Baw. I'm not going anywhere.

WE are, says Terence. We decided. We were just packing up.

Oh? says the Green Grocer Cicada.

Yes, says Gaius. It is fortunate timing. We thought we had lost you.

I was doing my job, says the Green Grocer Cicada.

Job? I thought you were a wanderer, says the Baw Baw. I thought you were a travelling poet, in a poetry hat.

A chap can be both, says the Green Grocer Cicada, lamely.

May I ask, says Gaius, addressing the Baw Baw, why you wish to remain here?

As I slept I dreamed I heard the call of a male Baw Baw, says the Baw Baw. We are a critically endangered community of only two hundred and forty eight. I'm sure you will understand that I can't just up sticks and go off gallivanting with a turquoise cicada in a poetry hat, tempting as it might be...

When you put it like that, says Gaius, I feel ashamed of my crassness.

Take a photo, says Sweezus. That'll prove that you found one.

That I found one, says the Green Grocer Cicada.

A fine idea, says Gaius. The three of us in our Kathmandu jackets, finding a Baw Baw.

And me, says Terence. I actually found it.

I found it, says the Green Grocer Cicada.

It!  He found IT?

So much for my sweeting.

She no longer cares what shade of turquoise lurks under his mud crust.

She sinks rapidly under the mud, before anyone can take a photo.