Lucia - shallow as the grave

Lucia has been spending more and more time under the ground. Is it presentiments of mortality or just my love of that damp earth smell.. I can't tell?? For some one so in love with life, I'm always amazed at the level of pronounced morbidity that runs through my head like a drain pipe.

Just last week I went for a stroll arounf the back streets of a quieter part of London and came across a shop with a display devoted to caskets, coffins and elaborate headstones. I must have stood staring for fifteen minutes, all the time imaging myself laid out gloriously in repose with a long line of admirers queueing to pay their last respects. As I lay there, looking translucently delicious, wreathed in the cold tendrils of death, I fancied I could hear their tender words as they shuffled past in sorrow:

'Stupid tart, she had it coming!'

'Good riddence to the filthy little pest!'

'Disgusting perv, someone should have done her in years ago!'

Just then, I was snapped from my reveries by a little old man who shuffled up next to me at the shop window. He asked softly. 'Have you lost someone, dear?'

Naturally, Lucia ran off into the night, screaming at the top of her mind.....