Sehr langsam.

Zart bewegt.

Sehr langsam.

Zart bewegt.

Sehr zart, langsam bewegt.

Sehr bewegt, langsam zart, langsam bewegt.

Bewegt, langsam, zart, zart, sehr zart, und so fucking weiter, bewegt, bewegt.

The lady from next door enters and takes off her shoes – bang, bang, biddy.

The lady from next door edges toward the cane chair closest to the fire – biddy, biddy, bang.

The lady from next door swings her right leg up and over the arm of the chair – zippy-o le.

The coal burns, the fire glows, the chitter-chatter commenceth with greatest enthusiasm.

I want to be clear on the point that I have absolutely nothing against ladies next door.

I want to be absolutely clear on the point that that visiting lady has every right, every right.

Her leg is her leg, shit, and she can damn well do what she wants with it.

Her leg is her leg, shit, and nobody can tell her either to swing it up over the arm of the chair or no.

She is acting perfectly within her rights in so doing, and in so doing every second Tuesday.

At last count.

On a regular basis.

At last count.

On a regular basis.

Marschmässig.

Vif.

Mrs. Ashby is a well-educated and impeccably mannered gentlewoman of approximately 5’1”.

When she takes the weight off her legs, obviously, she plunges toward the gutter in terms of stature.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing – some people, quite a few people, actually, do so plunge.

At last count.

On a regular basis.

At last count.

On a regular basis.

Marschmässig.

Vif.

Mrs. Ashby and her joss sticks and her Plantagenet fucking pearls – there is nothing wrong with them.

At last count.

Were you even listening?

Sehr langsam, langsam bewegt.

Sehr langsam, zart bewegt.

The Marsupial Twins, on the other hand.

The Marsupial Twins, on the other hand, rub pretty much everything up the wrong way.

They are abrasive and atrociously self-centered and nobody invites them to take their shoes off.

Let alone to come in.

Were they to come in, then, chances are, your mob’d be in serious trouble.

They are perfectly capable – perfectly capable – of throwing a wobbly on the linoleum and more.

What is wrong with them?

They do not – for some strange reason – linger either near the coal fucking fire or the cane chair.

Do they sense, perhaps, that Mrs. Ashby has made touchdown thereat sometime in the past?

With or without her marmalade cat and her (Mrs. Ashby’s) rough tongue.

Does Mrs. Ashby’s past egress bother them in some fashion such that they avoid her wake?

It seems so.

That seems to be the fucking case.

Zart langsam, sehr bewegt.

Sehr langsam, langsam bewegt.

The Marsupial Twins, I don’t know what’s got into them.

The Marsupial Twins, they’re quite possibly, quite plausibly, a signal that life has deteriorated.

Across the board.

In these parts, anyway.

Across the board.

Death does not seem to hold them back; the death of somebody else, anyway, does not seem to hold them

back at all; which is somewhat startling, is it not? is that fact not somewhat startling?

What is wrong with them, the Marsupial Twins?

They stand for everything that civility and busybody rationality strive ceaselessly to smother.

What is wrong with them, the Marsupial Twins?

Do they perchance mark the border between the fucking welcome of the voice and the eternal stinginess

of the flesh?

That might well be it, you know.

I think you might be on to something there, you know, why don’t you give it another friggin nudge?

What is wrong with them, the Marsupial Twins, why do they stand so clearly apart from Mrs. Ashby?

Well, Mrs. Ashby, clearly, represents all that is fine, dandy, winning, talkative, and zealous in the

body politic – without going at all too deep.

True, she neither stoops nor pauses; the personal testimonies to normality grind one down throughout

the ruins of the temple.

Whereas, ... the Marsupials –

Stand markedly awry of solid godly coordinates, I grant you –

They have always insisted on the axiomatic salience of Clause IV.

Clause –

IV.

Shit.

You forgot.

I forgot their stressing that point –

Stringendo, morbido.

Ahem.

You mean, they weren’t actually pissing about –

No, not at all – they have always meant business in that regard –

I believe you.

I believe myself.

Marschmässig.

Vif.

Something Mrs. Ashby, knees high with the garter, Royal Gazette always at the fucking ready, mate-

O, would never have countenanced – O, no, not the Ash.

The Twins wanted to take over everything fucking thing, and no prisoners.

Liberate both the chapels and the pissoirs, that’s what they might have been heard saying.

Liberate the naval academies, the brothels, the abattoirs, the glassblowers’ workshops, the fucking model

railway repair rooms, the sludge heaps, the parliamentary gallery, the lentil patches, the kennels, the

wind turbines, the orchestras, the oubliettes, the rice paddies, the fulfilment fucking centres galore, the

cemeteries, the maternity clinics, the shebeens, the printing presses, the council chambers, the works, eh.

That’s what they said, anyway.

And I’m pretty sure they meant it.

And I’m pretty sure they would have carried through with it.

And I’m pretty sure they would have screwed the whole thing up.

Because they didn’t have a plan?

Stringendo, morbido.

Because the plan wouldn’t have worked. Because the gravitational, inertia-inflected force of the Mrs.

Ashbys of this world would also been far too strong?

Morbido, string-fucking-gendo.

Far too strong.

Far, far too strong – all things considered.

That leg was up there, kicking back and up over the side of that cane chair for a reason.

She was settled; she had settled.

She had long given up on the lost cause of Clause fucking IV, for that rabble, no way.

And, presumably, nobody could have forced her not to do so.

And they knew that.

The Marsupial Twins, they knew that.

Of course they did.

Of course they did.

After all, who were the people, the good people, the torpid people, the people who jumped up like mad

dogs to get out of bed in the morning and who slunk, slunk back into the very same bed the very same

late evening with their nose hairs precisely the endorsed measure longer, thicker, who were the good

people likely to plump for when push came to shove –

Ashby or Marsupial?

Marsupial or Ashby?

Marschmässig.

Vif.

A no-brainer.

A no-brainer.

The brains were doomed to lose.

Property was to remain private forever more.

Mark our words.

Which is to say lost.

Correct.

Which is to say withheld from all who have contributed to its blessedly incremental steps toward total

atrophy?

Correct, also.

Ashby proven gold-plated.

And the Twins stuck in steerage on the next fucking freighter out of town, out of sniff, out of mental

frame.

Poor old Twinnies.

Trascinando, unangenehm.

At some point perhaps the Twins might return to wreak their revenge on a lady who’s palpably kept her

marbles unchipped and shiny but may not be able to do so when the public mood waxes populist and

shabby.

Unlikely.

They have had their day in the sun.

They have seen the manner with which Ashby has risen to the fucking top, suppressed Clause fucking IV,

privatized the fucking garters, the cane chair, the coal fire, the coal, all presence of mind, the party

hacks, the apparatchiks, those clowns, the writers of history, the composers of petty doctrines, eclogues,

the janissaries, the brain rhythm scientists, that crowd, they have seen her dominate the majoritarians,

skin their bollocks, sell them to the lewdest bidder, divide, construe, etc., etc.

The Marsupial Twins will not have enjoyed seeing that but there are some things in life that you simply

have to see – and take in – whether you enjoy seeing them or not.

And that was one of those things, surely.

If ever there was one of those things that you needed to see even though you didn’t necessarily enjoy

having to see it, that was one of those things, for sure.

We make no bones about saying that.

Trascinando, unangenehm.

Unangenehm, untrascinando.

Stringendo, morbido.

Morbido, stringendo.

Zart bewegt; zart unbewegt.

O fuck.