Pepperland, full-sun day
As I look up from my rocking-horse pie and wander about, I see Johnnie Boy on the crest of the Natung-La hill with the sun in his eyes. He smiles as a tune floats down, "Day after day, alone on a hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still." Sucking on a sugar cube, I start to climb. Many hued creatures poke their heads out from behind stones shot through with colours and smile at me. Its Lucy's wedding day and the guests are busy fixing a hole in the sky letting the rain in. The only light comes from Johnnie Boy's eyes. Must be quite bright, I remember thinking. The garden east of the thunder is full of rain and Billy Shears leads the worthies to the canopy where the lemonade is being sold for one hit a miss.
I can't see Paulie, but I hear him singing somewhere with the frog chorus, "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering where it will go."
I guess he's leading the horse fixers on a flag march. Rehearsals are necessary. After all, the wedding card had promised- "A Splendid Time Is Guaranteed For All".
Hari-baba is romancing a gap-toothed fairy under the cinnamon bush. He kisses her hand, his beard flying in the wind. "What do you see when you turn off the lights?", somebody, maybe Mimi, shouts at him.
"I can't tell you," he winks, "but I know its mine."
The hole fixed, the sun appears, skipping wheels of rhyme as the foggy ruins of time wash off its luminous sphere. There it goes, skidding across strawberry fields. A thin, dim figure chases it with a flashing stick. Its Johnnie Boy, that's who, weilding a slumping wedding rod shouting through the freshly minted mint leaves.
But where be the master of ceremonies? He had said that he'd be found navigating his yellow submarine through the sea of holes if anyone cared.
"That's it!" exclaimed Eleanor exasperatedly. "He's feeling left out once again. What did you say to him this time Paul?". This she asks the young mustachioed gallant fiddling with a bagpipe beside her, the one with the frog chorus.
"Well," said Paulie, "Rich wanted to go see Mr. Henderson ride a dragon to the Mumley tree and back and I said why not act your height and do summersaults on solid ground? He got peeved and went off in a huff to his paramour Octopussyfooting saying that I'm always trying to be taller than him."
Paulie then produced a bit of paper from behind Eleanor's left ear and and taking a long drag on the bazooka he was smoking, scribbled 'there are seven levels' on it. Winking slyly he looked at Elly and said, "You're a big mother, want to see my marguerites?" So faded the scene, amidst giggles.
A tinkling music slooshes through the hills surrounding Natung-La. Mr Henderson and his Fiery Frederick touches down in a swish of wings and a sniff of brimstone. He does a pirouette and and alights gracefully, a green hat in hand. "Hoom," he says, says he.
"Where be Rich, Manny?" asks Johnnie Boy through his nose, snorting away the bluebottle fly trying to find a suitable spot on his nose.
"Oh, count your lucky Starrs," hoomed Henderson, "cause Richie has put his little tiff with Paulie behind him and now wears it for a tail."
"He's trying to be big about it is he?" sniggered Paulie from under the giggling Elly.
"Far out," says Johnnie Boy and shakes a thought from his sleeve and looks at it with kaleidescope eyes. Just then Hari feels the ground move beneath him, and rolls off the lap of the fairy and lights a joint in one motion. As he exhales, the blue smoke clings to the mountain air and Rich appears, big nose and all, clothed in blue. He's reading the news. WE BECOME NAKED, screams the headline, over a picture of Marianne and Margerie buttering up their hams.
"Where the hell you been Rich?" drawls Hari, serenely smoking.
"Well," says Richie lugubriously, "them sea of holes turned out to be in Blackburn, Lancashire and being so far away from here, I had to worm-hole my way. I'm all smoky as a result." Someone tittered, maybe Paulie.
And so everyone was together again at the Chemycal Wedding of Lucy and Cristian Rosencreutz. The lights were right, the sangria laced and the meat marinated. As the boys told cool jokes and the girls smoked bongs, a cheer went up in the vales. They all looked up. Oh the marvel! Shimmering in white, riding an obsidian Olyphaunt, and ringing the wedding bell, there was Lucy in the sky with diamonds!!!
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