The White Ape in Love

There was one blot on Gretchen's otherwise alabaster vision of her own future, a fly in the ointment as it were, which was her soon-to-be sister-in-law, her future husbands younger brothers wife, whom he had picked up while at Harvard. That institution had gone to the dogs anyway as it was now wholly infested with princelings of the Far East, she had a good mind to write to the dean about the situation and decry the unfair and biased valuing of academic achievement, hard work and intelligence which had supplanted the traditional core values of nepotism, racism and cronyism which had formerly constituted the sole merits for admission. Her name was Alison Ng, and Teddy as well as her own darling Archibald were in thrall to her exotic oriental beauty, such as that however many times she would snap her fingers in Archi's ruddy, puffed out face, in the presence of Alison's alluring long silken black hair (which was blond), her almond shaped, black as ink eyes (which were blue) and her creamy, coffee coloured skin (which was white), Archy and Teddy would slavishly ogle, drool and attend beneath that imperiously flat nose (which was long and pointed). Archy would often, to Gretchen's increasing irritation and annoyance, pontificate and genuflect on the superiority of the oriental wife, what that the Western woman was now full up to her brassiere-less armpits with ideas of universal suffrage and feministic claptrap ("What next? Soon you'll be telling me chimpanzee's should vote and a chap might marry another chap!?) the Western Woman had lost the ability to truly serve and worship a man. The fact that Alison was not actually Asian was a fact lost on the brothers, who could not see beyond their own mystifying Orientalisms which conjured an illusory image of the East, of dark forbidden pleasures, sexual submission, ecstasy and carnal knowledge hitherto forgotten in the West. Alison (whose last name was incidentally the abbreviated initials of her hyphenated full title Nathaniel-Grimsby) was slightly perplexed when the brothers entreated her to sing a song from her homeland, in that savage Mandarin tongue of her forebears, when she would oblige with a chorus of 'Me Japanese Boy I Love You' (which would throw the boys into paroxysms of delicious erotic rapture, the trans-sexual masquerade of which conjured a series of Bouriscot-ian homo-erotic dilemmas in itself.)

Breeding Habits of the White Ape

Gretchen Dwynedowers, soon to be Mrs Gretchen St. Regis, sat in the drawing room of her Upper-West-Side apartment with her Mother, arranging the invite list for her upcoming wedding. Soon to marry a hedge fund executive from a prominent line of Bostonians, she really could not imagine that the world could be any more perfect. Nevertheless, there were always little gripes, or as she called them, "opportunities for improvement."

She addressed her Mother, a true family matriarch, in her best (meaning most screeching) trans-atlantic whine, "Must we really invite them Mother? They are some sort of middle ages throwback! Besides, they are very happy on their medieval island - they will not to take it to heart."

"No dear, I'm afraid your cousins must be invited. Don't argue. Your Father and I have our reasons."

Gretchen knew she had no choice but to acquiesce to the iron will of her Mother, and begrudgingly added the names of Lord and Lady Wellesley to the guest list. But she was not happy about this fact, and she resolved that if they must attend, then she would see to it that they would not find their visit accommodating.

Thuggery Sven

Thuggery Sven is hiding out because he is on the run. He is on the run because he is wanted for questioning. He is wanted for questioning after he allegedly strangled a nightclub bouncer to death in a Reykjavik spa resort. Thuggery Sven became uncomfortable when the bouncer approached with a business offer, having the mistaken belief that Thuggery Sven might be able to help import and sell the bouncer's Mother's hand-sewn tapestries from Iran. There is no point asking him questions, because Thuggery Sven has no answers. He was on a meth bender at the time.

 

Thuggery Sven stowed away on a luxury yacht bound for Southampton. Staying away from the major roads he headed for his contacts on the Isles. He finds himself hiding in a hedgerow on the estate of Lord Palmerston-Napier. Boy, he is hungry, he has not eaten for some time. For a man so full of revulsion, he does think lustily about kebabs an awful lot.

Doris is a sheep that lives in the the backyard of Lord Palmerston-Napier. She is linked to her natural environment. She gets along well with Morris, a fellow sheep with which she co-habits.

Doris looks at Morris. Morris looks at Doris. So Doris tells Morris a joke:

"A comfort woman, a taiwanese aborigine and a nationbuilder walk into a Chinese bar. They each order a drink. The bartender cuts off his beard, a peasant movement walks out the door and everyone goes tribal."

"Your fuckin hilarious you is Dorris my love. What a bloody pisser!"

Thuggery Sven looks over and hears the baaa-baaa-baaa-baaa-baaa-baaa-baaa-baaa-ing. For a split second he looks Doris in the eye, and she at him,

So what does Thuggery Sven do? Thuggery Sven jumps out from behind the hedgerows and tears Doris limb from limb. With his bare hands as they say. Not long afterwards he has roasted her and is digesting her by the fire. "Funny," he thinks to himself, "I don't get that fucking joke at all. Don't think mutton have much of a sense for humour." 

Rivers of Mercury

And the first emperor would seek to build a dark mirror empire in the afterlife, beneath the mountain he burned boulders of cinnebar with fire until they became liquid mercury which flowed through the channels of his tomb, creating shimmering, silver rivers that stood in for the eternal Chang Jiang.

Qin Shi Huang's majestic capital in Chang'an, now still secreted and unknown because of those noxious subterranean rivers of mercury are doubled about four hundred years later in the Aztec pyramids of the feathered serpent in Teotihuacan, where beyond tumbles of jade and jaguar skeletons we have found silvery rust on stone signifying the imperial rivers which might have protected the final resting places of the anonynous Meso-American emperors.