And then the vagaries of fate and a non-anthropocentric cosmos esnured that I would be left behind on a moonless earth with a scarred face, while a little grey cat traversed the stars in my place. The tides would never be the same, and neither would my hide.

And then?

On the fifth day, they drank, pointed and laughed. On the seventh day, it was coconuts and orange socks. The sixth day called in sick.

And then?

My heart with pleasure fills, but still refuses to dance with the daffodils.
Nyaaah.

And then?

The fax machine and the answering machine discovered that they were in love. But the answering machine was the practical sort. "A bird and a fish can fall in love, but where will they build their nest?" And, well, that was that.

And then the shoggoths came climbing down from the roofs, to bear the wretched townspeople away to R'lyeh, arisen from beneath the waves once again. Plush Chthulhu clapped his fluffy tentacles and laughed to see such fun.

And then?

The quiet mouse-like girl flailed her arms and ran about the office yelling, rather uncharacteristically, "where is my brief? where's my brief?" It was a low point in the already relatively low life of the advertising industry.

And then I devolved into a unicellular organism, covering the entire planet with a layer of beer-fuelled angst and adolescent aggression.

And then with a master-stroke the feller felled the fairy, tickling his lady-friends' fancy. A crowd of ogres stood and stared. They'd heard this song before.

And then?

On account of all the shoot-outs in the city, all the pubs started a BYOG* policy.

*Bring Your Own Gun.

And then?

I walked into Brainville but it looked like a desert. Then I felt very very alone.

And then?

After months of avoiding my speech therapist's calls and notices, I nervously opened an e-mail from him to be greeted with those three delightful and somewhat ironic words.
Message text garbled.

And then the reality police apprehended me and slammed me in lock-up for 'serial delusions'.

And then?

All the king's horses lost their right shoes, and all the king's men got very drunk. And the house upon the rock was firm.

And then?

There were three blind mice, three little pigs and three days before the deadly lullaby was sung to the child. Ask Chuck, he knows.

And then?

He read his Robert Frost and she, her Emily Dickenson, and entire collections of delightful poetry remained unwritten.