Maggots!!!

Little white maggots!!! Crawling around my larder, over the jars, around the tops of the bottles!!!

Actually, they might be tiny little flies. They’re so small – perhaps half a millimetre long – that you can’t really tell what they are. They could be very tiny little cattle for all I know.

I don’t know why they have targeted my particular larder. Perhaps they specifically like the organic food that I buy more than other people’s chemically treated stuff. I thought I had eliminated them by spraying loads of flyspray all over it, but they have risen from the dead, like maggot Tony Christies.

I am not sure what to do. I can peacefully coexist with rabbits, and the mole – whilst annoying – wasn’t the end of the world. The wood mice in the shed fall firmly into the ‘ooh aren’t they cute’ category, the pheasants and pigeons are both harmless and potential food. The shrew hasn’t been seen for some time, but has an amusing and intrinsically funny name, the hedgehogs keep themselves to themselves, the annoying Ben Elton squeaky thing hasn’t been heard for a while and even Short Tony’s remaining dog only comes across for a shit very occasionally, which gets cleared up with a shamefaced air.

At least they are country maggots. If I’d have had them whilst living in a flat in London I’d have been vaguely freaked out, as clearly they’d have carried all sorts of diseases. Whereas here they seem somehow cleaner and more natural. Unless they are little cattle, of course, in which case they would be extremely unnatural, but handy for the milk.

My plan at the moment is to use existentialist particle physics against them. As I understand it, according to Schrodinger, who was a very renowned scientist before the RSPCA prosecuted him, the maggots only exist when I turn the light on and look at them. Therefore, I try not to do this as much as possible, using the theory that all the blinking in and out of existence will cause some form of breakdown in their cell walls.

Note that this is properly scientific and not just ‘hoping that they will go away’.

“So, how do you feel about it?” I asked Short Tony.

His hard man exterior slipped very slightly, and I could see that he was in two minds.

The dog’s demise (note – at the vets, all official-like) had been an inevitability for some time. Selflessly, the dog herself had tried her best to make the decision easier by hobbling around with a limp, constantly shitting on the floor, and generally being unpleasant and unhygienic to be around. Now, having reached the point where the cess-pit emptying man was finding visiting the house unsavoury, a decision had been made.

“I’m sorry you’re having to have the dog exterminated,” I said, sympathetically.

I had brought round some champagne to make him feel better. We quaffed it, thoughtfully.

“It’s the idea of the injection,” he said. “I never liked injections. Have you ever had a dream when somebody is sneaking up on you to give you a lethal injection?”

I replied that I hadn’t, as I only ever dream about having a spaceship.

“Perhaps they’ve got some form of electric chair that they could use instead?” I mused. “With metal things to put on its head, an’ all.”

He agreed that he’d be happier with that arrangement.

Mrs Short Tony chided him for being foolish. And she was right. It was for the best, given its quality of life. Keeping this particular dog alive would have been roundly condemned by the RSPCA and, quite possibly in this case, Amnesty International.

We were solemn for a bit.

“Stop all the clocks,” I murmured, reciting the moving poem from the film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ (funeral bit). “Cut off the telephone.”

I tailed off after that.

That was last week.

It all went OK. Short Tony is fine. I went round there. There is an empty space in the kitchen that was previously occupied by a rancid hairy clump of dog. It was sad.