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After dinner, while sponging the last dregs of gravy with my finger, I observed my plate had acquired, embedded in the porcelain, a facsimile of the moon. Previously, my plate was merely that blue-and-white china still popular among ordinary folk (I am not one such), titled ‘Willow Pattern’. A bridge, two doves stand for dead lovers, you know the scene. Now, in a flash, the moon, or a dead ringer for such, had swallowed the traditional scene up and lay bloated and resplendent amidst the slippery brown detritus of toad-in-the-hole.
Observing still further, I noted a crack. The moon, a mythical bringer of crazy sentiments, had aparted the place where, previously, the aerial lovers had fluttered and revealed two slices of viciously-sharpened porcelain, ripe to strike across my throat and rend me in two worlds – something I feel bound to do. So farewell, chaps.