It was with this in mind that I buried the filthy troglodyte wanderer under his own fetid van-husk, and returned to my motorbike, that chrome-licked beast of burden that would carry me north, ever north to my final meeting with the Vicar. The Vicar would be waiting on his porch, I imagined, plucking daisies from his immaculate garden and folding them lovingly into his mouth. The gentle crease of the Vicar’s cheeky smile (real, or imagined) brought a grin to my face that hurt my ears and made one bleed. It had also shattered the windshield of a small family station-wagon that had ploughed right into me when I’d suddenly hit the breaks. Another thing my wide grin did was create unprecedented wind-storms in the south-pacific, and spark unchecked magnetic activity on the sun, causing the Toronto Airport to lose contact with several Boeing 737 air-busses.

I have a picture of a cat hanging in my bedroom, and look at it every night before going to bed and letting my head sink into the slimy blackness of my scum-bath. In the picture, the cat is looking back at me with an expression of pity, but at the same time you end up hating it, because you know it has achieved more in life than you ever will. Is there a poster of you hanging in anyone’s room? I doubt it. This is because you’re not special, and when you die the only people who come to your funeral will be a handful of strangers. Maybe they thought it was someone else’s funeral, or maybe it’s Jimmy Fallon and he’s filming another movie with Queen Latifah. Either way, nobody will be brave enough to read the eulogy, and the wake will be a stilted formality.

So where was I? Oh, right:

I rolled up the poster of the cat, and used it to brush away the shards of glass surrounding my mangled body. The family who had previously occupied the station-wagon warbled something at me in Ethnic-Speak, but it wasn’t loud, clear, or English enough to be worth listening to. Actually, it kind of reminded me of a room-mate I’d had once who had been hit by a train. Probably because that was a form of transport-related accident, and this (although, granted, automotive) was still somewhat similar. I laughed whimsically at the memory. Long ago, people who laughed whimsically used to be herded into special enclosures where scientists would probe them with lime-branches, and get them to read erotic phrases out loud. This became bad after the Nazis did it, and then the Denver Broncos did it, so pretty-much nobody does that anymore, plus people who laugh whimsically usually just do desk and filing work nowadays. So.

Hey, I want to know- have you ever seen the rain? I mean, I know it sounds weird and is a shitty question and everything, but have you? Yeah? Ok.

Good, I just thought I’d check cause...I don’t know, the song and everything. Maybe there’s more to it, though, you ever think about that? Maybe they mean has rain ever entered your eye and penetrated your cornea, forcing its way all the way against your retina, possibly blinding you in the process.

Has rain ever fused with your optic nerve in a demonic union of pagan passions and magma-hot urges? Or like in the shower when water gets in your eye. That wouldn’t be very attractive, I think, even if you were Heather Locklear, or anyone else who would otherwise look absolutely stunning, were she in the shower lathering herself with fragrant oils, and running her elegant soapy hands all over a huge, scaly blue dragon that she was also straddling, on a massive metallic saddle. There are few war-machines in this world that can realistically out-maneuver a dragon, and Heather Locklear would indeed be quite safe riding one, although she should probably also wear a sword with a leather strap for comfort and utility.

When women want to travel over long distances naked, they should always do it on dragons. Like Heather Locklear does. Presumably. Which, incidentally, is how the crusades started in 1983. I guess somebody just got up on a chair and yelled, “Free Jesus For Everyone!” and when the Lutherans stoned him as a witch, the Pope had had enough, and opened up the cage he has in the basement of the Vatican where the devil lives, and begs for Milk-Bone and chicken scraps. Sometimes, the Pope will go down there and teach Satan a new trick, and Satan will purr when the Pope throws him a fresh salmon, and then Satan will curl up and sleep at the Pope’s feet, while the Pope rubs Satan’s tummy and tickles his sensitive furry ears.

The Pope had Satan’s tubes tied after the neighbor’s Pomeranian got to him while he was in heat, and Satan gave birth to a litter of pink little puppies, which the Pope put in a sack and paid the Vicar to throw in the river. This is why I was going to see the Vicar- because he didn’t have the heart to kill these puppies, and instead he baked them into a delicious shortcake, for which I was anxious to acquire a recipe. But now my motorbike had broken down, like my hopes and dreams, as well as my ribcage. But my ribcage had always been fleeting and insubstantial anyway, and my dad had always referred to it as “unrealistic” and “unreasonable”. It was no big loss.

Someday, however, I would find my mecca, and I would climb into it and use it to destroy several tanks, and two gun-turrets that are grey and not particularly detailed.