octipus rex 1

(A Letter from Herbert to Martin)

dearest martin.
one would think that after all of these years in which you have gone on these extended trips that i would learn not to miss you as i do. as i always do, i started reminiscing about a certain time long ago.
at that time we had been living on the thirteenth floor for less than a year. for some reason that i never understood clearly no one else wanted to live on this floor of the hotel nicholas.
also at that time the desert to the right of my room was inhabited by kangaroo rats, and penguins lived around the iceberg to the left. the kangaroo rats and the penguins were constantly fighting and i was constantly awakened by these fights. not wanting to get tangled in these fights, vaclav, our pet black cat, would rarely leave the room except to play among the catnip, he was an addict.
one friday i came in and you were sitting in the chair on top of the iceberg, i believe that you were smoking a cigarette. (i do wish that you would stop smoking, it will ruin your health and it gives oyu bad breath.) you may not remember this, it was long ago and you have a terrible memory. i still do not understand how you could tolerate the heat up there, much less how you could spend your time talking to that conceited penguin, albert. he was always talking about the summers that he always spent in the south of france where he always got sunburned. after waiting for you to descend the winding staircase in the centre of the iceberg i suggested that we ice skate in the rink adjacent to the swamp, which we did. you were always a better skater than, although you always claimed the opposite.
on the way back to my room we overheard albert who was complaining about the overabundance of kangaroo rats.
gainesborough, the tsar of the kangaroo rats was smoking a pipe at the edge of the desert, he had a contented look on his face. we knew what he had been doing, what we were going to do. Vaclav served tea when we got back to my room, this became our room. i was glad then you agreed to srop calling everything "yours" and "mine."
the next morning we had breakfast in the forest, the scrambled penguin eggs were served by john who was accompanied by his pet alligator, raymond, or was it john who was the alligator's pet? if i misstated this please correct me, i know that raymond did not consider himself anyone's pet. anyway, back to that day's events, raymond did a wonderful dance for us, we had not expected entertainment with our breakfast. usually raymond was too tired and grumpy to dance that early.
francesca, the most beautiful of the swans, came out of the water and chastised us for eating bird eggs. she then brought us some turtle eggs, was that not delightful?
we were going to awaken joy in her one-room medieval castle, but instead we found her laughing and talking with andre-richard. i am sure you remember how he was dressed. there he was a fire-engine-red vest, mustard-yellow t-shirt and violet jock strap with the initials "p.s.k." embroidered on the front.
we did not know what to do next, but you came up with the wonderful idea of going sailing. francesca went with us, laughing about how awkward we humans are in the water. then i fell out of the boat, and when you were pulling me back onto the boat you fell out of the boat. eventually andre-richard pulled us back onto the boat.

to be continued....