Since it was still the general sort of time when people were up and about, the lads settled in for an evening in front of the telly. The beer fridge was stocked up, the dials cranked into the “freezing” position and seats were occupied for the duration.

About halfway through the supplies in the beer fridge, Loz took it upon himself to cook some chickeny bready things. Any amount of lager and junk food didn’t appear to have an effect on Loz’s stature, he was thin to the point of being skinny. This was mainly due to the complete lack of nourishment he gained from his staple food, the chickeny bready thing.

As Loz rummaged around in what could generously be called the freezer compartment, the grill took it upon its self to open, ignite and turn itself on to medium. Loz’s mug slowly trundled across the worktop, its destination apparently adjacent to the kettle.

Rummaging over, Loz stood up proudly clutching his prize of two bread crumb coated patties of frozen mechanically reclaimed chicken. He paused momentarily, confused by the fact the grill appeared to be grilling, despite the fact he had no recollection of turning the thing on. Oh well, he thought to himself, a considerable amount of beer has been consumed, I can’t be on top of my game all the time.

Alex entered the kitchen, drawn by the smell of incinerating poultry and proceeded to make a student sandwich. The art of the student sandwich is borne out of laziness and desperation really, it involves taking the softest thing in the fridge and putting it between two of the hardest things that the cupboards or fridge have to offer. In this instance raw lasagne sheets and tomato puree were not the ideal selection but Alex gainfully struggled on, since the principle of the thing was almost as important as the actual taste.

A few minutes later when Loz was looking slightly green around the gills from his daily poisoning at the hands of the British farming industry, Alex broached the subject of shopping.

“We appear to be running somewhat low on a few essentials. Aside from being down to our last 72 beers, I’ve just had to have a sandwich made out of raw lasagne. When it comes to eating raw lasagne, a trip to the supermarket may be in order!”

This was indeed a situation that required deep pondering and discussion. For the most part the lads preferred to shop locally, this meant less effort as it was a simply walk to the shops and then back home with the special local shop cheeswire carrier bags but occasionally a visit to the supermarket was necessary, to stock up on the things that local shops never seemed to stock.

This list of supposedly arcane material that no local shop would ever let through its doors included but was not limited to two ply toilet roll, pasta, economy free flow minced beef and proper baked beans. Local shops sold exceedingly esoteric baked beans that whilst certainly being an experience, certainly weren’t like any other baked bean the lads had ever tried. A less discerning eye than the lads would argue that a local shop did actually stock economy free flow mince but as Loz had once said, eagle of eye and ginger of hair, “Hmmm, this doesn’t actually say what animal has been minced you know.”, proving once and for all that shopping was as much a battle of wits as medieval warfare had been.

Normally the lads took it in turns to accompany their friend Nigel to the supermarket since space was limited on the University disability bus. Nigel had come up with the bright idea of registering himself as dyslexic on his first day at university, with the intention of gaining the extra fifteen minutes in the hour that dyslexic students received for their exams. There had however been some quite unexpected benefits. The disability office had gone into manic overdrive, issuing Nigel with an orange badge for a car he didn’t own and offering to pay a helper to take him round the local supermarket, in case his dyslexia lead him to buy inappropriate products. All this was of course backed up by a place for him on the disability minibus because, they reasoned, he might misread the bus stop signs and get lost.

When the chaps on his corridor had heard this, they couldn’t believe their ears. The lads, who happened to all live in the same accommodation block, had quickly latched onto the idea of free travel and had taken Nigel to their heart. In return, payment in beer and friendship was bestowed upon Nigel, who was a grateful recipient of both.

Harry had somehow managed to miss out on the supermarket run for the last couple of terms. Illnesses strangely manifested themselves around the time of a big shop, only to disappear almost overnight and more than once he appeared to have succumbed to some form of sleeping sickness or a coma that nothing could rise him from. This time however he was determined to be part of the team.

“How exactly can we manage to get all of us on the minibus?” Harry pondered out loud.

In the end the lads settled for one of the more simple plans and accordingly phoned Nigel to arrange for a pick up the following morning.

The driver of the disability minibus was obviously of the same genetic stock as the Head of Admissions, thought Harry, he has exactly the same look of incredulity about him.

“So you’re telling me that Nigel is ill and he wants you two.” he gestured at Loz and Harry, “to take his place?”

“That’s right.” said Loz politely.

“But if you’re going anyway.” he pointed at the remaining lad, “Why do you two need to come as well?”

“I’m the paid for disability assistant, its not my place to be making decisions about what food to buy, I merely assist the disabled individual in selecting what he wants. I’d be in contravention of my terms of employment if I went on my own and actually decided what Nigel wanted.” explained Alex in a tone that could easily be mistaken for helpful.

“So, we only need one of you two then!” said the driver, again gesturing at Harry and Loz.

“Would that it were so.” lamented Harry, “but sadly I have a terrible phobia of bananas or to be more precise the South American spiders that may be lurking in the bunches of the aforementioned fruit.”

“Well, he can go then.” a spindly finger jabbed out toward Loz.

“Unfortunately I’m allergic to pasta, it brings me out in massive hives.” objected Loz.

“So, you see.” said Alex smoothly, “Harry needs to come to buy the pasta and Loz needs to come to buy the bananas, whilst I need to supervise what they’re buying so that poor old sick and disabled Nigel can have some dinner tonight.”

The driver snorted his disgust, aware that time was ticking and he had to pick up another two people, only one of whom was really disabled in his book. Chronic flatulence, whilst socially embarrassing didn’t count as a bona fide disability in his book.

“Come on then, but you’ll have to cram yourselves into those two seats at the back there, we’ve only room for Nigel and one helper.”

The lads obliged, wedging themselves into a tight corner of the minibus, thoughts of food running through their minds.

The pigeon hurled itself at the window again, determined to gain entry at all costs.

“That demented homing pigeon desperately wants to get in here doesn’t it?” asked Loz, observing the pigeons antics.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull you up there my friend, for your own good. I don’t think it’s a homing pigeon.” said Alex.

“Oh really?” replied Loz.

“Yes, really. Do you ever recall actually owning a homing pigeon, seeing me or Harry with a homing pigeon or seeing any traces of pigeon life style accrutiments around the place? No? I didn’t think so. That makes it less a homing pigeon, more a sort of repelling pigeon. It’s been repelled from wherever it came from to here.” said Alex.

“All well and good but we should actually let the thing in and see what the message it’s carrying is, it may be important you pedant.” said Loz.

“Actually it’s pronounced ‘pedant’” said Alex, providing no discernably different pronounciation, “Anyway open the window, there’s a good chap.”

Loz, thinking to himself that he seemed to spend an inordinate part of his life opening and closing the sitting room window, duely obliged, only for the pigeon to enter and settle on the top of his head.

“I think it might be considering nesting.” joshed Alex, as Loz gingerly reached up and clasped the now compliant bird firmly with both hands.

The pigeon itself was a manky looking specimen. Although it appeared well fed, it also appeared to be more than a little motheaten and dishevelled. If it was possible for a pigeon to look like it had come from the wrong side of the tracks, this was the bird that had pioneered that look.

Loz held the bird out and Alex gently extracted the tiny tube from the birds leg. Once this had been removed, the pigeon grew fractious once more, leading Loz to release the creature. The pigeon promptly flew at terrific velocity out of the window, which by some fluke of luck Loz hadn’t shut.

“Feisty little bugger.” commented Alex before opening the message tube, “hope he doesn’t get eaten by a tiger or anything.”

The cemetery was an old fashioned Northern affair, walled in dark red brick with a pair of heavy wrought iron gates at the front. One or two mausoleums dotted the ground, showing off outrageously amongst the more humble gravestones like a footballer down his local showing off his latest expensive purchase.

The peacefulness of the night was interrupted by the noisy passage of three lads down the high road. The familiar outline of three semi-professional lager drinkers was just about visible in the glow of the sodium street lighting.

Lurching in a practised way that kept too much pressure from being placed on his worn out left shoe, Harry eased the overfilled carrier bag from one hand to the other. The plastic was beginning to stretch alarmingly under the weight of inexpensive lager. The task completed without major catastrophe, Harry then proceeded to flex his cramped fingers mightily.

“There is indeed much money to be made from the invention of a carrier bag that has handles that don’t turn into cheese wire the second you put anything heavier than a tin of baked beans in them.” said the injured youth.

“I believe some chap at the Nasa jet propulsion lab is working on just that issue, even as we speak. A PhD thesis on the subject, no less!” said Loz, not entirely addressing the issue but having a fairly good stab at it.

Alex’s brow wrinkled for a moment as he sought to work out the time difference between soggy England and sunny California in order to see if the chap was actually likely to be in the lab working on the problem at that precise moment and not, for example, asleep in bed. He then gave up, remembering that America was decidedly odd and students often worked hard and couldn’t drink until they were old enough to graduate.

“A pox on them and all their things!” exclaimed Alex, having had quite enough of the idea of an alcohol free university. He refused to elaborate further though, leading to a confused silence amongst the lads.

The silence continued unabated for a while and then subtly changed in nature. The cone of silence around Loz shifted from puzzlement, to contentment to deep thought. Thoughts of the cemetery, of spades, of shovels and arcane experiments raced through his head only to be interrupted by a post box.

“Ouch!” exclaimed the ginger lad, finding that man always comes out worse in a one on one with a large inanimate object. The moment was gone, the spell broken and insane and dangerous thoughts fled his mind to be replaced by ones involving lager, the need to go to the loo and a strong desire to wreak dire vengeance on the postal service for this latest injustice.

Colin looked on fondly at his sons band, as they mauled their way through yet another cover version. The fondness was genuine but aided by several lukewarm beers that the summer day and the volume of rock music required.

The vegetation took the sonic pounding in it’s stride, which was something the audience could have done with a little bit of help with. It wasn’t aided by the eclectic mix of Jim and his band, the Shangri La Airforce, school mates and the mostly elderly neighbours who made up the impromptu audience. The presence of the elder had come to be expected; rather than suffering from their gardens had sought refuge at the alcohol stuffed cool box that Colin always provided for such occasions.

Not for the first time when his son had asked at short notice to abuse the garden in the name of heavy rock, did Colin wish he’d got round to sorting out the garage. A garage band should play in the garage, it’s a rite of passage but the problem, as Colin was all too aware of, was the passage in question, namely in and out of the garage, was baulked by accumulated junk. You’d be lucky to get a 5 year old with a uekele in there, let alone a double kick drum and rather too many guitarists he thought mordantly.

Colin was blessed and cursed in equal measure with his 160ft garden. It meant in summer he could duck behind the shrubbery off to the side of the summer house and retire to his potting shed for a bit of Radio 2 and some home brew with a nice book. But it also meant that the Shangri La Airforce flew into town rather too often for his liking.

Not that this seemed to be bothering old Mr Green from two doors down. He was sipping Stella straight from the can, nodding his head appreciatively at the buxom figure of Kate, the bassist, with both his hearing aids turned right down. When you’re 83, you have to take your enjoyment as you find it, and Mr Green was never shy of an offer of free drink.

Colin turned round to glimpse his wife Jane pottering ominously in the kitchen and decided it was time to head her off at the pass.

The muffled wailings of Led Zeppelin drifted through the double glazing as Colin attempted to stave off a potential situation.

“If you really want a repeat of the Nobody-understands-me-or-my-music-you-just-want-to-humiliate-me farrago of last month, by all means go ahead and pop those sausage rolls in the oven.” said Colin, “Because that’s what will happen, rock and roll and sausage rolls don’t mix.”

“Well I’m worried if we don’t get some food into Mr Green he might get arrested for sexual assault.” countered Jane.

Colin sighed, she did have a point. “Okay, we’ll pop your sausages on a tray by the cool box but no plates, and no special robot napkins.”

Disaster, if not averted, then postponed for a little while at least, Colin headed back to the garden. He briefly considered locking himself in the toilet for the duration but decided against it. Someone would only get caught short and end up weeing in the borders and he wasn’t sure if his perennials were that hardy.

The echo of feet slapping on stone cannoned ahead of the hapless runner, creating an eerie doppler effect. This of course was lost on Boris as he ran hell for leather down the decaying tunnels, unmindful of the uneven flagstones under his feet.

“…down in the tunnel where the deadly are rising, something something, like a bat out of hell…” ran endlessly through his head, proving if nothing else, impending death is intimately linked to Meat Loaf.

As Boris rounded a corner, all too fast, a sharp stabbing pain in his foot was quickly followed by the floor rearing up for an intimate but in no way gentle caress with his forehead. His rapid progress thus halted, Boris heaved huge lungfuls of air in and out, feeling as woozy from the running as he did from the tumble.

Gradually the whole world started to pull into something resembling focus. The asymmetical line of flagstones was interrupted by a pair of well polished patent leather shoes. Boris unsteadilly looked up; the shoes were connected to a pair of smart pinstripe trousers, which in turn lead to a smart jacket, with a head containing a fullsome moustache lurking above a wry smile topping things off.

“You, young man, have seen things you ought not have seen.” The voice was exactly the sort of clipped upper class British accent you would expect a moustachioed pinstripe suit wearing gent to have. The large service revolver however was definitely not the sort of thing you would expect a moustachioed pinstripe suit wearing gent to have. And it was pointing at Boris.

“Bugger“, thought Boris, humming aimlessly to himself.

“I’m sad to say old chap, even playing on my love of Meat Loaf isn’t going to get you out of this one. In fact your humming is actually quite insulting to me. I am of a mind to shoot you in the stomach and let you die from bile poisoning rather than pop one in your noggin.” said Moustache.

“It’s because its a Wednesday,” thought Boris, “I never could get the hang of Wednesdays”