Tony Chapman-Art Music Writing

“I am the maker of laws!”, exclaimed Random Soothsayer the 2nd, smashing his fist onto the lonely bar. Glasses
jumped about, shedding sasparella froth onto the nicotined surface.
  The Bartender laughed heartily. “You make those laws! Random, you make ’em, boy!” he affirmed.

Rowing, sidecarred to the dawn’s blue Harlequin-Sweeteners, The Bartender had always trusted Soothsayer’s tinkling words , and Sooth had always trusted… The Bartenders affirmations.

Bartender bred butterflies. He had twisted, tortuous attic rooms with large windows in the sloping roof, letting in plenty of light for his beautiful babies.

“Bar!” growled his buxom wife, “the ‘flies need cleaning!” She had a fair, whispy beard.

“o.k. o.k. darling – keep your shirt on!”
and as an after thought: “…any good cars today?” Shirley was a car mechanic.

“You’re not kidding! – only a Pontiac 43 Chevrolet Mercades 54! With a broken tail-light – not rocket science – but what a beauty – I drove it round the block – to test the tail-light – whoooah! Smooth? You could rock a baby to sleep in it!”

Bar carried the vacuum-cleaner up the wooden spiral staircase, knocking off more paint from the flaking walls.

He liked it upstairs with his silent flying, rainbow jewels.

“Good evening people, ” he whispered,  entering the room, and they shifted position in a flurry of golds, yellows and phosphorescent lilacs.

….and, of course, the butterflies whispered to him, in a sort of code, through the subtle rustling of their wings.
“there’s no more mould on the ceiling, Ray”
“Ok, beauties, I’ll see to it”, Ray whispered back.
To these butterflies, mould was a luxury; mould and, of course, nectar.
Ray swept up the straw and laid new. He refilled the water bowls and squeezed out new nectar from his nectar bottle.
As he closed the door behind him, the butterflies rustled a new message to him:
” Theres nothing new under the sun, Ray. Be careful of what you take for granted: it may have hidden claws…”
“Right!” chirped Ray, thoughtfully.

And indeed the prediction came to pass.

A week later Ray was innocently admiring the sunset, before unlocking the bar door – when a pair of claws  came out of the sun and moved toward him. He was startled. They seemed to grow as they approached, but that was because as they got closer they looked bigger. Ray didn’t know they had come from the sun – he spotted them when they were about 2 miles high – looking like an unmoving, growing speck. He was spellbound as they came into focus. Only when they were around his head, still unclamped, did he come to his senses. He ducked his head out and ran…