That’s right, its correct, confirmed, this is the one, bingo. It fits perfectly, I thought I was a size twelve, that is size 24 US and size 2.5 European. Still, if the cap fits and all that. The old one was getting really worn and faded, I like a vibrant cap, people can see you coming. I never wear it backwards, unless the sun is burning my neck, the peak is there for a reason, otherwise the mountain would finish in an unsightly stump. A peak soars upwards, indicating eternity, the ethereal and sparsely moleculed regions of the atmosphere. Anyway, nobody would climb the mountain if it had no peak. They would say, I didn’t climb it because it wasn’t there. All the Sherpas would be out of work, and camp three would be the highest that you could go.
Creativity and I’ve made a fish pie with a fish drawn on top. Emotion and I feel upset , Imagination, blue and teapot equals blue teapot. Self awareness, I am me, Humor and you’ve got to be joking, Metaphor or metafive. Focusing attention, will you look at that.
Following sequential directions. Up I shall go, backpack, dented water bottle and hi-tech walking stick. I shall climb the mountain, even though it has no pointy bit and ends in a plateau. I believe that there is a lost world up there, where creatures, never seen before, roam about, tripping over news outlets and camera crews. The people, stranded there for a thousand years, hide behind giant mushrooms and wear weird, revealing costumes made of off-cuts and remnants, which are stylistically naive. They speak a strange unintelligible language which turns into English within minutes and one of them is always pretty and inquisitive. I shall carry an ancient rifle which falls into a ravine when I slip on a huge tree trunk, which the locals use as a bridge. Why don’t they improve it with some handrails? We shall never know.
Later, when my cap is shading my eyes from the electric lights that they use to make films, I shall sit and wait while the ceremonial scenes are attacked by a gigantic animal that has been content for decades but has now been awakened by the nasty behaviour of the undercover nuisance of our exploratory party.
This dark coloured sheep doesn’t really belong on the right-hand side but has insinuated himself by smiling deceitfully and distributing funds to the porters with gay abandon, in order to further his nefarious agenda.
As we slash our way up the flank of the mountain, the rain runs down us in showers which wash away our identities and undermine our progress. The air fryer is lost when one of the pack animals falls on a thin crumbly ledge which the camera found earlier. Luckily it is only an acting donkey and is safely retrieved out of shot. When we open the other boxes most of them are packed with hairdryers and plastic kitchen utensils which melt on use. The dark coloured sheep hides all the rations and bamboozles the compass, on purpose. Some are lost in an improbable cave.
The weaker members of the party or scientists, have to be distributed by ropes while the muscly ones jump from rock to rock. One of the scientists finds a flower which eats her leg, but she falls in love anyway. The first aid kit is opened but only has aspirin and shiny forceps to retrieve bullets from wounded people who haven’t been shot, but who can cope with the pain of operations without anaesthetic. Soon the helpers drop all the boxes and run home, but then some more appear. On the third day god said, Let there be dinosaurs, then he said, No, hang on, I’ve changed my mind. But he completely forgot about this peakless hill.
On the fourth day all the visitors are tied up with really long sections of rope which go round and round like a cotton real. Only the cabin boy escapes back across the tree trunk bridge using the handrail. He berates the captain of the ship who only speaks Spanish and smashes the radio in a fit of peak. So they collar a dove and strap tiny rolls of paper to their legs which impedes there flying ability so that they land and get eaten by crocodiloes which looked asleep for soooooo long that we thought that they had died and turned to stone. Later the ship is caught in a whirlpool and clean as a whistle, but the captain abandons ship clinging to a door.
In the end all the outsize animals escape into the sea and we go home empty handed, except for one big rough diamond which I put in my top pocket during the earthquake. The film was lost, and nobody believes our story at the Victorian lecture hall, where the steep wooden seating is stacked up perilously high.
The peak is restored to the mountain by bulldozers on scaffolding, The displaced natives are removed to an isolated island but they are understandably angry and make Petions with papier mâché and chicken wire. The right-handed or clockwise effect of the Coriolis is gathered in coloured glass bottles under the sink so that no one feels left out, left in the lurch, right side up my alley.
The right side of the road, but the wrong side of the tracks. It’s so tricky.
The Guardians of the Cave 