A Fanfare, Please, for ‘Fanfare for the Common Hamster’

Way back in the mists of time – that being 2007 – a certain Tooty Nolan wrote a divine magnum opus about a fat female hamster with the talent to pass through walls into alternative realities. Here is a brief extract…

Naturally Rootley, being small and nimble, soon found himself chosen to edge into the obsidian stench of the sewer outlet. As he did so he called out Joan’s name. He tried calling in various tones – from a surprisingly resonant bass, to a shrill soprano that hurt the awaiting Margarita’s ears and made Brother Alfonso’s nose bleed. But in response – save for the constant dripping of foetid water from the curved brick ceiling – all that Rootley’s sensitive ears could detect was silence. So, reaching out with both paws before him, Rootley plunged forward with the abandon normally associated with gay gerbils – and was immediately lost in echoes.

It was so cold inside Freezer Three that Joan’s brain had almost ceased to function. Fortunately she had found the wisdom to clamber inside a large empty cardboard box, thrust her paws between her thighs, and then insert her tail into her rectum before becoming semi-comatose. But even in this state her will to live supplied her ears with sufficient energy to listen for clues to salvation. First one pricked up, quickly followed by the other as Rootley’s muffled voice could be heard calling her name.

‘Hmmm’, she thought, ‘that resonant bass is quite pleasant: But I’m not sure about the soprano: It could shatter ice.’

Then her brain reactivated properly. This was no time for hibernation: Help was on its way.

Rootley was overjoyed to hear Joan calling his name. “This way, Joan,” he called, “Follow my voice.”

He then continued to utter similar inanities until suddenly Joan’s paw materialised from the wall before him. He didn’t see it of course; but in the heat of the moment he’d quite neglected to theorise the potentiality of irregularities within the topography of the different worlds. So naturally it was Rootley’s testicles that Joan’s flaying paw encountered first, and which solicited a yelp of such intensity that it startled her so badly that she lost her grip upon the icy floor inside Freezer Three, and tumbled back into the medieval land of Prannick – and the relative warmth of stale piss.

© Paul Trevor Nolan

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