We found him laying in a back lane
down The Melyn, six or seven of us
barely teenagers and fascinated.
An old English Professor, who always
smoked a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ pipe
whilst walking (And who normally
could not stand the sight of any of us!)
stopped to chat and have a gander.
As we slid a piece of cardboard under
him and lifted him off the cold, hard
concrete and took him over to some
long grass behind a nearby church
laying him down safe out of the way
of angry feet and whirring push-bikes.
He was the biggest specimen that I had
ever seen, (then or since!) about the size
of a size 10 boot and that’s without the tail.
Ancient face all scarred up but they were
all old, healed marks and apart from that
he looked perfect except he did not move
at all nor gnash his ferocious teeth at us.
Instead he just lay there upon his side,
breathing rapidly and watching us with
his shining, intense, clever ebony eye.
We all came back the next morning
but he was gone, body still there rigid
but the spirit had escaped and run far off.
We stole a shovel from a nearby garden
and buried him and Damien said a prayer
and with our little lesson in death over
we went looking for girls to try and learn
about something else just as important.

© 2014