9 Oct – And lastly through a hogshead of real fire.

HIGH TIDE AND GREEN AS GRASS

-a reworking of The Brothers Grimm’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, by Hans Loë–

If you’d prefer to read this story in book form, this is the link to the kindle (.co.uk version ) [https://amzn.eu/d/07Tnpg1C] & (.com version) [https://a.co/d/083TbfRp] ;
and this is the link to the paperback (.co.uk version) [https://amzn.eu/d/0dDifLiX] & (.com version) [https://a.co/d/09JZ1jRj]

Once upon a time, not so long ago, in the late spring of that year, Roger, the controller of the News at Octopus Entertainment Services, was sat having his end of day tipple on the terrace of his Westchester County Manor house. He was feeling good about things. His show was doing well —advertising revenues were as high as they’d ever been; they were a shoo-in for at least one more Emmy this year; and even his grumpy boss, Rupert, in his latest call, had found nothing to shout about. In fact Rupert was as close to happy as Roger had ever seen him. An event which alone was a cause for celebration.

He sighed a contented sigh, and leaned back into his Lafuma Mobilier. But as he did, he dropped his glass onto the terrace, spilling its entire contents.

He wasn’t put out by having to deal with the mess, and simply shrugged to himself as if to say, “These things happen. Just as well to get them out of the way while no one’s looking.”

Bending down to retrieve the tumbler, which remained unbroken, he inhaled the aroma of the single malt, and a part of him registered the same enjoyment he’d have experienced, had he drunk it. Beyond the pool of spilled whiskey, he noticed the vivid green of the strong spring grass.

It didn’t register in this way, because he was poorly read, and essentially ignorant —as thick as pig shit, Rupert would often say of him, but he was experiencing the establishing leg of what would soon deliver a Proustian moment.

A few weeks later, a head-hunter rang him, “I want you to take a look at this guy, Roger. He’s as green as grass but the camera loves him.”

Roger told the agent to send the boy round to the studios for a screen test, but as soon as he clapped eyes on him, he knew he didn’t need to go through all that nonsense. He drew the boy in close with his trademark handshake, and caught a whiff of that single malt aroma again.

“What do they call you, boy?” he said to the greenhorn that stood before him.
“Hogshead, sir,” said the boy. “Pete Hogshead.”
“What do you know?” asked Roger, and young Hogshead replied:
“Not a lot sir, some army. Some sports. Oh, and God, obviously. I’ve got a tattoo that explains it all,” he said, pointing with his thumb towards his left breast.
“Hogshead,” said Roger. “You’ll do just fine. Come on in.” And he led him towards his office on the mezzanine of the news room. “The beating hearts of Octopus,” he told him as they climbed the stairs. But Pete didn’t laugh at Roger’s one reliable joke.
“But in here, it’s the media, and if you work for one of the big bosses, like me,” he held the door of his office open for Pete to enter, “well, a little name calling won’t bother a tough young buck like you, would it?”
“Not at all, sir,” said Hogshead.

Roger gestured for Pete to take a seat. “You see, an assistant’s job is more often than not, a lady’s position round here. And, well, there’s a certain trad wife vocabulary that goes with it.”

Hogshead’s smile crumpled on his lips.

“Don’t worry,” said Roger. “It’s only ‘til you make it. And even then… Rupert does it to me still. Look at me, I’m no worse for it. And I get tons of action.”

Hogshead regained his smile, “What’s in a name?” he said. “That can’t harm me. It’s being on television that counts.”

Getting on for a year or so later, Rupert who, unlike the real king, exercised all the powers of an actual monarch, fired Roger. Mainly because he was getting on his nerves, though it was also in part because he was useless at covering up his peccadillos; and particularly bad at getting other people to lie for him. That was just plain incompetent for a high-ranking TV executive, and it brought far too much heat to Rupert’s most beloved cash cow, Octopus Entertainment.

For his part, Roger had been so infuriated by his sacking, that he went and died, to teach Rupert a lesson.

The sacking had caused upheaval enough, but there was no coming back from a death, so Rupert set out to find another bitch —the way in which the rest of his exec team most often referred to their erstwhile colleague.

He, himself, mighty Rupert, had been forced to step in to cover Roger’s absence, and that had gone on long enough already. As much as he was a great media tycoon, he was no sort of executive. But nor was the man that Rupert wanted as Roger’s replacement.

He disliked Donald intensely, but he knew that he had the sort of personality that chimed well with a section of his audience that he could never quite find a way to connect with.

The way he figured it, Donald would create such a furore as the new face of Octopus, that they’d no longer need an executive of Roger’s standing running the show. A junior promotion from within would suffice for that.

Besides Donald wouldn’t take any notice of a man like Roger even if there was one out there. So, Rupert backed his tycoon’s instincts, to say that Donald would create more revenue than he cost to manage, and he hired him.

Despite the many differences between the two men, Roger with carte blanche as a salaried CEO to run the channel as he pleased from behind the scenes; Donald a front of camera celebrity, working to a looser style of remuneration package, both of them, during their tenure, were regarded by the wider media as the Face of Octopus. Both of them too, written up as Rupert’s latest business marriage —and in their cases, marriages that came within noticeably short order of each other.

Donald brought with him a strange mirror when he arrived at his new place of business. It was his greatest ally, and closest confidante. And Rupie-Dog laughed when he heard that he’d insisted on a mirror taking pride of place, alone, in the centre of the longest wall, in the largest private dressing room, in the entire Octopus estate.

“Let him have it his way,” he said, when asked permission to take down the Jeff Koons’ collection from the wall where the mirror was to be hung.
“What’s so precious to him about an ancient mirror? Unless it’s so cracked he can’t see his fat ugly mug properly in it!”

But it wasn’t a mirror. It was a giant computer screen that had been bought for Donald at the NanoHard Machines fire sale. One which Donald believed spoke to him, because he could not understand that text-to-speech technology was a thing, let alone how it worked. Nor did he understand the basic rules by which computers, the internet, and burgeoning AI worked either, so he never quite grasped that it was his assistant, who was never seen without a laptop, that worked the mirror for him.

Nathalie was nothing if not a sycophant, stalker, adherent, and she would do her damnedest to have the internet deliver the answers that Donald’s rhetorical questions demanded of his mirror. But she was also a homeschooled, evangelical, mega-church girl too, and she knew what the truth looked like. And some days, well the internet didn’t give her much choice.

She came as part of the package, just like the mirror.

In this way, when Donald first stepped before the mirror after it had been hung in the main dressing room of his new suite of offices at Octopus, to ask:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

The mirror dutifully replied:

Never before at Octopus seen,
Though Rupert says you are his queen.
Thou art the fairest, in the land
And Rupert has laid bare his hand.

As little Hogshead grew older, the more he grew into his looks, and it took only a little while anchoring shows on Rupert’s flagship station, for him to have mastered the art of makeup. Soon, his colleagues would remark of his complexion, that it was, “as clear as moonlight,” and of his finely drawn jawline, “like a Hollywood actor’s.” And they would chorus of his hair, “That it was just like Ronald Reagan’s own. But better.”

It must be all the liquids he takes, they thought, for to them, he always appeared thirsty.

“Unless it’s an elixir,” said one. “He’s always glugging down something or other from that paper bag.”

Soon after this view of him gained traction at Octopus, it became the firm opinion of many of their viewers too. And soon, a not small section of the Octopus audience thought Hogshead better looking than Donald himself!

When Donald heard of this, he went to his mirror to ask:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

And it replied:

Donald was fairest yesterday;
but Hogshead is fairest, now, they say.

The answer so angered Donald, that his natural orange hue turned instantly to a burnt umber. From that hour, whenever he caught sight of Hogshead, his heart was hardened against him. Soon he hated the lightweight, fill-in presenter that had become Rupert’s latest rising star. He knew that Hogshead had been recruited by Rupert’s bitch, the mere Roger Ailes, and now it felt like Hogshead, in front of Donald, would before long, be seen as the true lineage of the Octopus brand.

“Not while I’m around,” Donald thought to himself.
“Hogshead is only fit for a coffee klatch on The View,” he’d shout at the TV screens dotted about the estate. “Turn it off!” Which was a very alarming thing to hear for his close attendants, for they looked upon TV as something of a life-support system for Donald, and worried that he’d lose his trademark instinct for the zeitgeist if there was ever a set not playing somewhere within his earshot.

But his envy and jealousy only increased as Hogshead’s fame continued to increase. And as the arriviste started to take more airtime, so Donald’s infuriation headed towards breaking point.

He soon stopped sleeping through the nights, and began to look bleary-eyed, and would sometimes even nod off, during broadcasts. Worse still, Rupert would not intervene to put things back as they should be.

“Has he backed me or not, he’d shout at Natalie and the mirror, in his dressing room. Is he ever going to put that upstart know-nothing prick back in his box? Or am I going to have to do it for him?”

One day, he broke. Calling Tom Huntsman to meet him in his private bathroom, he said, “Take that kid away into the forest. The execs want him gone. Cream him, then bring me his heart, tongue, and entrails as a token to prove you’d done the deed. And then,” he added, “I will devour it all, to prove that he is gone forever,” whilst secretly thinking to himself, that if he got a bit of Hogshead’s DNA in him, it would assist the preservation of his own good looks.

Tom Huntsman listened, but he did not know how to listen and remember at the same time, so he asked Donald to repeat his instructions, and then again, which he did. But at the fourth time of asking, when Tom had failed to grasp the entire project brief, Donald refusing to write his commands down, instead pointed at Hogshead on the television, and made a gesture with the index finger of his right hand, thrusting it into a ring he made of his thumb and index finger of his left.

Hogshead was pretty, sure, but Donald would not have meant for him, Tom Huntsman, a man’s man if ever there was one, to carry out such an intimate act with someone, who despite all that was said, resembled a male more than he did a female.

As he edged from the office, saddened, and confused, Natalie had the mirror say:

Fuck him over, chop him up,
Tonight we’ll of his innards sup.

So, Tom lured the little parvenu to his Hummer, and promising an away day to an adventure park, where they would climb trees and swing on monkey bars, he took him to the deep dark forest. He’d made sure to pack his best knife —the one he used to deal with offcomers, who came uninvited into Rupert’s fiefdom on all fours in the dead of night. Maybe that was what Donald’s gesticulations had meant? To slice him barbe-au-cul, like the drawings in the training manual? That actually made sense when you thought about it, with all the talk of entrails and that.

He dragged little Hogshead into the cold dark centre of the scary forest, but when he drew out his knife to kill him, Hogshead began to cry, saying, “No, dear Tom, give me my life! I will run into the wild forest beyond this one, and never come home again.”

“Just a minute,” said Huntsman. “You’re telling me they don’t have TV Networks over there that you’ll join, then squeal on us, and all we do here?”

Hogshead reassured him, “Mr Tom, they don’t even have TV sets there. That’s why it’s called the wild forest. It’s even worse than the one we’re in. I’ll make a new life there; one where our fun is restricted to celebrating May Day, and Independence, and Thanksgiving. That and the bible readings will be plenty enough for me. I’ll just miss a bit of rough and tumble with the boys —but I’m sure I’ll find where all that goes on, in time. Please spare me.”

“Sounds purty good,” said Huntsman to himself, and though he was inclined to help him after such a plea, he couldn’t help but think that by releasing him, he was only deferring his sentence, and that the wild animals of the forest would soon carry out Donald’s instructions in his place.
“Run away then, you little thing,” he said. And as Hogshead skipped away with that trademark foppish swish, that all the ICE boys laughed at when he came training with them, he couldn’t help but say to himself, “That little flitty witty has probably never even been in the boys’ brigade, let alone the regular army, like he claims. I feel for the boy.”

It felt as if a stone had been lifted from his heart, because now, his inevitable death would not be by Tom’s own hand.

As if to confirm him in his thoughts, at that very moment, a young boar came roaring along to the spot.

Tom looked for signs to see if Hogshead had been devoured by the animal, and seeing none, suddenly panicked as he realised that he was its intended quarry! Quickly, because base hunter gatherer instincts were not so much his best, as his only quality, he drew his favourite knife from its scabbard and slaughtered the beast before it did the same to him.

Hogshead hadn’t heard the noise, or if he had, he’d run further and harder in the opposite direction. And so, seeing no one around, Tom crept quietly out of the forest.

It was only when he reached its edge, that he realised his opportunity. The beast’s offal would serve as the proof Donald had demanded for the dispatching of Hogshead.

 Life was challenging when you could only retain one thought at a time, and, as a consequence it moved slowly for the likes of Tom Huntsman. Fully three days later, he returned to the HQ at Octopus, and presented Donald with the foul smelling, and rotten meat. But the transaction took place in Donald’s dressing room, so no one noticed.

Only now, poor little Hogshead was left without so much as a guardian to look over him. He was suddenly quite alone in the world. Overcome with grief, and bewildered at the sight of so many trees, he knew not which way to turn. On hearing the sounds of the stricken boar, he ran till his feet refused to go any further.

Then, just as it was getting dark, he saw a little house in the distance. He approached it quietly, careful with his dainty steps to avoid snapping a twig, lest he alerted the occupants.

He had decided that he would first seek out an outbuilding in which to rest for the night, but approaching closer, he could see that there were no lights on; closer still, and there was no noise of any kind; right to the front door, and not even a hint of movement from within. He pushed gently at the door, and to his surprise, it swung open. He decided to take his chance, and went inside.

In he went, on tiptoe, holding his breath, trying with all his might not to make the slightest sound. He walked on the joins between floorboards so that they wouldn’t creek. But it was so very difficult, for this cottage was so tiny, and everything in it, the same. Yet, he could see, it was all so very neat and elegant too.

In the middle stood a little table with a white cloth over it, and seven little plates upon it, each plate having a spoon and a knife and a fork, and there were seven little mugs standing neatly alongside all of those place settings. Against the wall were seven beds, equally small, arranged in a row, each covered with snow-white sheets.

For a moment, his mind flashed to the dormitory of the Venture Scouts, then back to the hunting knife, and the aroma of the forest. He swooned, telling himself it was fatigue, not fear. That elder boy, who looked gruff like Huntsman, he’d talked to him like he was a girl, that night too…

But those days were behind him now.

He was hungry and thirsty; mainly thirsty. That was what mattered —the now, and the survival.

He ate any morsels he could find on the table, then drank a drop or two of wine from each mug. Not only had little Hogshead learnt the rules of stealth attacks in a video on YouTube, and knew how not to alert anyone to his presence, back in the scouting days, he’d also learned that if you just took a bit from each bottle, nobody noticed that they were going down.

After that, because he was so tired, he laid himself down on a bed, but it did not suit; he tried another, but that was too short; the next, he stubbed his toe on the orange box that stood alongside it, and took against it; the fifth was too hard; the sixth, like sleeping on a cloud. The seventh though, was just the thing, and saying his prayers first, an hour or so later, he tucked himself in all round, then went to sleep.

When it became quite dark, the owners of the cottage came home: seven dwarfs, who mined for precious metals in the nearby valleys. They first lighted seven little lamps, and saw at once —for they lit up the whole room, that somebody had been in, and that everything was not in the order in which they had left it.

Jip Bezo asked, “Who’s been sitting on my chair, leaning back on it, squashing my cowboy hat? That was my dad’s.”
Sam Half-Man said, “Who’s been eating off my plate? That’s mine, it’s got my name on it. Look! Sam. That comes from Myrtle Beach, special.”
Bri-Ny Chismie said, “Who’s been nibbling at my stuff? I always leave a bit to come back to. It’s one of my things, everyone knows.”
Ma-Ma: “My wine beaker smells of Calvin Klein Eternity.”
Bentley Ho: “And my fork’s got grease all over it,”
Algotini-Z grumbled, “Who’s been cutting with my special Chinese martial arts knife?”
And Travvy Nicknack said, “And who has been drinking out of my mug? It’s over two millimetres lower than when I left it.”

Then, Algotini-Z, looking round, began again: “Who’s been lying on my bed? And using my orange box to get in it? Look!”

He pointed at the orange box which wasn’t lined up in parallel with the bed as he’d left it. He put it right, then jumped up on to it, then pointed at his tangled sheets for everyone to see. At these words, the others came, and looking at their beds, cried out too, “Someone’s been lying in our beds!”

But Travvy Nicknack, running up to his, saw Hogshead sleeping in it. He called his companions, who held up their lamps so that the light fell upon the little sleeping form.

“Oh, heavens! Oh heavens!” they said; “Isn’t she a beauty!” and they were so much delighted, that they would not awaken the sleeping form, but left it to sleep.

And so, Nicknack, in whose bed it was, slept with each of his fellows for an hour at a time, and so passed the night that way.

“It’s a good job that the giant, Peter Teapot, isn’t here on a night like this,” said Bentley Ho, as Nicknack snuggled in alongside him.

It set all the other dwarfs off giggling, and they feared that they’d wake little Hogshead. But whatever it was, lying next to them in their beds, it was dead to the world.

As morning dawned, Hogshead stirred in his sleep, sensing enemies on his tail. His dreams took him back to Huntsman and the dark forest.

At the side of his bed, two of the little men, stood on Algotini’s orange box, examining him closely.

“I hope she’s not dead,” whispered Ho to Ma-Ma. “How will we explain that to anyone?” he said, when suddenly, Pete woke with a start, and bounced out of bed.

He realised at once that he was about two feet taller than almost all of them. “Right,” he said to himself, “First thing I’m doing, is getting my pronouns back.”

“My name is Hogshead,” he said. “Pete. I know that I’m tough looking and all, but I’m also compassionate, so don’t worry, I won’t go round hazing you, and all that sort of stuff for being ridiculously small, and too little to be of any use to anyone.”
“What do you do?” asked Ma-Ma.
“I’m in the army,” said Hogshead.
Jip started laughing. “No, you’re not. We’ve seen you on the TV in our office.”
“I’m the army’s representative on TV, for your beeswax,” said Hogshead. “Anyhow, what do you do?”
The dwarfs told him how they went down into the valley each day, to mine for precious things, and make themselves rich.
“Rich?” laughed Hogshead. “Dressed like that. Look at me, how smart I am, and I live on a mere army stipend.”
“I thought he was a TV presenter,” Chismie whispered to Sam Half-Man. Half-Man shrugged. He didn’t like to speak in front of strangers. Every time he’d tried it, the words came out wrong.
Jip told Hogshead that it was important that they dressed like the common people they represented —the ones who sent them what they could spare from their earnings to help fund the mining business. “We don’t want them to resent the privileges we have,” he said.

“What exactly was this? One of everything, all lined up neatly? Frugal, yet rich? It’s a bit samey and on brand, isn’t it?” thought Pete. His training had taught him to appraise novel situations, and to get them summed up in seconds, the way Jason Bourne did at the movies.

“So how come, if you’re so rich, you all live together, then?” he asked.

The dwarfs started laughing, and each one’s laughter encouraged the others all the more, until in the end they couldn’t stop.

Eventually, they calmed down, and Ma-Ma said to Hogshead, “We’re bro’s, we get all our great new ideas by living in the same space like this, creating, inspiring, sharing —like The Beatles used to. Everyone knows it’s how all great businesses like ours begin; we’ve just turned it into a permanent thing, so it keeps on working all the time.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Hogshead. “In the army, it’s every man for himself, all of us being as violent as we possibly can, all the time.”
It brought a silence to the group of dwarfs. None of them knew quite what to say. Eventually Chismie piped up. “You know, if you used technology, you’d learn the benefits of teamwork.”

Pete leaned back on his bed, making a puzzled face. He threw a theatrical point towards Chismie and gave the rest of them a look, that said, “Who is this guy?”

Undeterred, Chismie continued, “And the tactical advantages it brought, would mean that you could win battles and wars from your office, at a computer terminal.”
Pete laughed out loud now. “Fighting technology should have stopped with the musket, and the bow and arrow, when we conquered this land given to us by God,” he said.

The dwarfs really didn’t know what to say. They each looked at the ground, and this time, nobody stepped forward to contradict Pete because he looked so fierce.

Some of them went to make their beds, others started to put on their work clothes. Several seconds went by. It felt like minutes, as the clock ticked out each one, and they waited for the next to arrive.
“So, what made you come to our cottage?” asked Jip, as he pulled his overalls over his shoulders.
“Jesus,” thought Pete. “What an earnest pain in the arse that little pipsqueak is. Would it harm him to let things go, once in a while? He’d last about five minutes on Octopus.”

He was right too, but it wasn’t just Jip. None of them would have been able to hold down a job like Pete’s, at Octopus. In Rupie-Dog’s world, the only thing that mattered was the figures; in Peter Teapot’s  a professed allegiance to candour, honesty, and transparency was what counted most. If one of his nano-bots, as he called them, did not say that they believed in decentralisation, empathy, and self-expression when they met someone from the media, he’d have their guts for garters. And, well, Jip at least, was well aware of who it was they had in their midst.

Hogshead gestured for them gather round, then began to tell them of how Donald tried to have him killed, and how he’d ordered Huntsman carry out the deed.

 “It’s true, he’d drawn his Bowie —you know, hunting knife…chopper,” he said, making stabbing actions to make the dwarfs understand, “and he came at me with it in his hand.”
Algotini nudged Half-Man, giggling, and whispered, “Chopper means wiener.”
 “I thought, that thing’s going to end up inside me —it happened once at Venture Scouts.” Algotini made a squealing noise.
“So, as soon as I saw it, I did a commando roll, and threw him back over my head, even though he’s twice the size of me, and does PT every day. While he was lying there, I sprang to my feet and got away,” he said.

Then he told them about how he had wandered around for the rest of the day, lost and alone, but not that frightened, because of all the training he’d done. And how he had been about to create a compass out of twigs on the old pond in the middle of the forest, when a bear came by and he’d had to take cover, and how, whilst doing that, saw their little cottage.”

The dwarfs looked at each other, “Bears? In our wood?”
Pete went on, “What needs to happen next, is for you all to take up strategic positions around the edge of the forest, and to provide me with cover fire until I can pick up the trail back to Octopus HQ. I’ll need to take a couple of you with me. We’re going to raze that place, and everyone in it.”

As one, the dwarfs shook their heads. The tax they paid through their nominal headquarters in the Cayman Islands meant that other people did those sorts of things for them. Their role was to keep the furnaces stoked at home.

Ma-Ma spoke. “I think you may be the person they mentioned on the news yesterday,” he said. “They’re sending an ICE patrol out to these woods, to search for you. There are reports that you’ve gone missing, and you were last seen hereabouts.”
“If I meet those guys out in the open, I’ll draw fire, and I can’t afford to catch one in the face. The army needs me,” said Pete.
“You’re not going to be much use to the army dead, ” said Jip.

Poor little Pete suddenly looked shocked. It was as if the gravity of the situation had only just become clear to him. He held his head in his hands, pondering, “Huntsman was working for Donald, I’m sure of that, but whether the real decision came from Rupert,” he paused exhaling a long sigh, and shook his head, “or even an advertiser, I don’t know. I guess until I know I can’t afford to take too many risks back at HQ, can I?” He looked around the group, neither he nor they exchanging a word; just a forced smile here and there.

“But I need a job though,” he added contemplatively.

The dwarfs shared a relieved look with each other. Their natural empathy made them want to look out for a stranger in need; but a TV man amongst them, set on perhaps returning to his former post, well that put a different angle on things.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Nicknack. “If you were to look after our household —be our cook, make the beds, wash, sew, and clean for us, keeping everything how we like it, we’ll keep you here, and you shall want for nothing until all this passes.”
Hogshead thought for a moment, then answered, “Yes! I was in the catering and housekeeping corps of the army. I excel at such tasks, and was awarded a badge of excellence for them.”

And so, he remained with the dwarfs, and kept their house. In the morning they’d go to the valleys to mine for their precious metals; and in the evening, they came home to find their meals ready for them.

During the day, little Hogshead was left alone, and so the good dwarfs warned him, saying, “Be careful of Donald, who will soon know of your being here. Let nobody enter the cottage,” to which Jip added, “Especially when you’ve been using the cooking sherry.”

For as much as little Jip had one eye in Waco and one eye in Winchester, he was one for detail, and he’d noticed how on some days, when wine or sherry had been added to the stew, that there was something that looked like little lumps of vomit floating in it.

“Pious little fucker, though, that Jip, isn’t he?” thought Hogshead.

.

Donald meanwhile, had changed things around at Octopus. He was the one who was there every day, shouting the odds, and having everyone bend to his bidding. Especially now that Hogshead had gone.

In a certain sense, Rupert was happy too —he had no instinct for all that day-to-day executive management schtick and was glad to be rid of it; yet there was regret that came with this regime change too, as Rupert sensed himself drifting away from the cultural epicentre of his media enterprise. He liked it when someone ruled the roost at the newsroom, but he liked it better when there was an eager young buck waiting in the wings for their chance to become Top Dog too.

Such was Donald’s dominance, and his popularity with the lower quartiles of Octopus’s followers, many of them had started to say, that it was Rupert that was Donald’s bitch, and that it was Donald who called the shots these days. Not Rupert.

Like wee Petie, Donald had reclaimed his gender too. No one referred to him as Rupert’s Queen anymore, well, hardly anyone. No, now he was once more, The Donald— the de-facto senior executive of Octopus.

And not only that. He had also vanquished his only rival, and he had eaten the insides of that man’s corpse, and what is more, was once again the most handsome creature in the world.

It had been he that had instructed Tom Huntsman to send his ICE patrol into the forest, not Rupert.

Huntsman had at first, protested, telling Donald that he wouldn’t find a sign of Hogshead’s slain body, but Donald wouldn’t have it. He wanted all evidence of the killing destroyed, so that nothing associated Huntsman, and therefore him, with it.

Tom persisted to say that all was well, but Donald knew that Tom’s idea of a job done was different to his own. “We’ll make it look like we’re concerned about a little helpless thing that’s gone missing,” he’d said. “Check out the site of the…” and he did that thing with his hands, that this time Tom knew how to interpret, “then we’ll call it off in a week or so, when we find nothing. It’ll just be a couple of laps of the woods with one of your ICE cream vans. That’ll do it. It’ll look great on TV.”

Tom Huntsman obliged his boss, and gave the orders. But he knew that only bad could come of it were they to be anything like thorough in their task. So, he sent his worst crew to the wrong place, telling them to have a brief scout about, then to come home as soon as the TV cameras had gone.

The eating had been a bit of an ordeal, for Donald liked his meals plain, bar the ketchup. He’d left orders for Hogshead’s offal to be minced down in a processor, and to be blended with regular outside meat, as he put it. In that way, his chefs were to create burger patties of no more than fifteen percent offal content, or if that meant that it was disappearing too slowly, twenty percent, because that was the way you went up at those low levels in deal making, Donald told him —adding that they had to “bring some business to getting this project done.”

If he’d left his chef to his own devices, and the normal recipe of round about one-third offal content had been adhered to, the viscera of his former colleague would have been consumed in less than a week, but at fifteen, then a few days later, twenty percent, the unsavoury meals lasted fully a fortnight.

He didn’t take well to being defied, but each time a new burger was put in front of him, he prayed that it contained no body parts. Had the kitchen spared him the liver burgers, as he referred to them, it would still have counted, he thought —Hogshead was dead, and something, somewhere, at HQ had devoured his organs, even if that was only the waste bin in the kitchen, or the groundsman’s dog.

But he persisted. He still craved a little bit of what Hogshead had and he lacked. And besides, he’d said in front of the mirror that he was to complete the destruction of Hogshead by consuming him. He’d lie to anyone, without compunction. But the mirror…

One day, a little while later, when the memory of the offal had receded, and the bathrooms at the Octopus Complex had been given a makeover, he plucked up the courage to step before his mirror again. The bloating, that he’d put down to cannibalism, was gone, and he was back closer to his fighting weight. So, he went before the mirror again:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

and it replied:

Donald was fairest for a spell;
But Hogshead’s been spared his hell,
The dwarfs protect him from thy sway
Amid the forest, far away.

In a state of blind fury, Donald turned from the mirror to throw a ketchup bottle at the servant entering the room. He shouted at the poor timid man, “All you manual labourers aren’t worth the money we give you. You should pay to work for us, and be glad of it. Next time you come in here, bring your wage packet with you, otherwise get looking for another job.”

As the tirade abated, the mirror added:

Everyone’s talking about it;
It’s what they’re all saying.

“Even my mirror mocks me!” he thought. They were his words; in the special way he said them. But he knew that unlike him, the mirror spoke just the truth. And he knew now, that Tom Huntsman had deceived him, and that Hogshead was still alive.

As his anger dropped a gear to snarling bubbling ill content, he called for his servants to be brought before him. Once they were lined up, he told them that he’d overlook their gross negligence in the performance of their duties, if they were to force-feed offal, or any rejected offcuts of meat they could get their hands on, to Tom Huntsman, here before his eyes this very afternoon, until he choked on it. Adding, that should they not find any, they were to elect one of their colleagues, someone standing alongside them now, who would have to donate their own organs so that the task could be performed.

“I ate twenty-five liver burgers the other week for you lot, all because of that no-good liar. And someone here’s gonna make it up to me one way or another!”

And he dismissed his staff, to go about the complex in search of discarded meat, and Tom Huntsman.

A few days later, when Tom was dead and gone, and the newspapers had written up his death as an unfortunate indoor hunting incident, Donald called off all ICE patrols in the region of the forests, just in case the press followed any of Huntsman’s recent projects, and got too curious. Then he began to prepare for the next stage of his own plan.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of it scot-free,” he barked at Natalie. “Take off your skirt.”

He often made her work without a skirt as a little pretend-punishment, should she, say, set his Diet Coke down in the wrong spot. He’d do it when it was time to apply his embrocation, or before he began a short routine of chair exercises, things like that. But on this day, he made her take it off and hand it over to him. He spent his whole life with her as his shadow, and it would buy him a few precious minutes to escape the building without her trying to follow him.

He went to his private bathroom, where he took the tinted moisturiser from his face, then clothing himself as an old tinker woman, left by its other door. In this disguise, he went over to the woods to search for the house of the seven dwarfs.

He drove himself to the forest, but the satnav didn’t work as he’d told it to, and as a consequence he only found the dwarfs’ cottage as twilight came.

Down in the valley, the little workers had already set off for home.

He knocked at the door of their little dwelling, and called out, “Fine goods for sale! Beautiful goods! Really beautiful. Everyone’s talking about how beautiful they are. Best goods you can buy. Miles cheaper than when that bum Roger Ailes was out hawking stuff that looked like these but were cheap replicas. Hear that! They were replicas, and loads more expensive; these are the real deal. For nothing! We’re giving them away to our best viewers, and most loyal supporters. Even those who don’t like us anymore. The other lot were stealing off you; we’re giving you your money back.”

Hogshead peeped out of the window and said, “Good day, my good woman. What have you to sell?”

“Fine goods, beautiful goods!” she replied. “Really beautiful goods. Gym clothes. Sexy underwear they’re saying. I don’t; I’m a Christian; pure minded. Tight gym kit that holds you in, and makes everything look normal. I’ve got a set on now —vajoga pants. They hold and contain everything —gripping technology. Everyone says they’re the best you can get. And of all colours too, but mainly orange and gold. I like brown too —they’ve got practical advantages.” And she held up a pair which were made of orange and brown nylon. “Like these golden ones. See how they shimmer? That’s ‘cos of the gold thread.”

“I may let in this honest woman,” thought Hogshead; and he unbolted the door. But before allowing her to cross the threshold, he made sure to bargain with her, that he could test them before committing to a purchase.

The old woman consented, and had Hogshead take off his shirt. Then she proceeded to stretch the two-times too small, rubber and Lycra top over Pete’s head, and pull it down over his tattooed torso. He was soon panting for air, but the old woman ignored his breathless protestations, and went quickly to the shorts. They were the same, and the two of them struggled, working together, to pull them on over his bulging thighs.

“Wrong way about!” the woman exclaimed.
“No! Look! The drawstrings are at the front, as they’re supposed to be,” Hogshead wheezed —scarcely a breath of air remaining in his lungs.
“Rubbish! That’s not how they work,” said the old woman.

Pete did as he was bidden, took off the shorts, then stretched them on again the other way round. The woman had him lie on the floor, face-down, as she pulled them up the final few inches, and Pete, almost a spent force by now, gave in to her exhortations, and let her do as she pleased. Once she had him there, she took the drawstrings in a firm grip, and placing her knee in the small of his back for extra leverage, started to pull them yet tighter.

Hogshead squealed a little, as she yanked at the strings, striving to pull every last centimetre from them, but suspected nothing still —the boys in Venture Scouts got up to all sorts of hi-jinks like this; and so, he allowed her to do as she wished with his limp body, without complaint. But then, the old woman pulled the string so tightly that all his breath went, as if he’d downed a half-bottle of Jack all in one gulp, and he went limp on the floor, as if dead.

“Now,” thought the old woman to herself, hastening away, “perhaps I am, once more, the most beautiful of all!”

At eventide, not long after she had left, the seven dwarfs came home, and were much frightened at seeing their dear little maid lying on the ground, neither moving nor breathing, as if he were dead. They raised him up, and when they saw that he was laced too tightly, they cut the gym clothes to pieces, until, presently, he began to breathe again, and little by little he revived.

“It was a bit like the Navy Seals’ recruitment program, only more of a challenge,” said Hogshead, as the life came back to his body.

When the dwarfs heard what had taken place, they said, “The old tinker woman was no other than wicked Donald, your Octopa. Take more care of yourself, and let no one enter when we are not with you.”

Meanwhile, Donald had arrived back at Octopus. He changed in his bathroom, and tossing the skirt back to Natalie, went before his mirror, and asked:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

and it replied:

Donald was fairest for a while;
But Hogshead’s now regained his smile.
The dwarfs protect him still from you,
And all that you would seek to do.

As soon as the mirror stopped speaking, all of Donald’s blood seemed to rush to his heart at once, and set it racing. He was so angry to hear that Hogshead was still alive. It made his ankles swell into black puddings, and similar coloured blotches appeared on his hands. And then, a rash like syphilis, broke out on his neck, and on other bits of him that didn’t have proper names —some of them he’d grown himself; some of them were additions that his friend Elon had grafted on to the hanging-down parts of his body, to make it work better. Within moments, all of that too was covered in the rash, which then progressed yet further, so that what had once seemed merely poxy, began to look rotten.

In this state of fury at the world, his failing body, the dwarfs, Rupert, the dead Huntsman, but most of all Hogshead, he began to conjure with ideas for a new, even more dastardly plan.

“I will make something which shall destroy him completely,” he shouted at the walls.

Thus saying, he called for a tub of goose fat, and when it was delivered, he went to his medicine cabinet and crushed up every drug he found in it, into a fine powder. Then he mixed the powder into the fat to make it the most poisonous but innocent looking concoction.

Over the years, he’d taken many a different drug, and he knew the strong from the weak, and those of instant effect, from those which worked by slow release of their magic. What a potion he created, taking care to leave out all the aspirins, which he knew were so beneficial they’d likely counteract all the fantastic poisons he’d put into the mix.

“Clothes off now!” he shouted at Natalie, and she obliged without demur. This time he tried to get into some of them, and by stretching them, and breaking their seams, he eventually succeeded in cobbling together an outfit.

Dressing himself as a woman again, this time more like an Avon Lady than a tinker, making himself a bit more milfy-prostitutey than he was previously, he went the next day into the wild forest where stood the house of the seven dwarfs. Knocking at the door, he called out, “Good wares to sell to-day! Even better than last time.”
“Have you been here before?” asked Hogshead, peeping out from behind a curtain.

And the sexy middle-aged lady, the type wee Petie really liked, replied, “No. I said it just in case anyone had been round selling you shoddy goods for too much money. I’ve got the real deal here. Things that only billionaires further on down in the valley buy, but can’t get access to, because I haven’t been there yet.”

Hogshead replied, “You must go farther, for I dare not let you in.”
“But still you may look,” said the lady, drawing out the jar of lotion and holding it up.
“What is it?” asked Hogshead, beguiled by the sight.
“Ointment,” said the lady.
“For rubbing in, after the gym?” asked Hogshead. “To the dry parts, and bits that crack?”
“Better,” said the lady, knowing that Hogshead valued his sweep of Ronald Reagan hair, more than he did any of his other physical attributes. “It’s hair ointment. A special, old-fashioned recipe that holds men’s hair like it did in the old days, when America was great.”

This news pleased Hogshead so much, that he opened the door.

“You’re such a lovely thing to look at, let me give you my best comb to go with it,” said the lady. “You can have it for a good price.”
“But I don’t have any money of my own, and I can’t afford the comb, whatever price you charge, let alone the jar of ointment,” said Hogshead. Then, in case the lady was a robber in disguise, he added, “they take all there is, and hide it in the pockets of Jip’s space overalls, so that it can’t be stolen.”
The lady batted away Hogshead’s protestations. “When you see how well it works, you’ll want to keep it, and then you can ask your friends for some money, when they come home this evening. I’ll pop back tomorrow, and you can pay me then.” So saying, she thrust the jar into Hogshead’s soft hands.

Scarcely was the first gloop of fat drawn through his hair, when the poison began to work, and Hogshead fell down senseless.

“You thing of beauty,” cried Donald. “Not so pretty now, are you?” And seeing his foe defeated, he departed before the dwarfs arrived home.

Fortunately, they were on their way back already, for it was half-day closing in the valley of metals and precious items, and the seven dwarfs returned soon after Donald’s departure. As soon as they saw Hogshead lying upon the ground, to them dead, they suspected Donald. Discovering the poisoned ointment, they immediately washed it from his hair. It took several hours to get all the grease from his head, because there’d been a thick base coat to begin with, and the little dwarfs did not want to risk leaving any of the noxious cream to work its evil way.

When he was eventually revived, he told them all that had happened. So again, they warned him against his wicked Octopa, and bade him open the door to nobody.

“Not even Peter Teapot!” they told him. “No matter how angry he gets.”

Meanwhile, Donald, on his arrival home, again consulted the mirror, and received the same answer as twice before. It made him tremble and foam with rage and jealousy, and he swore that Hogshead should die, whatever the cost.

Thereupon he ordered the best burger the kitchen could make.

“You’ve let me down recently, making me eat all those liver burgers, today I want an eight-star Burj-Kalifa burger that would be served to an actual Arab king, or a Tsar,” he said.
“But the Burj only goes up to seven, his chief chef protested.”
“For that, you can make me a nine-star burger,” shouted Donald, and slammed the phone down.

The burger soon arrived, and when it did, he went straight to the gardener’s hut, at the far end of the Octopus complex, taking with him a half-empty bottle of ketchup. He filled it to the top with all manner of weed killers and poisons he found in there, then gave it a good shake. It looked so good, he was tempted to taste a little bit on his finger, but he fought that desire, and shuffled and swung his idle fat legs as fast as he could, to get himself back to his dressing room. There, he sneaked into his private bathroom, where he removed all the dye from his hair and bronzer from his face. Then, tying a headscarf that he’d stolen from Natalie’s handbag around his head, he first made a very loud call to the kitchen, demanding delivery of more burgers for him and Natalie, so that she might hear, after which he sneaked out again, and went one more into the forest, this time disguised as a country peasant woman.

Soon, he reached the dwarfs’ cottage, and knocking at the door, Hogshead opened it a crack, and leaning his head round it, said, “I dare not let anyone enter; the seven dwarfs have forbidden me.”

“That is for you to decide,” said the old woman, “for I know that you are stuck in there, cooking stews all day for the dwarfs when they return home, when all day they have eaten sushi, and all that other bullshit that office execs eat. Take this,” and she tried to hand Hogshead the juicy burger.
“No,” answered Hogshead; “I dare not take it.”
“What! Are you afraid of it?” cried the peasant woman. “It’s not got any offal in it, or anything. It’s the sort that Arabs eat. Rich ones, with oil wells!”

Hogshead looked longingly at the burger. Droplets of saliva appeared at the corner of his mouth. “It is tempting,” he said, “for I have eaten nothing so good as that, all the time I’ve lived here. But no, I dare not, I’ve been on a terrible run of luck lately, all caused by taking things from strangers who come hawking at my door.”

“Tell you what I’ll do,” said Donald “I’ll cut the burger in two. I’ll take one half and you take the other, and we’ll enjoy it together.”

He went ahead and sliced it into two perfect semi-circles, taking care to see that all the ketchup was on one half only. It was something of a commitment on his behalf, to eat a burger without ketchup, and he was disappointed when Hogshead didn’t acknowledge the sacrifice he was making.

“Is that not good?” Donald asked the poor little idiot.

Scarcely had Hogshead placed a piece in his mouth, when he fell down dead upon the ground. Then Donald, looking at him with glittering eyes, and laughing bitterly, exclaimed, “It’s as if the soak has drunk a hogshead of wine! This time the dwarfs cannot revive you.”

When he reached home, he consulted his mirror:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

And it answered:

You are, of course, you great big Queen,
With your fair hair, and its metallic sheen.
I love you in your drag, so fey.
The Donald is fairest of the day.

At last, his envious heart was at rest, as peacefully as any envious heart can be.

When the little dwarfs toddled home in the evening, they found Hogshead lying on the ground, no life in his body, quite dead. They raised him up, and searched in vain to find anything poisonous. They unlaced him, and even washed his hair, then they washed him with water, and once they were sure that they could detect no liquor on his breath, cleaned him once more all over, in rubbing alcohol. But nothing availed: the dear boy was really and truly dead this time.

Then they laid him upon a bier, and all seven placed themselves around it, and wept and wept for three days without ceasing. Then they prepared to bury him. But yet, he looked still fresh and life-like, his tattoos gleamed as they ever had, his abs seemed tight and firm, so they said to one another, “We cannot bury him in the black ground.” So, they ordered a case to be made of glass. In this they could see the body on all sides, and the dwarfs wrote his name with golden letters upon the glass, saying that he was a protégé of the mighty Rupert. Now they placed the glass case upon the ledge on a rock, and one of them always remained by it, watching. Even the birds bewailed the loss of Hogshead, who would feed on his vomit when he’d been on a bender; first came an owl, then a raven, and last of all a dove.

For a long time, Hogshead lay peacefully in his case, like a soldier buried with full military honours —a touch he would have enjoyed, had he only been alive to see it. But there was something about him too, in that case, that was plain to see. He scarcely seemed to change, and looked only as if he were sleeping.

By and by it happened that a king’s son was travelling in the forest. He came from a faraway place he called Toumnie Albion. And came to the dwarfs’ house saying he was lost, and asked if he could pass the night with them. As soon as they’d ascertained that he wasn’t an emissary of Peter Teapot, they welcomed him in to stay with them.

“We have no good meal to offer you,” said Ho. “Our housekeeper’s just died.”
“Let’s have a look at her,” said the prince. “See if there’s anything I can do.”

He soon saw the glass case upon the rock, and the beautiful boy lying within, and he read the golden inscription too.

When he had examined it, he said to the dwarfs, “Let me have this case, and I will pay what you like for it.”

But the dwarfs replied, “We will not sell it for all the gold in the world.”

“Then give it to me,” said the prince; “for I cannot live without Hogshead, having seen him. That tattoo showing through his linen burial blouse, indicates that he is a great crusader like me. I will honour and protect him as long as I live.”

When the dwarfs saw that he was so much in earnest, they pitied him, and at last gave him the case, and the prince ordered it to be carried away on the shoulders of his attendants, who had set up camp out of sight, nearby, and who the prince had conspicuously not mentioned, when he came knocking at their door asking for food and shelter, the previous evening.

Presently it happened that the attendants stumbled over a rut, and with the shock, the piece of burger which had been covered with poisoned ketchup, was loosened from Hogshead’s throat, and fell from his mouth. Very soon he opened his eyes, and raising the lid of the glass case, he rose up and asked, “Where am I?”

Full of joy, the prince answered, “You are safe with me.” And he told to him all that he had suffered, and how he would rather have him than any other comrade with whom to go on a crusade. “By the way,” he added, “was that one of those Burj-Kalifa burgers you choked on?”

“I’m not sure,” said Hogshead in all honesty.
“I am,” said the prince, “I could tell by the tahini garnish. Come with me, and we will be avenged on the makers of such atrocities.”

Wee Petie agreed, and the prince took him back to his castle, where he kitted him out in a uniform of metal, chainmail, but mostly flags, like the ones that knights wore in old fashioned history books. So attired, they started to make plans. They were to ride off together to find a desert, where they would fight whosoever they found there with brown skin, and a belligerent, well non-supplicant, attitude.

Donald was invited to the great disembarkation as it came to be known, to wave off the prince, and his legion of troops, as they set off on their adventure. He did not yet know that Hogshead was to ride alongside the prince, as his chief aide de camp.

Donald was all dressed up in his finery, ready to go, but first stepped in front of his mirror. He knew the answer before he asked the question, but he liked to hear her say it. Besides, he had on a new suit, because he’d grown a little recently, relaxing into this new and better life without Hogshead. It being a size up, he’d taken to wearing it without diapers —it hung better that way, reminding him a little of how he used to look. And now, of course, with Hogshead gone, the temper tantrums had reduced, which meant that there were far fewer episodes to deal with, and it gave Donald the confidence to go out diaper-less far more often than had recently been the case. He pulled the lapels straight, hitched up the pants, and asked:

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who is the fairest of us all?

and it replied:

Donald was fairest yesterday;
But the prince’s pal is now, they say.

At these words, Donald went into a fury, and was so terribly mortified that he knew not what to do with himself.

“I thought you knew how to work that thing!” he shouted at Natalie.

And when she couldn’t find a response, he dismissed her, telling her to go and buy him an upgrade.

“One that knows how to work on S.I.” he shouted after her.

At first, he resolved not to go to the disembarkation, but he had to see if it really was Hogshead who’d found favour with the foreign prince, or whether yet another interloper needed to be dealt with. So he went, but as soon as he clapped eyes on Pete, dressed as a knight of yore, he became so terrified with rage and astonishment, that he emptied his bowels fully into his brand-new suit. The faecal mass, without a diaper to stop its flow, came down his legs, and into his shoes, and onto the street, leaving a trail of human waste in his wake, whichever turn he took.

The whole incident was caught on the Octopus News cameras that Donald had ordered to follow him everywhere he went. Without an aide by his side, and no way to disguise his predicament, Donald went hurriedly from the scene, doing that stiff-legged walk thing, which only served to exaggerate his existing limp, and thus bringing even more attention to his plight.

He went far away from Rupert’s media empire, vowing never to be seen in public again. But unfortunately, he lied about that too.