Naomi Styles

Chapter 1

 

   

      The Elsan was full again. Elsa always remained strangely elusive when this was the case – emancipated women did not empty porta-potties - so Elgin once more took it upon himself to carry it down the six flights of stairs to the toilets in the basement. There were toilets on the floor below and indeed all the other floors, but these were reserved for the elite of the embassy, and they did not want the elves from the top floor crèche scrubbing out potties embedded with poo stains in the highly embellished Elizabethan lavatories.  Elgin undid the elliptical gold buttons on his cuffs, rolled up the sleeves on his elm-green tunic, lifted up the Elsan and embarked on the long journey downstairs, eyes fixed on the steps.               

      Two floors down, he ran into two elongated legs. The contents of the elsan splashed.

      ‘Oh dear boy!’ said a voice which bore out years of elocution lessons – there was not a touch of elision. “You’re a little chap aren’t you? You’re an em-score of a fellow! How tall are you?’

      ‘I’m …just…a few …small’ replied Elgin, his voice eliding with self-consciousness.

      But the gentleman was eager to elicit the information. He went on, eloquently: ‘Oh do elucidate your height. I’ve never met such an em-score of a chap. What are you?’

      ’45 inches,’ said Elgin, embarrassed

      ‘An ell! An ell exactly! How very amusing. I’ve seen elvers longer than that. Well, I must be gone. Embargoes and embezzlement and heaven knows what else to deal with. Tally-ho!  I say, there’s a bad smell around here. It eludes me where it’s coming from.’ He strode up the stairs, seemingly unaware that the smell was emanating from his own trouser leg. Elgin stared after the man that he could have become had he only passed the eleven plus. 

      Such was Elgin’s life. Yes, he had dreams of embattling dragons and eloping with eligible young bachelorettes to the Elysian fields, but his real life involved carrying shit down the stairs.

      And thus his life may have continued until he was embalmed (or burnt on embers – whatever the procedure happened to be), except that, when he finally reached the basement toilets, he found this notice pinned to the door:

 

 

Bored? Depressed? Undervalued?

Then why not treat yourself to:

 

The Elixir of Life!

 

Emasculate one elk and send its entrails to:

PO Box 383

The Embankment

London