TheBoySaunders.com

Once upon a time there was this man called Stan and, well, there’s no easy way to say this: He tried to bum an aphid.

Seriously - the poor little thing was tied down with tiny silken ropes on the kitchen table, and Stan was kind of hovering over it, leching and gurning in the overwhelming throes of his perverse lust.

All of a sudden there was a miniature cacophony from above. The noise got louder and louder, and closer and closer before, abruptly, the roof of Stan’s house was smashed in.

A million ladybirds, each angrier than the next, swarmed in through the remnants of Stan’s ceiling. They surrounded him, buzzing into his ears and mouth and nose and Jap’s eye, beating him to the ground and then coming slowly to a standstill. The frenzied bellow of their wrath gradually gave way to silence.

Somewhere, in the confusion, the aphid had freed itself and slipped away. It went on to live a full and happy life in Papua New Guinea.

Tentatively, Stan opened his eyes to find a million ladybirds staring at him accusingly. For some reason, his attempt to bum an aphid had made them very cross.

Minutes passed before, as though some unspoken command had been given, the ladybirds once again took to the air. They began to form a swarm which buzzed and spun and gradually enveloped Stan, confusing his senses and blurring his brain until, inevitably, he passed out.

He awoke in the faraway magical ladybird kingdom, where he was initially treated quite poorly. After working for a few years as a butler for the head ladybird, Stan eventually fell in love with his daughter, who he ended up marrying. She wasn’t an aphid, but what can you do? After earning his freedom, Stan had many adventures with his new ladybird bride and came to quite like living in the ladybird kingdom. Ten years passed. His mutant offspring were quickly killed, as they were hideous freaks, but that was a minor blot on the copybook of Stan’s otherwise idyllic life.

Only one day, Stan opened his eyes and was shocked by what he saw. Instead of his enchanted mushroom bed, he was lying on a cold, hard kitchen floor. He was gazing at the sky, which was strange because there should have been a roof there. On the kitchen table were four strands of tiny silken rope and some lube.

Damage to his kitchen non-withstanding, it was like Stan had never been away. He was back to his old self in every way. So many questions… Had it been a dream? Why had he left the kingdom? Where was his wife? And why were the ladybirds so very cross about the attempted aphid bumming?

In a whirlwind of hurt and self-recrimination, Stan stumbled blindly from his home and out into the world. He never found out why he had been ejected from the magical ladybird kingdom. He spent his final years trudging through the countryside, sticking his head into bushes and hedgerows, searching for a way back. Police around the country investigated reports of a strange tramp in a home-made ladybird costume jumping out from behind bins and frightening the elderly. When he was eventually found, quite dead in a ditch from exposure, the people of whichever local village he had ended up in thought only to call in the authorities.

Before they could arrive, a low buzz was heard from the sky. Looking upwards, the villagers were amazed to see day turn to night as the sun was blotted out by a red and black cloud that appeared to have a billion tiny wings. The cloud pulsed and throbbed, weaving intricate patterns in the air as it came ever lower, eventually settling over Stan’s lifeless body.

Slowly and awkwardly the swarm rose up as one, taking Stan with them. Some of the children from the village chased them for a while, until the swarm gained speed over the hills and, finally, flew out of sight.