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Quantum Mechanics as Applied to Ducks
There were no more crackers on the table.
This, while not completely surprising, caused Harold to gasp as he entered the cracker-less room.
He went to far as to stumble forward in horror into the table which, had it held crackers, would have dramatically strewn crackers across the floor, skittering like mice on rollerskates, leaving crumblets behind.
As it was, no such storm of crackers happened, as there were none. This was not lost on Harold, who strode to the pantry door across a floor that clanged under his feet instead of crunching, which it would have, had it been strewn with cracker crumblets, like fallen and very small formerly rollerskating mice. It was still not lost on Harold as he threw open the pantry door and dove to the relatively clean floor, thumping, not skittering, like a large, rather grotesquely overweight mouse trying to rollerskate, unsuccessfully.
Harold, or Jim, to his friends, tended towards the melodramatic. Which didn't fully explain why he was so strange, nor did it explain his obsession with the crackers on the table -- despite them never once being present on the table when he entered the room (which might fall into the category of strange, itself, the obsession, not the persistent absence of crackers). His vintage knight's boots, acquired from a World War Two veteran down in the village who claimed, in his cups, to have fought besides Commander Brimbones in those very boots against the Weebles, a seemingly innocuous, roly-poly family made out of plasticene and little metals weights in their bottoms but devious to their very core, worn typically with navy socks and occasionally a pair of brown paisley slippers when his feet were feeling delicate contributed to the overall consensus that one might reach that Harold may be somewhat strange.
When nothing happened for some few minutes, and the ticking of the great grandfather clock in the hallway could be felt resounding through the floorboards pressed against his ear, Harold regained his feet, no easy task in metal knight's boots, suitable for fending off sword blows and other assorted things knights of old were afraid of hurting their feet, Harold stomped off down the hall, happily clanking down the hall in his knight's boots, having completely forgotten about the crackers, sitting in the small sliver of light breaking through the open pantry door, through which they could see the stark table, looking, for all the world, wanting for some crackers.
A lone owl in the distance hooted, and was probably complaining about the recent rollerskating fad amongst the mice in it's own special owl language.
Which was a very valid complaint.
disclaimer:
This issue has been mailed in from sunny (erm) Cornwall, where the bulk of the staff, save our lovely intern, are holidaying, as we're all apparently overworked, and needed a break from our hectic lifestyle of walking up and down the King's Road, meeting with publishers, meeting with agents, missing lunches with agents and publishers, drinking with agents, publishers, and one agent's brother-in-law, and generally faffing about.
Which, as you can see, has seriously effected the quality and timeliness of the magazine in some form or another.
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