Chapter 1 continued...

The next morning, River Boy and Cloud Berry left the Cult.  A note pinned to the study wall next to the barometer informed Godfrey that they were fed up and wanted to lead a normal life.

“A normal life!” snorted Godfrey as he limped into the kitchen to show his wife the offending note.  “You see that, Fiona?  Your children want to lead a normal life! Ha!”

 He grabbed a couple of plates from the kitchen table and hurled them violently against the wall.

“A normal life indeed!” he repeated as he picked up and threw the shattered pieces into the fireplace.  “The only normal life is here – you ungrateful, immature, retarded idiots!  Well, who would have thought it?  The way young people throw away Paradise these days!  It’s obviously symbolic of the wretched times we live in!”

Fiona sat at the kitchen table and said nothing.  She seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful this morning but the Small Pixie Woman jumped up from her chair and started beaming and nodding vigorously.

“Mmmm!” she said.  “Yes, that’s what came to This One’s mind!  Only this morning, One found Oneself thinking to Oneself.  And One heard Oneself say to Oneself, One wonders what might happen today, Godfrey.  And then, you know, River Boy and Cloud Berry leave the Group and One thought to Oneself, this must be symbolic – the fact that Cloud Berry, who is a girl and River Boy, who thinks of itself as a boy, should choose to leave the same day and it came to mind, Godfrey, that perhaps there was something symbolic...”

“Oh, it was symbolic all right!” snarled Godfrey as he poked the broken crockery in the fire viciously with a poker.  “Why can’t you just shut up, you retarded idiot! he added under his breath.  “Be quiet, you undersized, weaker sexed, inbred female... Grrrr!”

 How he hated this Small Pixie Woman – with her constant nodding and smiling… A sudden thought struck him and he paused to tug at his beard.

There were now only three members of the Cult left.  If this undersized foreign specimen of the retarded sex should leave… then there would only be two members…. hmmmm.

The following morning, Fiona left.  There was no note – but all her belongings had gone.  Godfrey threw a brick through his bedroom window for appearances' sake – but it was only a half-hearted effort.  As a matter of fact, he wasn’t upset at all.  A little voice that had arrived only yesterday had now unpacked, got itself quite comfortably settled and had started to murmur pleasantly in the back of his mind.  A friendly little voice that repeated over and over again one magic word. 

Tobacco.

For the past few weeks, despite his fiercest struggles, a craving to smoke had been clutching at Godfrey’s lungs.  But tobacco was top of the Cult’s banned list.  It was impossible for him as leader to smoke.  But now, things were different.  Fiona had left, the children had left – there was nobody around to see!

Then he remembered the Small Pixie Woman.  Well, tomorrow she would go.  Tomorrow she could go and nod her stupid head elsewhere.  And tomorrow, he promised himself, he would buy twenty Marlboro reds.