Free Link Arms with Toads! by Rhys Hughes Page A

caught in her hand. The iron and concrete struck the pavement silently. Melissa ignored the quiet and concentrated on a group of young delinquents, approaching with unsheathed stubble. She was ready for them and launched a preemptive strike.
    “ Can you spare an ingot for a cup of tea?”
    They shied away and she was free to continue her journey, removing her smirk and pocketing it for later. At the Council House, she brushed past the apathetic guard and entered the mossy travesty. The only light came from a phosphorescent slime that coated the walls. Pausing on the threshold of Alleneal’s office, she placed her ear to the rotting door. A peculiar chattering came from inside. Eye to keyhole, she watched him plucking at his face with tweezers.
    Was this how all councillors groomed themselves? Turning away, in a fit of embarrassment, she reached a spiral staircase and went down. Her unease intensified with each step, as if she was descending the helix of the council’s DNA, the code that controlled the growth of the municipal nervous system. At the base, she found herself in a corridor. She passed a dungeon with a lock rusted almost all the way through. Inside, leaning over a trestle, the Cardiffians were comparing injuries. “My shoulders are more dislocated than yours!” Rising to their broken feet, probably smashed by council hammers, they started a brawl, adding a second layer of bruises to insulate the lower.
    A second dungeon held her convertible. She tried the door: the iron bars crumbled in her grip. The vehicle was covered in parking tickets, a petty, as opposed to pretty, wedding dress. Alleneal was a thief as well as a liar, but he had left the key in the ignition. The voices of guards echoed along the passage. She had time only to free the prisoners or the convertible, not both. The decision was less painful than it should have been. As she jumped into the driving seat, she reflected that justice is simply a covert weighing of beauty.
    Clogged with local air, the engine protested as she started up and drove straight through the remaining bars. The rust coated her like the pepper of a robotic chef, spicing the corners of her eyes as she swerved tightly into the corridor. She roared in the opposite direction to the voices: soon the passage began to spiral upwards. She was gratified to discover it emerged in the library: she cruised down the aisles, packed with cankerous bookcases and exenterated computer terminals. Tramps and students sheltered under collapsed shelves, offering her no more than a toothless smile. Other vehicles waltzed among the sundry literatures. It really was a multistorey car park: she could trust her perception once more. She clattered down the stairs.
    Leaving the building by the main entrance, she parked outside the Council House. She left the engine running, giving the convertible the appearance of having already been stolen and abandoned as inadequate. She did not pause at the councillor’s door this time, but strode in. He was sterilising his tweezers in blended whisky. Resignedly, like a moon regarding an oncoming eclipse, he turned his hatching eyes towards her. His questioning shrug was very eloquent.
    “ You stole my property,” she cried.
    “ Councils do not steal, Ms Sting. They confiscate. We had to ensure you remained with us for the whole week. Perhaps I should have been more open, but I am unused to dealing with females.” Dropping the tweezers in the whisky bottle, he sighed. “Especially not sassy redheads. I never engage in relationships, Ms Sting. I find you somewhat alarming. Emotion is noise in my brain: I am a councillor.”
    “ I’m just the same as everyone else.”
    He shook a finger. “Oh no, Ms Sting! You won’t pull that particular shade of wool over my eyes.” In a more conciliatory tone, he added: “The car is a minor issue. We all make sacrifices, we all have fears. My dear mother was startled by a monkey. She was pregnant and the shock affected her