‘Parp, parp, parp,’ went the saxamaphone, ‘bong, bong, bong,’ went the drum.

‘Oh lawks, I’m late once again,’ said Leslie. ‘Silly, silly me, what a fool I am, I’ll forget my own head next, if it wasn’t attached to my body!’

He stopped, he looked around, and here it came, the horror - he had no body, he was a head sitting on the coffee table in the lounge. His body had left without him again!

Shit, he sighed, that was probably the sign of another nervous breakdown.

Just then he heard a tap, tap, tapping at the window. By blinking rapidly, working his jaw and waggling his ears he was able to swivel his head enough to see the window.

The horror.

THE HORROR.

Outside the window was a giant seagull prowling around. Now what was he going to do? It was tapping on the window with its mighty orange beak, twisting its head this way and that to turn its beady orange eye on him. Fear coursed within him, his bowels turned to water. He was saved from that little indignity since his body was elsewhere (though somewhere on the Circle line between Paddington and Wood Lane a headless torso, hitherto unnoticed in this faceless social media world suddenly found itself in a widening circle of empty space).

No. This was not the time for fear.

‘Come on, Leslie,’ he said. ‘It’s time to head up. What are you, a mouse, or a head?’

Leslie waggled his ears in a threatening manner. ‘Come on then, giant seagull, come over here. I’ll bite your knees off!’

The seagull grew enraged at his bravado. It took a run up and thrust the tip of its beak to shatter the glass. This was just the stroke of luck Leslie needed, a shard of broken glass landed on the table mere inches from his lips.

‘Ha ha!’ he ha-ha-ed. ‘Jokes on you, seagull, for I have have been playing the jazz since the age of seven* and my lips are so flexible and strong and covered with calluses that I can seize this shard of glass and and grasp it between my mighty yet sensuous lips as though it is a sword with which to vanquish you! Oh shit, I’ve spent too much time monologuing and the beast is upon me! Aaargh, my eyes, my eyes, the-’

It’s not only ravens that peck out eyes you see**, and once the seagull had taken both of Leslie’s eyes (which is fair enough, given that he was late with something that he’d promised to deliver) it shoved chips stolen from a child into his mouth until he choked to death.

The giant seagull was eventually battered to death with a large bottle of poison. The adults would have used the poison inside but were defeated by the child proof cap.

Leslie’s headless torso is still on the Circle line. Those who knew him say that his personality has improved immeasurably.

*yes, that’s right, back on theme, check me out

** yes, that’s a deliberate pun