Poppyseed Lane

under overpasses, deep in the bowels of the parks, tucked behind every garbage bin big enough to hide it; wracked iron contorted into a gate, the outline of a name: Poppyseed Lane

the jimmies come out say hello to the new neighbours, all earnest smiles and chuckling lessons in numeracy and literacy. just like you and me but full of fingers. they laugh with carefully closed mouths, knuckles pressing against the inside of their cheeks, hoping you've forgotten the letter of the day, are ready to become like them

hellmos flutter fat, fluffy arms, settle into pools of blood and oil to drink. giggle high-pitched and quiet among themselves, call you mr noodle and ask you to do things that are likely to kill you. have an undying, curious craving for repetition. endlessly fascinated by fish. do not tickle them

everyone knows where you should go if you get injured. hurt and burnie live down in the basement, bottle-green light filtered through drawn shutters. burnie's good with bandages, blasé with medication, and addicted to starting fires. hurt doesn't like to touch live patients, hovers over burnie keeping him focused, when you go to bed he anesthetises you and starts cutting

you open the cupboard and BIRD come out. you pry open the manhole and BIRD is there. you look up and BIRD land on your head, a big wet blob of cheeping cawing feathers with not enough eyes and too many beaks. is there a person inside? is there... you?

wet stain on your vision, peripheral pachyderm fever-dream. you can catch snuffle-plague-us from a victim's dripping nose, or the oily feathers of BIRD. it catches you when you sneeze and dissolves you in a phlegmatic cocoon of your own mucus

von count lives alone. a castle of paperwork collected, collated, sometimes forged. his laugh is dry and forced, a poorly timed: 'ah ah'. he will demand an accounting of you, sometimes taking a little tax, rarely more than five fingers or a pound of flesh, to keep you in line with the number of the day

your words replaced with nonsense syllables, barks of pain that cramp your throat as you spit them out. your jaw deforms and unhinges, your eyes bulge to accommodate your new vocal apparatus. the martians have abducted your language and use it to summon your friends

trail of crumbs beckons down the alleyway. obese sweat-sticky flesh shrouded in greasy, chocolate-matted fur, crammed into a corner, hunched jealously over his hoard. when he is full he can almost remember his name but he is never full now. the yawning black orifice splits wide down the whole length of his body, urgent arms flailing and mashing and tearing in their haste to cram everything inside. do you smell sweet

pipecleaner man in cape and clanking knight's helmet. fights crime. can punch through walls and tear your head off with a single clean twist. well-meaning but incompetent. do not resemble crime

sexy pig in a dress, blonde wig and giant boobs, married to a frog. she beats him up. she knows karate. he tries to kermit suicide but he cannot die. he is very depressed. it's not easy being him. if you find a way to kill him he will help you leave, but she loves him and will try to stop you

what is he chopping? is is alive? is it... crying? bork bork bork

it claims to have spawned the whole lane into being, though it claims this of your world too. the grouch is not from out of space, but from under it, sending out little chewing worms and dragging the half-composted waste of the city down down into its endless gut

EAT THE BOTTLE MR NOODLE