Sentence The Fourhundredandeightyeighth

Little Levy Balquhidder had a fever this morning; as soon as she realised his temperature was raised, his mum, Sarsparilla, gave him a 5ml dose of Infant Calpol which he sucked greedily out of the dispenser and soon he was sleeping peacefully – on the outside; inside, the spirit which provided

Levy's consciousness, his id as the Freudians call it, was fair fizzing: it's memory banks were racing through generations of births and rebirths, images and events, places and faces, covering every epoch of human life on the planet, from the immolation caused by a bolt of lightning which ended it's previous life as Pherson Dalwhinnie in Melrose High Street, through the one just before as Oscar

Wilde's namby-pamby lover, Bosie – Lord Alfred Douglas – and immediately before that, Kalama, Queen Consort of the Hawaiian Islands (it could never predict who or what it would become next, nor fathom The Creator's Grand plan, of which it knew itself to be but a tiny bit part) with that strange belief in herself which she manifested as a pollinivore, drawing status and power in much the

same way as a Queen Bee, oh, the spirit rather prided itself on that wee extemporised touch; then back and further back through the most recent two millennia until they homed in on one: OMG! it had not thought of that for so long, a thousand years or more, so why now? could there be a message in this, a lesson to be learned? for in his life as Clemens he had been a slave, stultified in that role, and then a Freedman, and had chosen to impersonate his former owner in a failed bid to become Emperor – why, although so long ago it was as fresh as every other memory, but why today? why now? after all, little Levy was still, is still, a tiny baby unable yet to talk or walk – and with every rebirth the spirit was finding itself less patient, more impatient, more desperate to ignore the rules of his role, to say more than “geeble-gabble, bibble-bobble, glug, glug, glug,” to tell his, or her, parents the truth – that it could teach them a heck of a lot more than they would ever be able to teach it; he yearned to toss away the script, to improvise, to ad lib – was that it? he had ad libbed as Clemens for he knew the masquerade was not the intended course for him to take, and been murdered for his pains, and the lightning bolt was the surest, clearest message that his Pherson Dalwhinnie was not as it should have been – maybe that was the point, maybe this was The Creator saying to him: “stick to your part, darling, stay in character, don't go off message, remember what happened last time!” and the spirit knew that was right, proper, the honest truth; it would live the life destined for Little Levy Balquhidder and keep it's counsel, keep it's wits about it, because no-one ever knew what the others would do, only The Creator saw the Big Picture, knew the Grand Scheme, and the spirit knew that it wasn't the star of the show: if this were a Repertory Company it would be 'other parts played by members of the cast' and it had done that in it's time, been the friend, follower, supporter, third spear-carrier, so: no big gestures, no miracles, and definitely, absolutely, no talking yet!