Disclaimer: I have way too much fun writing these things…

England's Mushroom Samba

Arthur Kirkland considered himself a rather chivalrous, courteous, and all around honourable man, if he did say so himself. A gentleman, if you will. Then again, he'd once been a marauding pirate whose favourite pastimes included pillaging, imbibing copious amounts of rum, escaping being hung in the town square only due to the fact that he was the personification of England and therefore couldn't die even if he tried, watching his fellow shipmates getting hanged in the town square, starting drunken pub fights, waking up with raging hangovers next to a 'woman' with a five o' clock shadow and a back hairier than his eyebrows after the aforementioned drunken pub fights, arguing with his foul-mouthed parrot, stabbing the foul-mouthed parrot and giving it a burial at sea when it insulted his choice of hats, lying in bed with scurvy…The usual pirate things. Oh yes, he'd also had a punk phase during the sixties in which he'd been extremely anti-authority and dyed his hair lime green and hot pink in an attempt to assert his hatred of 'the man' (honestly, he still wasn't sure who the man was), pierced several parts of his body, including a rather sensitive bit of his anatomy that could be best summed up with the words 'prince' and 'Albert' and mooned the Queen during a banquet, shouting obscenities and shoving over his fellow guests until he was finally dragged away, kicking and screaming, by two members of the Queen's Guard. Fortunately, Arthur was 'the fucking personification of the United bloody Kingdom and could do whatever he felt like and they'd all be fucking PLEASED about it', as he'd informed the guards whilst knocking off their bearskins in a fit of alcohol-induced rage, thus escaping arrest. So yes, his past was rather sordid and highly undignified, but none of that mattered anymore, because Arthur Kirkland was a gentleman now. Which made the fact that he'd answered in the affirmative when a dodgy-looking fellow wearing a neon orange slicker and a scuffed pair of Wellingtons (extremely odd considering the fact that for once it wasn't raining), crooked a finger at him in a come-hither motion from a dirty alley situated between a fish and chips restaurant and a sporting goods shop whilst asking if he were interested in purchasing some 'shrooms', rather questionable. However, there was a reason behind his dubious decision, which was that he was due to sit in on a lecture of English literature by a lauded professor at Oxford University in two hours, and he knew damn well that he was going to be bored as all fuck within the first twenty minutes of rambling, because being England, he already knew all there was to know about his literary works and did not require the second-hand information of some puissant 'professor.'

Arthur, looking highly out of place in the alleyway in his well-cut suit and tie, leaned against the crumbling brick wall of the sporting goods shop and eyed the scruffy drug-dealer shrewdly from beneath his lowered brows. "What exactly is it about these so-called 'shrooms' that makes them so bloody special that they cost €60 for only four of them?" He demanded.

The man might have smiled from behind the shadowy depths of his hood, but Arthur wasn't sure. "Why, they're magic mushrooms, of course," he said in a Cockney accent that was so thick as to sound completely contrived, let alone discernible.

Now, there were several warning factors here that ought to have made Arthur turn tail and speedily head off in the opposite direction. For one, why was there an East-ender in Oxford, the land of Received Pronunciation? Was the Cockney accent truly growing so influential? And why did the man's accent sound so false? Really, he spoke like a Scouser pretending to be an American pretending to be a working-class Londoner. What the hell was that about? Alas, as soon as Arthur heard the word magic, all thoughts towards the inherent wrongness of the situation were banished from his mind faster than the criminals that he'd sent to Australia. Hence why he plunged his hand into the pocket of his trousers, pulled out several notes, and practically threw them at the drug-dealer whilst rocking excitedly on his heels; all while the phrase 'Ooh, magic!' repeated incessantly in his head.

The slicker-man chortled at Arthur's excitement. "Someone's eager," he observed, this time speaking in a distinct Estuary accent as he dropped four long, light-brown-capped mushrooms into his outstretched hands. "Only take-He began, only to notice that Arthur had shoveled all four into his mouth at once with the barely contained savagery of a crash-dieter going out on a binge.

"You saying something, lad?" Arthur mumbled through his full mouth. The drug-dealer drew his hood further over his head.

"There's a… Recommended dosage," he explained, nervousness lending a Yorkshire flavour to his enunciation. Arthur swallowed.

"You've moved around an awful lot, haven't you?" He asked. His eyes widened. "Wait, recommended dosage?"

"Er, yes," the man said, slowly edging out of the alley, only to be stopped by Arthur grabbing the back of his slicker, eyes wild.

"What's the recommended dosage?" Arthur shrieked, voice increasing its pitch with every word until it could be heard only by dogs, at which point several mangy-looking mongrels ran into the alley and began to howl.

"Two grams!" The man shouted over the howling ululation as he frantically attempted to dislodge Arthur's grip on his rain jacket.

"Two grams?! How many did I just take?" Arthur demanded.

The man cleared his throat. "About six," he said lowly. "Seven, if the size of that last one was anything to go by," he added. Arthur released him and stumbled back, sliding down the wall and slumping on the floor.

"Oh dear God," he whispered, looking terrified. One of the dogs began to gnaw at the hem of his trousers. "What's going to happen to me?" He shouted after the dealer, who was sprinting away.

"You're either going to the clink or you're going to die," he said without slowing his pace. "On the other hand, you're going to see some really wicked shit!" That said, he hailed a cab, only to shove the driver out onto the sidewalk and speed away in the stolen vehicle.

There were many things that Arthur would've liked to do. Chase down that drug-pandering blighter and beating the tar out of him was at the top of his list. Running into the nearest accident and emergency and demanding that his stomach be pumped was a close second. Third…Well, the aroma from the fish and chips shop was rather enticing…Alas, these were the final (relatively) sane thoughts that Arthur entertained before the psilocybin was converted by his traitorous body into psilocin, which we all know has mind-altering effects similar to those of LSD and mescaline, up to and including euphoria, hallucinations, changes in perception, a distorted sense of time, and spiritual experiences, not to mention the possible adverse effects such as nausea and panic attacks. In short, Arthur was now dancing the mushroom samba. Which was why he was currently seeing the dogs that had gathered around him as a pack of three-headed slavering hellhounds.

A particularly rancorous Chihuahua leapt up and bit him on the tip of his nose, although in Arthur's hallucinatory state, it was three metres high and breathing a stream of fetid black flames at his face. Letting out a girlish scream, he wildly threw out his fist, catching the creature in the face and knocking it aside.

Seeing their fallen leader, the other six dogs charged at him, howling and snarling and Arthur jumped to his feet and ran out of the alley and into the street, only instead of what had what formerly been the series of constituent college buildings that made up the whole of the University of Oxford was now a massive degraded castle, worn down by the continual changes of the seasons, the walls eroding and crumbling in on themselves. And yet, it still stood tall, its turrets and towers disintegrating and missing stones yet somehow looking proud. Much like an elderly woman whose fading youth has been augmented by Botox, this once-grand castle was truly a resplendent example of luxury gone to seed. It reminded Arthur of his own long-passed glory days as an empire, bringing a tear to his eye. But then that sorrow for his old victories was quickly replaced by a far more raw and primal emotion: Rage.

"I'll show you! I'LL SHOW YOU ALL!" Arthur screamed as he dashed across the drawbridge that had conveniently been let down to allow him access across the moat, which was teeming with sharks with laser beams attached to their heads that also happened to be riding rocket-powered surfboards. Somewhere in the background, music was playing, hard, angry music consisting of pounding drums and epic guitar riffs. Arthur thought he heard the words "Ragnarok awaits!" being sung in a deep growl, but rather than be frightened by this occurrence, or wonder why his theme song was Norse-themed, the only thought that he had was instead "Epic", because it truly was.

Running across the drawbridge, which groaned and creaked beneath his every step as though threatening to break beneath his feet, Arthur ducked one of the rocket-surfboard-riding sharks, barely avoiding having his flesh seared by the vivid red laser beam that it fired at his head. "Fuck you, shark!" He shouted triumphantly. The shark angrily shook its fin at him and shouted something that sounded vaguely like "Watch where you're going, you twat!"

Arthur stuck up his middle finger at the shark as he arrived at the oak door of the castle, which was heavily bound with iron straps that had a moulding of large-breasted women having sex to well-endowed snake-men. After staring at the well-detailed genitalia of the furiously copulating inter-species couples, Arthur struggled with the heavy wrought-iron knocker, which had been forged in the shape of a screaming skull that was vomiting out a snake, which was vomiting out another snake, before finally managing to thump it against the door. The ensuing clang of metal on wood was like the crack of a gunshot and caused a good-sized hole to appear in the door, through which a pair of caustic yellow eyes with slit pupils and pulsing veins glared. Arthur shuddered when one of the throbbing veins burst, spraying a miniature fountain of bile-coloured ichor that dribbled down the creature's ashen face before dripping onto the floor with an audible hiss.

"You really ought to get that seen by a medical professional," Arthur advised. Then he cleared his throat. "Hello snake eyes," he began politely in his appeal for refuge. "May I enter so that I might seek sanctuary from the pursuing hellhounds?"

There was brief puzzlement in the yellow eyes, but then it yielded to his request, for after a few tense moments the doors swung open with a thunderous crash.

"Oh God, I think I'm going to be ill," Arthur managed to gasp out before vomiting all over the creature's clawed feet. He hadn't been expecting any great beauty, what with those serpentine eyes but bloody hell, this…thing, was a right minger. The creature was bent over, its humped back covered in the squamous pattern of its heritage that its eyes had only hinted at, the veiny, arthritically crooked hands curved into claws that terminated in veiny-ridged pads rather than actual fingers. A profusion of tentacles swung from the creature's jaw, arranged in a pattern whose geometry was not of this earth; indeed, the manner in which they were entangled suggested something far out of the reaches of the universe, something eons away, dwelling in the cold depths of space in which no human ought ever to rest their eyes upon lest they melt from their sockets. But worst of all were the mouths attached to the bottom of the tentacles, opening and closing mindlessly in a hideous mockery of feeding, full of needle-like teeth that suggested a deep-sea origin. Arthur vaguely realised that it was female beneath the layers of revulsion, but really, qualities such as sex and race were irrelevant in the wake of such Eldritch hideousness.

The creature narrowed its eyes at him in consternation, its leathery jowls flapping in the breeze like the top of a vagrant's hat. It stepped towards him, its every trembling step causing its large, pendulous breasts to slap into one another like the swinging balls of a Newton's Cradle in a manner that caused Arthur's gorge to rise once again, bringing back the familiar taste of-

"What the devil?" The thing said in a croaking voice that brought to mind the bastard offspring of a frog and a fish.

Arthur scratched his head. "Can you read my mind or was I merely speaking aloud?"

"You were speaking out loud," it affirmed.

"Oh," Arthur said shortly. Then he drew back his hand and slapped the creature across the face with as much strength as he could muster. Letting out an inhuman screech, the creature hit the ground, its frail body shattering into dust as it was dashed against the stone floor.

"That's what you get for being an abomination against nature!" Arthur shouted as he sprinted down the hall, which was lined with sentient portraits of old-timey men and women of lore, who screeched at him and reached out of their gilded frames to snatch at his clothes. Shoving away their hands, Arthur continued to run, but as he did so, he noticed that whilst the hallway seemed to be stretching further and further until the end seemed little more than a distant speck of light, he himself seemed to moving in slow motion. Surely enough, when he glanced down at his feet, he realised with a start that he was indeed running in place at a snail's pace whilst the foyer expanded in length to monumental proportions. He'd only just come to this startling conclusion when the floor suddenly turned into a black, amorphous sludge right beneath his feet.

Screaming, Arthur sank into its tar-like depths, sputtering as his head was forced beneath the foul liquid. It was in his mouth, filling his lungs and weighing him down so that he couldn't push his way through it. Funny, he'd expected it to be hot what with the way that it bubbled and frothed, but it was so cold...Forcing his eyes open, Arthur saw an eerie light glimmering overhead, yet it seemed more as though it were emanating from below him. And then, over the rushing in his ears, he heard the thin, monotonous piping of a flute and the maddening beat of a tom-tom, simultaneously muffled and distinct, as though one ear were clogged and the other free of any obstruction. Just when he thought that he could no longer hold his breath and he'd closed his eyes with the intention of drifting off into a never-ending sleep, Arthur felt something wrap around his waist, something rubbery and slimy and altogether unpleasant, and then he felt his head break the surface of the black waters and he took a deep, gasping breath of air. And then he saw it.

Something oozed into the corridor—a pale grey shape, expanding and sinking with each heaving breath, its scabrous flesh glistening and shaking as still-moving particles dropped free and began to squirm away. Arthur thought he caught a glimpse of sunken grey discs serving as eyes in a bestial, multi-mouthed face, but then it shifted, once again veiling the apparition in darkness. And again, the formless burst of light, followed by the gnashing of teeth, as though a starved creature was feasting upon the innards of its own mouth and then the thing unveiled its mockery of a face, once more revealing the sightless eyes that nonetheless seemed to stare straight through him. And once again, the muffled, maddening beat of drums and the reedy piping of a flute. Arthur knew know what this formless monstrosity was, this blasphemous disease that both lay sleeping, eternally lulled into a stupor by the ceaseless music of lesser deities and yet fully conscious of all of man's deeds.

"Azathoth, the blind idiot god!" Arthur wailed. Beyond his better judgment, he charged the elder creature, fully intent on culling the accursed music that played wherever it went. Rather than sinking into its folds, which seemed decidedly nebulous , he instead found his fist connecting solidly with the creature, a fact which pleased him immensely.

"I hate the bloody flute!" He shouted as Azathoth hit the floor with a mighty crash, causing the entire room to tremble as though caught in the wake of an earthquake. Before he could get up and commence his God-awful music, Arthur proceeded to stomp on Azathoth in a sort of frenzied tango, grinning wildly as it quivered beneath his feet, sending gelatinous flesh spraying in every which direction. "Go back to your accursed inter-dimensional dwelling, Blind-y!" He added. With that, he delivered the final blow: A good, solid kick to the abdomen. Or what he thought was the abdomen, he really couldn't tell, nor did he particularly care. Either way, he certainly delivered, for his foot sank a good fifteen centimetres into the fleshy gut, the rest of the jelly-like frame quivering around the epicenter of his strike. Eventually, his heel struck something solid (Azathoth's spine, perhaps?), and he doubled over and was sent flying several metres away.

Relishing his victory, Arthur pumped his fists into the air. "I…am…a GOD!" He roared as flames burst in the background, belching acrid plumes of smoke into the air and a bitching guitar solo played. He'd barely declared his godhood when Azathoth stirred, though he didn't get up, opting instead to let out a moan.

"Why are you doing this?" He whimpered. Arthur flipped him off with both hands.

"Shut your multiple mouths, mad piper," he snapped. Just then, two creatures that had enormous vaginas for heads with eyeballs situated inside of the cavernous birth canals and the bodies of men came running towards him, waving light sabres. Arthur gasped.

"Vag-Eye-nas," he muttered. Then he shrugged and threw himself at the vaginal apparitions with the same ferocity that Francis would have. He punched one of them in the labia. "You're nothing but an enormous weeping cunt!" When the first went down with a scream, he then kicked the other right in the unblinking eye, sending it flying. "Despite this rough pounding that I've given the both of you, don't expect me to call you later," Arthur said before straightening his jacket and strutting away.

After a few minutes of wandering the labyrinthine halls, he found himself standing at the foot of a golden staircase that was floating, unsupported, in mid-air, surrounded by a beautifully maintained traditional English garden filled with flying octopi grasping silver hammers in their suction-cupped tentacles and brightly coloured kites floating in the wind. As he stared at this miracle of…Something, Arthur saw a yellow submarine float by. He inhaled deeply, catching the delicate scent of tea roses and earth freshened by rainfall.

"How?" He choked out in the midst of all of this physics-defying madness. One of the octopi turned to him.

"Everything here is run on dreams," it told him telepathically.

"Really?" Arthur asked, using his mind as well.

"Really," the octopus confirmed. "Your dreams, Arthur. This is your domain, and we are your humble servants."

"Well thank you, but I really just want to know how I can get to Oxford University from here. I've been invited to sit in on a lecture on English literature, and even though I don't want to listen to some ill-informed human prattle on about things I've known about for centuries, I don't want to be rude by not attending," Arthur said aloud.

"Just go up these stairs and you'll get to where you need to go," the octopus assured him.

Arthur shrugged. "If you say so," he said, and began to climb the stairs. He had barely placed his foot on the first step when the staircase began to move like an escalator. Arthur threw a confused glance at the octopus, which was serenely floating away.

"Dream-powered, remember?" It said. Arthur laughed.

"Oh yes."

Ten minutes later, after having endured several hammer blows to the head from less amiable octopi as he was elevated further into the floating garden/sky, Arthur struck up a conversation with a bright red tulip, which opened up its delicate petals and revealed to him the secret of the universe.

"So that's it? I never realised that the secret of the universe was so simple! Thank you! Who am I again?" He asked, but the tulip merely giggled and drew up one of its leaves in a shushing motion.

"Why, you're Arthur Kirkland, of course, master of the universe. Now go, and slay the beast with the penile-cranium. But first, please enjoy this psychedelic aerial show. We made it especially for you," the tulip said before disappearing in a puff of perfumed smoke.

"Wait, what-Oooooh," Arthur exclaimed dreamily as the floating garden was replaced with what could only be aptly described as the inside of a particularly flamboyant kaleidoscope combined with a laser lights show. It was sort of like attending a Twisted Sisters concert, but with less Dee Snider. After a few moments of this though, all of the colours and patterns began to warp and blur together like a painter combining shades on a palette, fusing into a colour the likes of which he had never before seen and which probably wasn't meant to be seen. It was somehow dismal and luminous and terrifying and numbing all at once and it made him feel vaguely ill, although he didn't vomit this time as he did when faced with the castle guardian. Luckily, the colour soon faded away to be replaced by the image of a baby rabbit leaping across a grassy field while spraying foil-wrapped Cadbury eggs out of its arse. Odd…Then, to Arthur's dismay, the admittedly bizarre image rippled and distorted in order to show a monumental picture of a naked Francis lying on his side and holding a rose up to his hairy genitalia whilst winking lewdly.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Arthur screamed. He continued to scream for the next fifteen minutes that his eyes were assaulted with the image, his face contorted into an expression reminiscent of Edward Munch's famous painting The Scream. When the escalator finally brought him to the next floor (which happened to be a regular run-of-the-mill-non-floating-garden), he dropped to his knees.

"Bloody hell, that was…Oh my God," he whimpered when he saw that he was kneeling at the base of a massive statue of a naked Francis. Even worse, there was no rose to cover the statue's granite erection, which was a full six metres long and even included a lovingly carved thatch of pubic hair resting just above his genitals. As Arthur pondered who in the world would put so much detail into sculpting pubes, several pigeons came to roost on the statue's shaft.

Arthur blinked. "Is this supposed to be symbolic or something?" One of the pigeons shifted, causing the penis to break in half and fall to the earth with a clatter, forming a massive crater.

"Definitely symbolic." Arthur turned his back to the offensive statue. "What is it the knowledge tulip said about slaying the beast with the penile-cranium?" He muttered to himself while stroking his chin. At the sound of approaching footsteps, he whipped around, coming face to face with a small man with slightly bulging pale-blue eyes and a rather oversized, bald head, wearing a three-piece navy suit. Arthur ran a hand through his hair in bewilderment.

"Dear God, you look exactly as though I hot-glued googly eyes onto my erection. Er, not that I've ever done such a thing," he quickly amended. The other man coughed lightly into a monogrammed handkerchief that he'd pulled out of his breast pocket.

"Really now, Mr. Kirkland, are you sure you ought not to pay a visit to the nurse?" He asked in a thin, reedy voice. "You're behaving rather…Erratically, to say the least."

Arthur shoved his hands into his pockets. "How erudite, Mr. Glans. Tell me, did your mum perhaps sign up to observe the effects of Agent Orange while pregnant with you?"

The man's face reddened. "Now see here-

"I mean seriously. When I first saw you, I thought to myself: 'how can a man so resemble a human penis'? It's just all sorts of wrong how very phallic your head looks, sir," Arthur said seriously.

"This is highly immature, Mr. Kirkland. One would think that one such as you would be past playground name-calling," the penile-headed man snapped.

Arthur merely began a series of warm-up stretches. "And one would think that you would be past looking like a talking prick, but we all have our flaws, now don't we?"

"Oh for heaven's-I have a bloody PHD!" The man said angrily, face flushing.

Arthur burst into raucous laughter. "What does that stand for, penis head disorder? I look at you, and all I can think is this: Penis. Penis, penis, penis! You look like a bloody penis, but I'm not supposed to mention it, but here you are, with your big, shiny penis-head WINKING ME IN THE FACE!" He bellowed. "How do you make love to your wife, stick your head up her birth canal and wait for your scalp to start secreting baby batter? Is your head censored in photographs on account of showing explicit nudity? Do parents cover their children's eyes when you walk down the street while saying that they're too young to be seeing something so obscene? ARE YOU EVEN AWARE, GOOD SIR, THAT YOU LOOK LIKE A PENIS?!" Before the man could respond, Arthur flew at him, bowling him over in a rugby-tackle and then proceeded to play his bald shiny head like a set of bongos as he repeatedly shouted the word 'Weiner!'

Gasping indignantly, the man managed to scramble out of Arthur's grip. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He demanded as he attempted to straighten his jacket. In response, Arthur threw a reckless push-kick at him, his foot striking the man in the centre of his face. Fun fact: Push kicks can hurt, true, but they're mostly used to create distance between two opponents and generally aren't done in a manner that essentially involves one person stomping another person's face while they're both standing up. But Arthur somehow managed to do exactly that, leaving an imprint of his shoe on the poor man's face and simultaneously kicking him into a bookshelf, causing him to be showered in a cascade of leather-bound tomes. Wait, a bookshelf?

Arthur stared around his surroundings confusedly, which were beginning to collapse around him, the plants and shrubbery uprooting themselves in order to fly up into the sky, which was beginning to burn red as though painted with the blood of millions. The statue of Francis burst into blue flame and then crumbled into a fine powder, the remains blown aside by a sudden whirlwind as though chaff. "Holy shit," he breathed, turning to run. His foot caught on errant root that hadn't yet been beamed up into its better life in the sky, sending him tumbling arse over tit down a rock-strewn slope. Gravel bit into his flesh as he rolled faster and faster, his world melting into nothing more than a blur of brown dirt and crimson sky.

"Much…pain…"Arthur groaned when he finally landed in a twisted heap at the bottom of the hill. After taking a breather, he himself to his feet, carefully testing his limbs, which were bruised and scratched but otherwise unharmed. He was just about to determinedly continue forward when he was met by the kindly bearded face of a long-haired man wearing a hemp necklace, Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts and Birkenstocks. Looking down, Arthur saw that they were both standing on purple shag carpeting, and that all around them were bead-curtains floating around on their own accord. Glancing up, he saw that the sky was a normal shade of blue, although there were two suns floating in its azure depths. Except rather than flaming balls of gas, they were a disco ball and a smiley face, respectively, so forget that last part, the sky was decidedly abnormal. Arthur turned his gaze back at the man. Seventies as fuck, he thought to himself.

"Tommy Chong?" He asked uncertainly.

"No. Jesus."

"Oh…Wow," Arthur said. "Are you here to punish me?" He added.

Jesus shook his head. "No, just pull you out of this trip. Worry about the horsemen during the Apocalypse," he said gently. With that, he poked Arthur in the forehead, causing him to simultaneously lose consciousness and control of his bladder.

Arthur awoke in a comfortable bed, his aching body protesting loudly as he leaned on his elbow to better observe his surroundings. To his confusion, there was a rattling sound and he peered over the edge of the bed only to find that his right hand was cuffed to the bed railing. Cursing inwardly, he whipped his head around, seeing an IV drip connected to his left arm, a walnut side table with a heart-shaped balloon and a Get-Well card propped up on it, a steadily beeping heart monitor, and several furious-faced people looking rather the worse for wear. Rubbing the crust glazing his eyes partially shut, he realised, much to his horror, that the people glaring daggers at him included his Queen, the Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of London's Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Charles Dutoit, two members of the Queens Royal Guard sans their bearskins, the penis-headed man, and a number of random distinguished-looking people. Arthur gulped.

"Er, I can explain…" He began, but the Queen cut him off.

"Pray tell, how do you plan on explaining how you called me an abomination against nature and struck me across the face, broke Charles' arm whilst he was attempting to conduct his orchestra, assaulted two of my guards and compared them to female genitalia, attacked Professor Gardner during his lecture and compared him to male genitalia, all while running rampant throughout the campus of the University of Oxford and incurring nearly one hundred thousand pounds worth of damages?" She said in a deadly calm voice.

Arthur laughed nervously. "Well you see, there was this man…He had a Cockney accent. Wait, no, it was Liverpudlian…Yorkshire? Bloody hell, I don't remember, he kept switching his intonation, but I do know that he sold me something that he referred to as magic mushrooms and I'm going to prison aren't I?'' He sighed.

The Queen raised her eyebrows. "Actually, I've devised a rather more fitting punishment for you, Arthur," she informed him.

"Er…" Arthur said.

She folded her gloved hands in her lap. "Yes," the Queen said heavily, "You're going to volunteer at an afterschool program intended to guide at-risk youth. Hopefully, your story will encourage them to not follow in your path."

Arthur's mind was racing. He couldn't volunteer with teenagers! Not again! He HATED teenagers; they were such rotten little arseholes! If he had to inform one more mouthy teen that his eyebrows weren't made out of leftover pubic hairs that he taped to his forehead, he would burn down the bloody afterschool center…Again! Now that he thought about it, it was a bit cyclic, this constant arson…

"Surely I didn't cause that much damage?" Arthur said incredulously. In response, a grim-faced guardsman held out a camera phone. Arthur winced as the camera lens panned down from a serene skyline to show himself streaking about a lawn with his trousers unzipped and wrestling with a garden hose, screaming obscenities, as one of the thirty-eight Oxford colleges (it looked rather like Balliol), flamed in the background. He then proceeded to trip over his own feet and flail around in a two-centimeter puddle while screaming that he was drowning. Arthur groaned and covered his eyes with his free hand.

"All right, I caused that much damage," he conceded. The Queen nodded gravely.

"Yes Arthur. I'll send your community service requirements by post," she sighed before pulling herself to her feet and exiting the room, followed closely by the rest of the group. Professor Gardner, who was the last to leave, turned around and glowered at Arthur, his bald head catching the rays of light streaming through the window and bathing his glossy scalp in an effervescent glow. Figuring that he was already in some deep shit, Arthur, still not completely freed from the effect of the psilocin, decided to take the piss out on the man one last time.

"You're head looks even more like a penis now that I'm not hallucinating," he said. Professor Gardner sniffed, then walked over and yanked Arthur's IV out.

"Oops," he said while Arthur yelped in pain. "Sorry about that, governor," he said in a familiar overly-thick Cockney accent. Arthur's eyes widened to the size of saucers.

"You!" He hissed. 'Professor Gardner' smirked and flipped him the bird.

"Right-o," he said mockingly, and slipped out of the door.

Arthur leaned back into the pillows. "Fucking hell," he croaked. Looking over at the heart rate monitor, he saw the waves rolling across the screen form into a trio of Leprechauns, who began to dance a jig.

"Catch me and I'll give you me pot of gold!" Cried the first one.

"Fuck you, seed of an English whore!" The second one snarled.

"Hey there laddie, you thought you were tripping before? Ye'd best hold onto you're nads, because you're about to be tripping balls in a few seconds!" The third one laughed.

"Oh bollocks," Arthur mumbled. At that moment, Francis appeared beside him, his penis having been replaced with a tangled mass of fire-spouting tentacles armed with barbed tips.

"Care to have me hoe your pink allotment?" He said in a posh accent.

"AIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Arthur screeched.

THE END.

A/N: Yup.