Dazed and confused
From the top of his 5 meters high of iron, Klaus walked steadily, disturbing in its wake the puddles of water nested in the hexagonal stones stretching as far as the eye can see under the orange sky. With his enormous hand of steel, he straightened his sunglasses on the brink of his nose, wiped the sweat on his brow. His body of metal was uncomfortable in this muggy heat, but he was well protected. Nothing would divert him from his mission.
On his way, he was climbing one after the other the honeycombed-shaped steps of a small hill, when a tinkling laugh stopped him dead. A shiver ran through his spine, and his sunglasses fell off, like a theatre curtain, revealing, under his hanging foot, in the pristine water of a cobblestone, the long, curly hair of a well-known and smiling face.
Klaus immediately crushed his iron heel like a hammer on the angelic figure, scattering it in a myriad of sparkling droplets which rained on the water of the rocks.
The laugh resounded once more around Klaus. He nervously searched his surroundings, looking for any clue that might betray a human presence in this barren landscape, until his eyes met those of a naked man of sheer beauty, his golden hair shining under the coppery sun, the very one man whom he had shattered the reflection.
The laugh burst again with a renewed vigor, growing and echoing endlessly, and soon, from each of the stone ponds, rose dozens of replica of the man. Similar right down to the lewd fervor in their eyes, they headed towards Klaus, some crawling, some walking, until surrounding him. A choir of sighs was now mixing up with the laughs, reverberating over and over like a bell sound through the very core of his shell, driving him more and more to dizziness as the horde of ephebeses came closer.
One of them suddenly embraced Klaus' leg. His blood boils instantly. A long barbed wire emerged from his depths, weaving around him a thorned mesh, locking his assailant in a tight net.
The whispers as well as the shapes vanished. Only Klaus and his captive remained, the latter held at Klaus' arm's length, still radiant despite the iron spikes bruising his flesh.
Klaus' metallic hand immediately tightened around the neck of the sphinx smiling man, so strong and so much that his head broke away, like a dislocated puppet, and fell without a sound in the water of an alveolus.
Taken aback, Klaus released his grip. The barbed wire moved closer of the lifeless head, lifted it carefully, but before he could inspect the face, his metallic appendages found themselves, all of a sudden, invaded by long, golden threads.
Distraught, Klaus tried to throw the head away, as far as possible from his flesh, but its long hair were wrapping themselves around his iron limbs like ivy, and soon covered its shell itself. A suave scent radiated from the blond curls, numbing his senses, the embrace was getting warmer and warmer, his shelter of metal heavier and heavier. What would become of him if this warmth melted the iron of his armor?
He felt his feet lift the ground, and right before Klaus' horrified eyes, the blond vines abruptly pulled away, opening the deformed metallic shell like a nut. A soft and supple stretch closed in on him. A giant hand, the hand of the naked man, whose immense eyes were gazing at him in adoration. Despite the lukewarmness that held him tight, Klaus was trembling with rage.
« Let me go, you pervert ! I am Iron Klaus !", he barked, struggling in vain against his prison of flesh.
Again, the melodic laugh resounded through his very spine.
« « Iron » ? I only see a potato, here ! » the man answered, moving away his long fingers from his catch.
Klaus lowered his eyes, and realized to his utter horror that his body was nothing more than a giant hot potato.
« It looks so tasty ! It would be a shame not to munch it a bit…" the man went on with a hungry voice, while his hand inexorably moved Klaus closer to a dark, two rows teethed abyss.
Klaus yelled. And his wide open eyes met the half-light of his bedroom.
Sat in his bed, he wiped his sweaty brow with his sleeve, and took some deep breaths. After one minute doing so, he laid down on his back again, straight like a plank. His well-disciplined brain had kept no trace of this night's troubles. No pipe dream would ever prevent him to be on duty right from the early hours of the morning. Reassured, he closed his eyes, and started singing his ritual lullaby, lulling himself like a black lamb, in the arms of a Mary with long curly hair.