When Philip had woken up this morning, he’d found that his arms had disappeared.

“Well, this is no good,” he said, examining the smooth skin that now covered the place where his torso should have met his shoulder. He had no idea where they’d gone; he didn’t remember lending them out to anyone or leaving them somewhere. They must have either been stolen in the night or had walked off on their own—as much as arms can walk, anyway.

I just wanted to thank-you again for auditioning me in your upcoming sure-to-be-a-Blockbuster hit, Stretch Armstrong.

I don’t want to jump the gun or anything, but I think you’ll agree that besides a few minor hiccups, it went perfectly. I feel like I was born to play “Guy Sitting Next to Stretch Armstrong in the Diner”. The character just comes so naturally to me, it’s like I’m not even acting, I’m actually that guy, sitting at the diner beside Stretch Armstrong. And the stand-in and I had some real chemistry going, wouldn’t you agree? I could tell he was really feeding off my positive energy.

“I’ve bought you something,” she said. She looked excited, like a puppy eager to please.

“Oh really? What could that be? A season ticket to the opera, or a year’s supply of anti-depressants?” he said and shut the front door.

“Ow,” said the door. “Not so hard.”

“You’ll like it, I think,” she said. Her tongue was hanging out and she’d cocked her head to one side so that her ear flopped in a cute way over her left eye. “It’s to help your recovery. Come through.”

She led him into the sitting room.

“It’s an aquarium,” he said. “It’s just what I’ve always wanted. Is there a sunken ship?”

I am sitting in a room with at least three hundred people, and I have been asked to move to the back because of my gigantic hat. I am not sure how to react. If I move, I will undoubtedly read about my shame in tomorrow’s gossip section, or at least I will hear about it tauntingly during my daily super-spacial swimming with fellow gentlemen. I do not want this. And, I reason, if the people behind me were important enough to do something about it, they would very probably not be sitting behind me.

“I don’t know what to tell you, our last exterminator wasn’t worth jack. He bumped and bruised his way through our home like a Neanderthal on steroids.”

“He was a cute Neanderthal from what I remember.”

“Eh, I don’t like the cleft chin thing; it reminds me of a plumber’s crack. And when someone’s ripping your kitchen apart and tearing up your hydrangeas, it’s pretty difficult to find them attractive.”