The Laptop Chronicles
an excerpt

That morning at the mall, inside the supermarket, we saw him again. An old man in a grungey green Barbour, shiny with the grease of 7o-odd years of life wiped off on the Egyptian, naturally waxed cotton. With his gaunt face and straw-like hair he looked like Catweazle, looked as if he was forever trying to find the entrance to the cavern from whence he had been evicted, the cavern which would take him back to the 11th century and life in London’s swamps. He scurried through the shop like a crab, a hunchbacked, medieval-flavoured member of the ministry of silly walks, slinking from aisle to aisle, pausing, throwing furtive, angsty glances like a squirrel sensing the vicinity of a fox.
« What’s he looking for now ? » Breezer asked.
« His testicles. »
« What ?! »
Molly nodded, serious, not laughing. « He claims he’s lost them. Claims he last… »
« … saw them here ?! »
« No. » Molly had adopted an air of school mistress trying to feed her raucous and unruly school class a treatise on sexual education. « No. But he claims they went missing after he consumed an omelette au champignons which he made with some particularly large mushrooms he bought here. »
« What about the eggs? »
« The eggs were his. »
« Well that explains it then. »
« Don’t interrupt me. The eggs came from his own, free-range chickens. And I can tell you they are brilliant eggs because he brought me a basket with 6 of his eggs once. »
« So you’re biased. »
« All I’m saying is, » Molly said, « wouldn’t you come looking for them too if you thought you’d lost them ? »
Sharks, who until then had been writing something on a piece of paper, joined the conversation. « What do two – I suppose there are two – on-the-loose testicles look like ? »
« I don’t know. Like two white garlic cloves in a plastic purple net ? Like two … »
« Did he say how he lost them ? »

When Jack and Packer returned, Molly told them the story of the missing testicles.
« Sounds like magic mushrooms to me, » Jack said, eyeing Breezer, who feigned the greatest indignation and objected vehemently.
« They can’t have been mine ! Mine were not in the mushroom baskets but in the bio department, next to the pomelos and the 5 dollar avocados. Plus he couldn’t possibly have found them because I instructed Maisy to not sell them to anyone. Yet. »
« Maybe he just took them, » Jack guessed. « Smelled and fondled and took them. Maybe being from the middle ages they struck an olfactory chord and he took them. »
« They would have come up at the check out. One of the girls would have rung. »
« Could have weighed them himself. »
« Yes. Could have. » Molly shook her head, still not amused.
« Well if they’re just hallucinations, » Sharks said, « then we needn’t worry, do we ? Then he testicles are where they belong and he just imagines to have lost them. »
« As long as he doesn’t claim a refund, » Jack said. « Money doesn’t hallucinate. »