One Man and his Snail
an excerpt

This is the story of one man and his snail, or, as we are legally obligated to say (due to the Snails Rights act of 2016) one snail and his man. They lived together in relative prosperity; their home was lined with graceful cedars, the occasional mighty oak, wild berry bushes. Happiness. Their home was as cosy as cosy could be, big enough for just the two of them, but not invading on nature. It nestled between two sapling birch trees, a glorious, freshly painted, wheelie bin.

At that moment, something inside began to stir, rocking it gently to the side, and back again to the left. The top was flung back- and Ratbreath the tramp stretched, greeting the sunny new day. He thrusted his arms high into the sky, elbows cracking, and arched his back, shouting at the top of his cheerful voice “Good morning World!”

His snail (or not, there still is that pesky Snails Rights act) slimed its way up the inside of the bin and clambered onto his hand, wiggling its stalk-eyes awake. “Hello Buggins,” said Ratbreath, stroking his shell once lovingly, “you sleep okay?”

Buggins shook his head slowly and sadly, and then gestured with his eyes directly ahead of them, where, out of their paradise of nature, a long tarmacked thing stretched from east to west like a scar. “Oh, I see. Those college students again? Well don’t worry Bug, we’ll get ‘em next time they come along here.”

Buggins perked up at that, and waved his eyes happily, coming to rest with anticipation on a large pile of stones Ratbreath had previously collected. College students had always been a problem, and Ratbreath and his invertebrate companion had been at war with them for with them for what felt like a millennia. Every day- excluding the weekend, of course, they were too busy off getting drunk then- the college students would drive past, packed together in their tiny cars and ‘cool’ looking motorcycles and mopeds, jeering at Ratbreath and Buggins. They were, naturally, used to this. But that was before a clever student decided he thought it would be funny to throw one of the knobs off the dashboard at Buggins. He still had the crack on his shell today.

So the Dynamic Duo had been launched into a full-scale war against the students, throwing stones, dropping nets and otherwise employing any and every guerrilla warfare tactic they could come up with.