I'm writin' me next BUKE!!!

Pal remembered being hit on the forehead by a heavy frying pan. The Gunship had belted him one, again.

He opened his eyes slowly, in case she was revving up for a second swing, and immediately closed them again, the brightness was blinding.

He tried to focus and discovered he was in a tunnel of light:  that as far as he could make out stretched away to a place he could not see properly. Waves of shimmering air shimmered, (well they would) in front of him.

He tried to rise to his feet but found he was being held down prone by some force. He mover his right hand and encountered wood: he tried the other side with a similar result, then he reached down with his toes and found again that he was restricted by a barrier. It was then he tried to scream: to no avail, his mouth was silent. Ah! He though: one of them silent screams that the artist was painting about.

It was a dream: he was sure of that. He remembered being in a war with that Muteant Slug Harry, that slug who ate the new improved slugtox and tried to take over Brassicaville.

Pal and Slugger and Hedda and even the Gunship leading her Cats In Bags Army defeated Harry and his Army of Generals: General Electric, General Motors, General Surgeon and even General Nuisance. He remembered the commentary on air of Jimmy Take A Memo Magpie.

Folks, the band plays on; in the midst of the carnage. A three man band - it looks that way. A large Bagpussing Lady with a Bag-Pipe under her arm, and a lady with a Banjo playing a deliverance tune and a little scruffy fellow with a mouth organ, a Harmonica, stamping time. Either that or his foot's gone asleep.

The sound of the trio drifts up to me now on the hot-air uplift from the heaving mass of mayhem. What are they playing? Do they even know? Do we care any more? No! Because It's all over folks. The Cats in Bags Army have carried the tune and the day. The slugs and their allies are out for the count. It's round twelve and the fight is over.

Then if it was a dream?

Why am I lying here dead in my coffin, in a tunnel leading to the next life?

He heard a voice calling him. He could make it out, it was coming neared. It was The Gunship! Calling him back to life!

“Pal, Pal I'm sorry I killed you. Where are you?”

Here! Here! I'm here he tried to shout. Then realised he had shouted it, so it should read: “Here! Here! I'm Here!”

The face of The Gunship appeared . “Trust You! I thought I killed you when I hit you with the pan. Now I fin' you skulking in here in the Polytunnel. An' what are ya doing lying down in that cold frame among the cucumbers. (I know! A cold frame and cucumbers on the ground in a Pollytunnel? But that's gardening “Pal Style”.)

Jees thought Pal, I'm not dead after all, and then in Pal Logic he wondered if that was a good or bad thing.

“Come inside now 'till I make it up to you,” his wife said softly.

Then Pal asked himself the silent question again: a good or bad thing this bein' not dead?