John Virgil

…A plastic name tag affixed to his breast announced him as John Virgil, Marketing ‘n’ Placemaking. And a smell came off him, of the yobspray – Jason, I think they call it – with which they anoint themselves purposing to mask the malodorous enchantments of the witch Perspira.

…said Nero Cesare, the point is we need to get on and test my natural and organic method. John Virgil, kindly attend to Guy Pigge, I fear he is resorting once more to the recidivism.

Late one morning, being distracted by my perusal of the noticeboard where John Virgil’s penthouse-membership prize announcement was pinned, I found myself quite of a sudden transfixed by Herod’s baleful glare. Quoth that accursed man:

Thus it was that the appointed hour found an audience, corralled by John Virgil’s three-line whip, assembling round the whirlpool. Together with the standard detritus of Psorietes, Hermaphrodites, Alphs and cockwashers, all the usual luminaries danced attendance: the mountebanks Costa, Nero Cesare and Petra Mountjoy; Mr Luvvertory who increasingly resembled Charles Manson; Stig O'Dump shifty of visage and Colloid grim; John Virgil, the like being of like nothingness; Peggy and…

…was of course Farokh the Engineer, who since his apprehension had been confined in the windowless office of John Virgil, and reasonably enough that manager with his nebulous portfolio had vigorously tortured him, and also shown him the contents of his bucket. He wore yet his scuba suit, although this by now considerably dirtied and torn vestment no longer clung so sleekly to his previously barrel-chested form, but hung off…

…A shiver ran down the spine. Farokh the Engineer lifted his head then, and saw John Virgil approach, masonically wearing a rubber apron and bearing scissors and his bucket, and set up a moaning of his own, which seemed to us to form, betimes an unison with, betimes a counterpoint to, the wails of the Chorus. However, John Virgil was only severing his bonds, withal Farokh the Engineer shook and…

…And by yon indirect way, of gymnasia. At any rate, those superstitious priest-ridden idolaters Peggy and John Virgil would have it so. Those Romish foundlings, suckling at the withered dugs of the triple-breasted whore of Babylon, in their ignorance and ecstatic folly insisted that the Feast Day be marked in some way, and to this purpose sought the endorsement of the departments of Diversity and Diversity-Compliance. John Virgil obtained the…

…(staff member with beneficial interests via shareholdings of nematodes and nominee functions) as well as, I rather thought, John Virgil Haruspex (staff member, possibly shareholder in view of opaquely discerned relationship to Peggy), and no doubt any number of other comparably unpleasant people; and

…the scribes of Emanuel Künt, for that Haruspex’s behaviour being likely to cause him alarm, annoyance or distress. John Virgil Haruspex and also Billy, being the more sober of countenance and serious of the Cerberidae, strove to dissuade him from this course, fearing that it would inflame Emanuel Künt and provoke him unto yet more dangerous plots against the safety and sanity of Herod, or otherwise disturb the smooth management…

…more to the testosterone grunts and inchoate roars and diphthong-laden epithets typical of its simian and/or saurian denizens. John Virgil Haruspex also returned to his windowless office down in that circle of Hell, and resumed his former ways of Marketing, Placemaking, Byzantine Intriguing ‘n’ Torture and, when directed to do so, showing unto such miscreants as were brought into his presence the contents of his bucket.

“Nasty-looking wound you have down there, Sir,” said Mr John Virgil, looking vey intently into the vey yellow eyes peering out from between the striped jaws swelling not to maculate giraffe.