Farokh

- I am Farokh the Engineer. I find the worm in his lair.

…his bondage, as was mete and condign – at least, we all thought so. This 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…

Over the succeeding week or two, it became apparent that Farokh, now restored to health, withal he was an Engineer both in name and calling, and despite also his subordination as Herod’s creature to that wretch’s Operational satrapy, yet was operating quite outside the parameters of the mezzanine/penthouse prize algorithm agreed between management and myself as the representative of the human guinea pigs. This blackleg scab rushed to do the…

In truth, the disgusting behaviour of Farokh the Engineer little concerned me personally, for I wore my formal responsibilities lightly, only observing their superficial trappings, and would not have cared a jot even if the proprieties had been violated in letter and eke in spirit too, as indeed they were, so long as the very shallowest of pretexts could have been found for allowing such violations to pass beneath my…

Notwithstanding, Farokh the Engineer continued to announce, in his own way of putting things, that he found the lair of the worm. What Farokh the Engineer meant by this was obscure, and the subject of contention between rival schools of literalists and interpretationists.

- But why you put laurels to his head? urged Farokh the Engineer somewhat plaintively, he is polluter of everything. Everywhere, he spit and piss. He will spit and piss in this Charybdis. And then you will tell me, ‘Farokh you Engineer, you climb now into this Charybdis and kill this xrafstar worm and make pure the lair of this xrafstar worm’. Already, you do this impure man an honour…

…poor souls driven to attend there, and which still went on very much as before. I noticed that Farokh the Engineer became decidedly more cheerful and applied himself to his work with renewed vigour, now that he was no longer encumbered by the sheer press of people. And I began to entertain some hope that he really was as close to finding the lair of the worm, as erstwhile he…

…the number 2 who did number 2’s - now was dead, and doubtless had been been fed by Farokh the Engineer to those xrafstar vultures in Bristol Zoo of which the Parsee had spoken, such being the doom of that fell shitter. In my triumph, I said to myself