I can’t quite remember the first time I ate pizza. But I do remember that it came as a revelation. What a marvellous invention! The circular kind seems superior to the square or rectangular style, I don’t know why, and thin crust is better than deep pan, again I am unable to offer an explanation for this truth, though I guess mathematics definitely plays a role. But why a thin circle should be tastier than any other shape is beyond my understanding. No matter! The important thing to know about pizzas is that there are very few official variants, all vegetarian. It is a Rule of Naples that this should be so, Naples where pizza originated, and who are we to violate the ancient laws of a distant land? There is the margherita and the marinara, both simple and delicious. I don’t know if any other variations are acceptable. I am a pizza eater, not a pizza pundit. Let us be satisfied with those two types. And now allow me to present a story and a poem both themed around this most delectable of cheesy meals!
Down in the Park
There had been another report of a flying saucer over our town and this time I believed it. I saw it with my own eyes, not with anyone else’s, because I generally use my own eyes to see things. How about you? Maybe you use the eyes of your best friend, borrowed when he is sleeping, but I don’t do that. Messy and inefficient.
Anyway, I saw the flying saucer when I rose in the early hours to fetch a glass of water back to my bedside table. Flashing lights, weird flight path, eerie low drone and no sign of any trickery at all. Actually it wasn’t water in my glass. It was neat brandy and it was in a bottle, but I don’t want you to think I’m an alcoholic. I don’t want you to think I was drunk when I saw it. I wasn’t drunk.
I was as sober as an octopus. A postgraduate octopus.
The flying saucer hovered above my garden briefly, as if waiting for something, but I didn’t run out in my pyjamas; the grass was wet and I couldn’t find my slippers. I suppose you would have worn waterproof shoes made from the stitched skins of watermelons? That’s the kind of person you clearly are, but I’m not, no sir.
So I forsook the opportunity of getting a closer look. Too bad. Too bad is what you are. A scoundrel.
The next morning, I met Clive in the bakery. I was buying iced buns and so was he, but to my mild surprise he also bought a pizza, vegetarian, with a topping of extra olives.
I have to stress that my surprise really was mild. It’s not as if he was buying a machine gun made from bread or a cake in the shape of a centaur’s elbow.
“Did you hear about the—,” I began.
“Yes, Douglas, yes; I saw it myself and I stood and wondered. It hovered above many gardens, that flying saucer thing, including mine, and then it moved on. What purpose did it have? I pondered long and suddenly I realised!”
“You did what?” I croaked.
“I realised the truth about them, about the flying saucers. I know what they are and why they come here. I’m going to the park now and if you accompany me there, I’ll explain everything to you. Even though you aren’t as intelligent as me, I feel sure you will be able to understand the meaning of my words.”
The chance was too good to miss, so I followed Clive along the street that led to the nearest park. When we got there, we gravitated to the lake, as always, and watched the ducks. Some men watch women in the park, but not me. I watch ducks. That’s just the way it is.
I munched on an iced bun and cast my spare crumbs into the ripples. I often do that. I cast crumbs. I am a crumb caster. What the heck are you?
The ducks were happy to eat the morsels I offered them, but Clive held my arm in a powerful grip, most unlike him, because even though he is a strong man he is a bit of a simpering clot, and he prevented me from casting more pieces.
“Watch this!” he cried, so I did.
I often watch things when asked to do so.
Sometimes even when I’m not asked, I will watch.
I am a crumb casting watcher.
Like a discus thrower, Clive rotated on the spot and threw his pizza as far as he could. It was still warm, that pizza of his, and the olives glittered like crystals, and steam rose from the tomato paste as it soared over the waters. I know little about the aerodynamic properties of Italian cuisine, but it seemed to hang in the air for ages.
Then it dropped into the lake and sank.
“I was expecting it to float,” I remarked feebly.
But Clive was ecstatic. “Did you see? The ducks misunderstood it! They simply didn’t know what to make of it! They didn’t recognise it as food and why should they? They don’t know what a pizza is. That proves my point!”
I frowned. “You mean that—”
“Yes, Douglas, yes! Flying saucers are scraps of food that are being thrown to us by aliens from outer space. It’s so obvious! Why has no one thought of this before? We throw food for ducks; the aliens throw food for us. It’s a perfect analogy! Flying saucers are alien pizzas!”
I didn’t believe him, and I told him so. But that same night I moved my dining table and a solitary chair into my garden and sat there, expectantly, with a knife and fork.
I’m still there, waiting. And I’ve drunk all the wine.
So I’ve started on the brandy…
And I am wondering what the aliens are like.
Maybe they are like you.
In fact, I now think that you are one of them.
You cosmic rascal!
TAMPERED WITH
The evidence
was tampered with
in Tampa.
I read about the case
in the Italian newspaper,
La Stampa.
But why was a crime
committed
in far flung Florida
considered
so newsworthy in Naples
and Rome
when there were horrider
cases much closer
to home?
It’s because of the man
suspected
of being behind the scam,
Don Avidograsso,
the celebrated mafioso.
He had defrauded a bank
of millions
one quiet morning
with a few trusty minions.
But he had made
a fatal mistake:
leaving behind the pizza
he’d baked
for his lunch, a margherita.
This delicacy was taken
and placed
in storage for forensic
examination.
Undigested, it would
provide a clue
as to who
should be arrested.
Everyone knows that Don
Avidograsso is
obsessed with margheritas.
No other pizza
is to his taste, but in haste
to flee the scene
he had abandoned it like a
discus in a dream.
Aware of the danger
he was in,
Don Avidograsso forced
entry into
the storage facility
one night
to alter the incriminating
pizza by
adding toppings regarded
as rotten
by his unforgiving culture.
Pineapple slices, no less!
And now
let me confess
that I never could assume
that a purist
such as Don Avidograsso
would ever
find room in his stomach
for the Hawaiian
variety of pizza, a travesty
to his way
of traditional thinking.
Such evidence would be
inadmissible
in court! But he was seen
and caught
by an alert guard not hard
of hearing.
Don Avidograsso’s belly
gave him away,
rumbling and grumbling
all the way
like thunder over the sea.
His pizza tampering failed
and now he waits in jail,
hungry and gaunt,
the same way
we wait in this restaurant.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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