First off, there is alacrity. Not the noun, but the word itself. With no idea as to its meaning or the reason for its presence, the word has pressed itself firmly and perhaps indelibly into the deep folds of my grey matter, between the lyrics to a song about raindrops that I can’t honestly say I know and the image of a confused bear preparing to hibernate.

Just above those, Pluto coasts forlornly among its brother stars and wonders where he went wrong. Your orbit simply isn’t elliptical enough, quips Neptune, and Pluto sheds a dismayed tear, while the Sun observes in silence that is at once both boiling and cold. Universal peace, he thinks, is light-years away.

TO BE INTERTWINUED?