Streetlamp RH407

Oh! if I a penny had
For every time that I went mad
I'd bank them in a biscuit tree
And draw the interest for my tea

Yes. Sixteen metres past the SPAR, left under the arch off West Street, grid ref:052197, Streetlamp RH407 stands proud and tall, a shining beacon of hope and more general lampitude, and king of all he illuminates of that alley down to those houses down by there...

REJ:- Nawrte, Streetlamp RH407 -

SLRH407:- *Ooof!* -

REJ:- Mind your head! -

SLRH407:- Don't worry - I'm used to it. *Ouch!* -

REJ:- Watch that! That's Sioned's mother's commemorative jockstrap -

SLRH407:- Sorry! Bit cramped your place, -

REJ:- Wel if you'd rather go back out in the rain -

SLRH407:- No, No! I was only saying -

REJ:- Wel don't. And that anglepoise is spoken for, so you can stop with the flickering -

SLRH407:- I wasn't! I was just -

REJ:- I've heard all about you streetlamps, and your streetlamply ways, RH407, wel not in my house. As long as you are somewhat partially under my roof -

SLRH407:- Ok, Ok! I won't do it again, honest! Lovely set of springs though -

REJ:- Stop it!...Oooh! I see what you mean....yes...Mmmmmm....nawrte, where was I? -

SLRH407:- Just over there, Richard, on the sofa -

REJ:- Ah yes. I still am. Diolch. Now Streetlamp RH407, you must have seen some sights in your time -

SLRH407:- Oooh yes, yes indeed! Indeed I have, Richard! The sights I have seen! The stories I could tell! I could tell you in fact, right here, right now -

REJ:- Wel go on then! Though perhaps not the one about Meinir Thomas -

SLRH407:- I've still got the dent -

REJ:- You're not alone. Do one of the others. Like she did -

SLRH407:- By Edison I shall! Can I count on your discretion? -

REJ:- You can try, but my abacus -

SLRH407:- Well one night, Richard, a dark, lonely night, - it was night-time you see - I woke up, slightly red at first - you know how it is -

REJ:- Been there lampy, been there -

SLRH407:- There was a cat. Miaowing, just at the back of the Red Cross shop. -

REJ:- Oooh! What colour was it? -

SLRH407:- Black. Everything is black, Richard. But when I looked at it, it became a sort of dark brown. With white paws -

REJ:- Unusual -

SLRH407:- I thought so -

REJ:- Please continue -

SLRH407:- It miaowed quite plaintively, for maybe ten minutes - perhaps in hope of some food or comfort, a morsel of nutritional or emotional sustenance, a scrap, a crumb, perhaps the kindly brush of a fellow mammal, -

REJ:- *miaooooooow!* -

SLRH407:- Bit louder, down a semitone -

REJ:- *MIIAAaaaaaoowW!* -

SLRH407:- That's it. Then it looked up, and trotted off into the night. -

REJ:- Oooh! I wonder where it went. And what it saw. And what stories it could tell. And did it find that morsel crumb of nutritional and/or emotional sustenance. And -

SLRH407:- It got run over by Dai Edwards' Mazda 323 -

REJ:- The red one? -

SLRH407:- Black, Richard. Everything is black before I look at it. But yes, the red one. -

REJ:- Perhaps another -

SLRH407:- It was a dark, dark night. A dark and lonely night. All around was dark. Dark as sable, dark as coal, dark as -

REJ:- Yes, yes! Get to the good bit! -

SLRH407:- I'm setting the scene! -

REJ:- Sorry - I just get impatient. Sioned says I always go off before -

SLRH407:- As I was saying, it was a dark, dark, lonely night. All was dark. I woke up, slightly red at first, and saw some fag butts on the pavement. One was still glowing! -

REJ:- Oooh! It must have been recently cast! -

SLRH407:- Undoubtedly. One becomes expert in these matters in my line of work. Observation, Richard. Observation, then illumination. What sights had that fag butt seen? What stories could it tell? Was it from lover's lips untimely ripped and tossed? An urgent text, a failing friend?, a fortune won and lost, what end? What inspired that parting hand? What caused the lately-littered land? Beneath the light of -

REJ:- Ok that's enough. What happened? -

SLRH407:- It rolled into the gutter and went out. -

REJ:- One more then. That's all my heart can take -

SLRH407:- It was a dark, dark, -

REJ:- ffs -

SLRH407:- It was a less than light, post-day. -

REJ:- It's the element of surprise that gets you -

SLRH407:- Streetlamp RH406 woke up before me. I looked across the street, and saw something very strange. Or should I say noticed - as I'd seen it before -

REJ:- You've saved the best till last, I can tell -

SLRH407:- His face was lit up, and so was the pavement beneath him. But inbetween... -

REJ:- *...zzzzzzzz...* -

SLRH407:- ...I mean, I could see he was looking at the floor...but -

REJ:- *...zzzzzzzz...* -

SLRH407:- It was invisible. The inbetween. I could see right through it to the house behind. The light from the house...-

REJ:- *...zzzzzzz...* -

SLRH407:- ...the light from the house passed through the light from RH406...the invisible light....

REJ:- *...zzzzzzz...* -

SLRH407:- And so I noticed light is invisible, and it passes through other light completely unaffected. Even though the photons must collide -

REJ:- *...zzzzzzz...Snort!* - You only had to look around...anywhere -

SLRH407:- I'm not a swivel lamp. I can only look in straight lines -

REJ:- Try again a bit smaller. Look through that fence -

SLRH407:- I'm not Superlamp -

REJ:- Through those gaps I meant -

SLRH407:- I've gone cross-eyed -

REJ:- Wel, don't interfere with yourself -

SLRH407:- There's only one of me here now - you can see that -

REJ:- Who was it then? -

SLRH407:- My shadow from a parallel universe -

REJ:- I've got a splitting head.