At the moment I fell to the ballroom floor I ceased to be. The
experience was exactly similar to that of undergoing a general
anaesthetic which for many is considered to be a replica of or a
formula by which to imagine the death experience itself - a light
shuddering convulsion, the body recoiling on itself like a fish on a slab
and then a sensationless blackness, which is, of course, in itself a
sensation when compared with the undergoing of terminal exit
trauma, but on this subject I cannot as yet speak from personal
knowledge, though the hardened hack can expect to pass through
every conceivable situation and come out reporting or streaming
effortlessly on twitter or associated news buzz programmes - I project
here that if I were to pass such undergoings, or overgoings as I
believe the preferred term in use is, I would liken it to the dispersal of
a dandelion head in which the unconscious seeds are redistributed in
light or darkness as the chance takes them.
I cannot say whether or not I was discovered in a pool of
bioluminescence at the north west end of the ballroom with the early
morning light fading my glory, but I somehow suspect that
Muscletone was quick to take the kudos for my rescue for I have
subliminal, dreamlike recollections of self-serving comments - if I
hadn't been there, Her Majesty might well have bled to death! - and
not a word of 16th century Scots amongst them, I wondered if he kept
it for the kitchens like a humble dormouse in the face of our rampant,
leonine purebred Brythonic in which we wove the weather and the
light of the post glacial moraines where reflections of ancient cavalry
still rode with their enemies' heads at the saddle bow and I - but I was
conscious enough to realise that though I was mildly delirious my
surroundings were becoming clearer and a comforting voice was
saying - "Gleam and beam! Gleam and beam!" Echoing a memory
within my royal persona that comfortably burred with my own brief
career in toothpaste advertising and brought to the surface the soft
rippling of the Deva lightly patterned with autumnal leaves before the
days when it had become a trial habitat for the Cuban crocodile, so
critically endangered and yet such a danger to the few remaining fly-
fishers of the area. And I began to find myself expressing concern
about holiday rentals and the scandal that would be raised by the
taking of a few simple fisher folk. What better death than to die upon
the Dee! That must come from some old ballad, surely my late
