Twenty-five hours of love in the life of "Happy the Golden Prince Rides Again," his sluggish purple crest flopping over his dotty eyes as he casts a revolting shadow over the courtyard
For many years he had played by himself in the vaults and turrets of his father's castle, occasionally drawing back the musty curtains of burgundy red that masked him from the challenging sun or the ovulating moon. He would lurch past the flies on the windowsill like a figurehead through a bag of dust, tip over the battlements and cough himself rigid, until white tears tumbled sluggishly from the slot in his neck. He would watch them recede into the fiery blue waters of the living moat and hiss with amusement as, each drop animated into a steel grey tadpole that writhed and dipped away towards the bank

One lurid afternoon Happy was surprised to see an ex-tadpole of his develop into something he had never before seen, for living alone as he did, with only mirrors for company, he knew nothing of women

The creature stood motionless on the opposite bank, her alabaster limbs beckoning him from his father's hall. It was weird--She seemed as still and cold as a statue; indeed, Happy fancied he saw ivy curling 'round her feet. Yet, her very stillness challenged the foetid breeze that stirred the trees and shrubs about the moat

Happy sensed that she was important

Then, suddenly she opened both her eyes for what must have been the first time, and he saw that they were trained on him
They were of a powerful matte strawberry hue, and they shone with the lustre of newly-opened chestnuts. Her left hand dipped slightly and her mouth turned up at the corner, as if to finally dispel any doubts as to her existence

A creeper that dangled flaccidly from the nearest turret-top brushed against the shoulders of the purple-headed prince as he stood, pinned, like a butterfly on a dartboard; transfixed, but still writhing at her beauty. Her sneer increased to a smile and, as it did, Happy felt like a bottle of ginger beer that someone had shaken violently and was about to open
Giddily, he swung himself onto the battlements, grabbed the idle creeper, and swung across the water toward the princess. He landed with a milky squelch at her side and beneath an extraordinarily gnarled sumac tree. Instantly she leapt away, giving the lie to her immobility--this was flesh and blood! Happy was convulsed with a strange yet familiar sensation; he felt he should be in a bathroom

And as he looked, the lowering vegetation above and before him took on the dingy suggestive aura of dripping taps. The moss beneath his shiny pink feet was breathing sponge, caressing every pore of his skin with slimy microscopic tendrils, and the moat behind him glistened like a sapphire basin, silhouetting the darker lilypads that floated across it like filthy suds

Abruptly, Happy broke off this reverie, and wildly rotated his gaze
The creature had vanished. Where could it be? Happy reared up like a stallion and rammed through the undergrowth in pursuit of the first female he had ever seen. A slithering rubbery whale diverted him from his soggy course and he glanced to his left:

There it was! Crouched in the corner of a clearing, her eyes bleeding light into his, wearing a leopard-skin leotard, clutching an antenna to her brow, and muttering "mm-gah" through a megaphone at him. The ground shook, and the jaws of the Earth admitted Happy the golden prince headfirst into a deep hole. The wavy green turf closed over him, though his thrashing feet disturbed the surface for a moment or two longer
Happy found himself upside-down in a narrow fluorescent well that was both moist and cheesy. He quivered uncontrollably, aching with every inch of his soul to scratch something, but where, he could not tell. His feet were ringing like telephone bells, and his head felt ready to burst. His cloak flapped open over his head like a bat's, and he became aware that the well was growing hotter and more muscular. It seemed strangely enough to be shrinking about him, like a skin around a fine pork sausage. Yet he didn't mind--his whole life at the castle lay behind him now, sterile and eventless

He thought only how he would love to sneeze, and felt nothing but relief when the cool arms of the woman vigorously unscrewed his head, and the toothpaste flowed out as if it were gushing from a broken dam, into the very womb of the earth

"So that's who I am!" he cried
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince
Happy the golden prince