Mamta's Granny Flat Speakeasy

'... these crickets be wild fed...'

            '...a Breyerhouse Pie like Lambas Bread...'

                        '... a voice, I get that, but to parliament?'

Sojourners beyond the technically real have braved the freeway to drink, this Friday night, at Mamta's granny-flat speakeasy. It is BYO if the drinker so chooses - many do, but exchange their boozes for something more to tonight's fancy, like a market-driven potluck. A cosy, if informally formal, atmosphere is courtesy of a dozen drinkers. A long wail of car horn and Dr. David Hasselfhoff makes the dozen a baker's:

'Ooooh, it's time. Hello, Mamta, what's good?'

'Butt stuff.'

'That's not, uh, I'm sure it is.' David places the Crazy Bones Blunderbuss on the bar. 'For your macaw.'

(Which, digging vibes atop its shotgun perch, bops its head.)

Mamta leans clasped hands on the bar, cleaves a little age and it shows: 'I heard that can only fire Crazy Bones.'

'And so it doesn't need gunpowder.'

Mamta gives David a bottle of 1945 Grand Paladin: 'I don't believe you scrapped with the Baby Born Centipede.'

'I'm a historian. I gave Giuseppe the lead. He didn't want to go back there, so I popped in and grabbed blunderbuss. Salvage law. It's not a toy, so the centipede ignored me. Felt good to be back in the field.'

Mamta gives David a wide glass and he takes wine to an unoccupied table. Mamta resumes drying a Perpetually Wet Pint Glass with an Always Dry Dish Cloth, becoming set dressing which drops eaves. Todd's arms are crossed but he smiles, Elise's cheeks are flushed with laughter, Carl tries a hand on Darrel's shoulder, Sinead gesticulates lit Ghost Tobacco whilst negotiating Quetzalcoatl Feathers with Alexander. This is how Mamta cops a feel of the market which, used to this foreplay, slaps hand away with coy smile.

Mamta tunes ears into: 'You say “wild" but you mean "not meant to be there".'

The voice is Dorothy's. Mamta has gathered that Adrian, pivoted towards Dorothy with elbow on front bar, is trying to sell her some live locusts which he netted during a tour of cropland.

He drinks Hunter Valley Sémillon: 'It's like kangaroo. They're hunted because one less kangaroo is one more sheep that a farm can run. The meat is a by-product, but it's still wild.'

Adrian is hangering after another or Dorothy's Musical Sandwiches. Inspiration had struck Dorothy and inspiration became madness, subconscious engineering genius layering precision strips of cheese, lettuce and ham like piano strings. Halfway through his set, opening for the K-Pop girl group known as Kev, Adrian had killed birds with stone and ate the sandwich from a harmonica neck holder. The sandwich was nourishing for Adrian's body and the audience's soul.

Adrian continues: 'We wouldn't even have to meet. Just leave a sandwich in an esky once a month and I'll swing by and replace it with a sack of crickets.'

Dorothy circles a finger along the rim of an empty glass: 'Yeah, but there's only so much I can do with insect protein. My friends have become adventurous eaters because of my dinner parties, but they've also become more creative with excuses to not attend. One time, their dog ate their child.'

'In other words, you don't think you can pull it off.'

'Your expecting audience would be the first to find out.'

Mamta returns to flicking through audio channels:

'... Tom counting his darts...'

            '... why PornHub doesn't have a dwarf category...'

                        '... NOT ATTEMPT TO USE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED...'

Alexander bows out to the bathroom. Sinead goes outside for a smoke. Foot in door and Yvette haggards towards the bar. The shot of monkey booze and schooner of dragonspring sake, a 'Long Spark', are ready on her arrival.

Yvette offers her goods: 'I brought the Plus-Point-Oh-Two Watering Can.'

'Which, for every litre carried, only weighs a respective 800 grams. It says it can only carry ten litres, but you seem to fit twelve.' Mamta rolls smiling eyes, song-and-dance. 'Your money isn't good here. Except, maybe, as collateral.'

'What'll it be?'

'Butt stuff. Better but less often.'

'A sex goddess needs inspiration.' The monkey booze makes Yvette wince and raise schooner. 'Another of these, perhaps?'

A long screech and thonk. Sinead calls and Mamta's customers rush outside to poke heads over fence. Someone has tried to cross the freeway and been hit by a car. Colin is dead.

Mamta is going to have to close this speakeasy. She sighs and pours herself a Long Spark.