A Good Imagination ...

It's hard to know where to draw the line. Do writers actually become their characters? Are feelings and emotions based in fantasy, or in the writers experience? Being schizophrenic essentially means not being able to tell fantasy from reality. But how many of us haven't cried at a sad film, or cheered when the hero beat the villain? How much of our life is actually imagination - how much is real and how much is fantasy? And where, and when do we draw the line?

I like winter - all those dark nights. You see, in the shadows of the night can be found the best mysteries.

But that has nothing to do with the problem at hand which is : what to cook for dinner? Perhaps braised steak, I thought, as I opened the cupboard door to hang up my overcoat. A huge bloody-eyed vampire loomed out at me with teeth bared. Yes, steaks would be nice.

In the kitchen, I opened the freezer and the fur-lined claw of an abominable snow man struck wildly at me. Damn. Only a frozen chicken and some of that terrible vegetable protein muck : Soylent Green. Yuk. I had a thought and checked the fridge - cold sausages I'd fried the day before! OK then, sausages it is.

A good imagination. That's what everyone has always said about me. A good imagination. I guess that's true. I know the things I see are only just that - imagination. They are not like hallucinations because I choose to imagine what I do. Life would be pretty dull without them.

As I was chopping up the sausages, I accidentally sliced off several fingers of a zombie who had sidled up to me. I put the sausages into a casserole dish with a little gravy. I may have added a little too much pepper because a banshee sneezed and fell off the top of the cupboard.

Having a good imagination is a very powerful tool. It certainly helps me get through the day which, I must admit, would be pretty mundane and boring otherwise.

I switched on the oven and roasted alive a couple of fairies who had been perched on the element. Almost at the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a pterodactyl swoop down and steal one of the sausage slices but of course I was wrong. It was an alien spacecraft.

Mushrooms. Always good eating. I'd throw them in with the chopped sausages. I opened the larder door and took three or four large musshies, brushing off a couple of gnomes in the process. On my way back to the bench I bumped into the invisible man. I hadn't noticed him there before. I picked up the carving knife. Yes, I'll chop the mushies and add them to the sausages and gravy - a great addition to my hotchpotch hot pot! I checked the larder but apart from some rosemary, thyme, a small green gremlin and a packet of oregano, I couldn't really think of anything else to add.

Of course, I'd forgotten something. 'Taters' - potatoes. I should have peeled some but I couldn't be bothered. I took a small tin from the larder, opened it and emptied the contents (minus the 'juice') onto my chopping board. I roughly cut them into quarters and put them in with the sausages.

I turned and tossed the knife into the sink, unwittingly sticking the masked rapist in the heart in the process. I set the microwave for 2 minutes - everything was already cooked, they just needed heating up. I stepped over the warm corpse and waved aside a vulture that was trying to perch on my mixer tap. I'd leave the washing up for later.

Took out a plate ready for dinner. It was my favourite. I called it my 'John the Baptist' plate because it had a stain on it like a head. Or perhaps it was just the pattern.

The radiation alert on my mini nuclear reactor went 'ping' and then said 'Enjoy Your Meal'. I got a red tea towel out of the draw and flicked it at the bull that, true to form, came rushing towards me. I opened the microwave and took out the hot pot which smelt delicious and turning back to the bench fell over the corpse on the floor. The hotpot went everywhere.

There was a corpse on the floor.

There actually was a corpse on the floor. A real one. With a mask. And a carving knife sticking out of him. And he was covered in potatoes.

And sausages.