Carnival Day
Omagh, Co. Down, Northern Ireland August 15th 1998
Slugs ‘Mucous gastropods without shells, bilious brown and green, chocolate box black and blue’ slaughtered our delicate shoots on carnival day in our market town. Should we execute? Salt or pellets would do the trick. They’d liquidate, leaving, by the morning, a glutinous trail of silver synovial fluid. Or perhaps, perhaps we should not retaliate, but put out a bowl of beer and let them make their own arrangements.