INCIDENT REPORT: Montgomery Burrows here, reporting live in the aftermath of a dramatic incident outside the north transept of the Wee Parasol Cathedral around twenty minutes ago.
Station Rat A was an eyewitness. A, what happened?
“I was taking a break from cleaning gum from Tiggy’s favourite bench when I noticed that one of the ropes being used by the ants to hoist donated sugar into the Cathedral was frayed. Before I could alert anyone – SNAP! Several bags of sugar crashed to the ground and, just like that, Dr Wycliffe and the duck (you know the one) were buried in an avalanche of granulated sugar. To be honest, it was rather comical.”
Dr Barnaby Wycliffe, who had just arrived to begin his investigation into Lady Tigridia’s annual herring stipend, emerged first and did not appear to find the event ‘comical’. After shaking sugar from his feathers and retrieving his briefcase, he hurried away muttering about workplace safety and how this wouldn’t have happened in medieval times.
The Duck (you know the one) was recovered shortly afterwards, clearly shaken but still able to give a full account of events:
“One moment I was here, the next I was there, cocooned in a seemingly endless white abyss…with no knowledge of who I was, nor which way was up or which way down. I could see nothing. I could hear nothing…yet I could feel what I can only describe as an overwhelming and all-encompassing sense of bliss.
I don’t know how long I lay there. It may have been seconds…it may have been days, for time itself had ceased to exist.
Then came the thousands of voices. ‘Duck…Duck…Duck…’ they rang out in such perfect unison I could only assume they were projected from the angelic realm. Here I am again, I thought. This time I shall surely meet my maker!
To be honest, it was somewhat of a disappointment when a tiny point of light appeared as the ants dug me out from what I had believed would surely be my final resting place…still, it simply reaffirms my knowledge that I am here for a higher purpose. I have been spared again so that I may spread the word that this life is but a punctuation on a much greater journey…”