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Change of scene. The imps are arrived in Heaven, aery transport courtesy of Love.
As pretend tourists, they scamper through the historic district where tourists go, until Sarconsson finds two spigots mounted above a fluted basin.
Sarconsson opens the yellow one and drinks straight from the faucet. He twists the handle to close its valve and turns to his girlfriend. Honey covers his mouth. “Jesus, beezus, how to please us!” He smacks his sticky lips.
“Ooooh, then the other one’s milk,” squeals Cornumsdotter pointing to a white handle beside it. “Watered silk and bottled milk!” Sure enough, on the wall above are letters in fancy script: M & H.
Most beings on this crowded square are out-of-towners come for a peek at paradise. Amid the bustle, the imps fall on each other in a joyful embrace — milk to sour! — then fly across golden pavement to hover behind a modestly clothed statue. No naked monuments here.
Heavenly theme park for tourists
It’s not long before a chattering family of ghosts, three generations, perhaps wiped out simultaneously in earthquake or accident, amble along with their visitors’ maps. The many children quarrel over the honey spigot but their granny bops their respective heads and tells them to drink milk. Her order is echoed by a jovial father. So the M faucet is opened only to generate shrieks and disgusted spitting. The nasty milk pouring out is spoiled.
“Imagine that!” says the mother, and then she’s bopping the children because the siblings are shouting double-dares — to take mouthfuls of the rancid stuff and spit it on each other.
The imps erupt with cackles like drunken witches. Sarconsson jumps into the milky tag game which fans out on the busy plaza. Angel and ghost children join. Parents scold. Old people get knocked into. Immortals gather Their skirts while making loud comments about behavior.
That’s when Cornumsdotter gives the signal, one long and two short bursts of belly light. Maximum fun per unit of chaos has been attained. Time to bug-out. She sings:
fee-fi! flee! fly! do or die!
Sarconsson is oblivious, happily spitting clotted milk. He lacks any sense of timing and will stay on until he’s beaten up or jailed if Cornumsdotter doesn’t watch him. She marvels at the 300 million years he survived before she took charge. However, if he’d ever admit it, a good number of those years were spent stuck inside amber or tar pits or peat bogs, put there by furious Immortals.
So she’s tried light and song. Time for smell. Cornumsdotter squints, grimaces, and squeezes out a plume of pheromones. The scent particles stick like lint to her boyfriend who is a mess of honey and milk. He pauses. Sniffs. Shakes himself. Not enough. Go for the touch. Cuticular pheromones. She heaves and grunts with effort until a fatty hydrocarbon percolates through her skull and saturates her antennae. It’s a contact buzz. It’s irresistible.
A bugge on a mission, she sweeps over Sarconsson and slaps him with her feelers, curls her insect horns across his face, penetrates his nose, his mouth until he gasps for mercy. The two of them speed away through the Heavenly air, playing their own game of tag. Mid-flight, the imps join in such a way — well, it’s fortunate the misbehaving children are otherwise occupied. They died innocent, and Heaven on holiday is no place to undo that.