It was badly stained. Using x-rays, Evco Institute restorers recovered the following text:

Mr. Bug’s Coma Dreams

It was a sunny day; well, not really very sunny, more overcast, but it had been sunny earlier, when Mr. Bug (short for [insert clever acronymic name here]) had made his decision to take a lunchtime stroll, so even though it clouded up he still went outside when his lunchbreak came around.

Mr. Bug avoided the park, even though with autumn approaching it promised to be quite lovely as the leaves on the collection of trees in the arboretum changed their hue to a variety of colors at different rates, because he had attained a certain uncomfortable level of sensitivity to the stares he got from nannies, he, a middle-aged man in a suit, alone, often carrying a camera, among people (we shall call them people although they will of course be various animals in the illustrations) generally composed of nannies and small children.

Walking the other direction, towards various sources of food, Mr. Bug’s mind wandered between various trains of thought, as walking always proved conducive to cogitation on Mr. Bug’s part, and so he thought of various issues and situations, such as, “what is up with this whole private army shit thing anyway, who needs a private army, isn’t that illegal, and why don’t they call them mercenaries, which is what they are, not fcuking contractors, a contractor builds your house or something,” and other things that had been in the news, or which he had observed personally, until he was in such a state of agitation that he was led to recall a warning he had received from his opthamologist regarding macular degeneration and its possible connection to high blood pressure, which she said he should have his general practicioner check him for as he had previously admitted to her he had not yet been checked despite his age, which was, as we have said, middle, whether he liked it or not.

Becoming aware of his agitation, Mr. Bug recalled a yoga breathing practice he had read about on the internet, involving inhaling through the nostrils for a count of eight, and exhaling through pursed lips for a count of sixteen. He tried this for some time, synchronizing his counting with his footsteps on the paved sidewalk, and gradually had the feeling that he was growing calmer, so he continued; soon, however, he realized that “count” was a very imprecise way to measure time, and that if he counted fast he hyperventilated, and if he counted slowly he grew faint.

And if he counted very slowly… but he never completed that thought, because a sudden state of disequilibrium resulting from an insufficient supply of oxygen to his brain, which sat snugly in his cranium beneath his black bowler hat, rendered him unconscious, and he fell, and in falling struck his head on the stone kerb, receiving such a strong concussion that he fell into a coma.

Mr. Bug perceived none of this, however, and to his perception he continued walking in his business-manner down the street in a search of some sort of nourishment. Looking through the plate-glass window of the running sushi establishment, he was astounded to see not dodgy Asian tidbits but instead Hollywood actresses riding the conveyor belt around the restaurant on little plates. He did not recognize any, except for maybe Charlize Theron, although he wasn’t sure. It did not dismay him, though, because he hadn’t really been hungry for running sushi in the first place.

Next he passed by Mr. MacGregor’s Bakery, where a large hookah-smoking caterpillar and a grinning cat [note to editor: will this fly?] spoke to him as he waited for his bun. But his bun never came, Mr. MacGregor puttered in the back room inexplicably until, on the advice of the hookah-smoking caterpillar, Mr. Bug simply took his bun and left (after placing the proper coins on the counter, which however the grinning cat pocketed).

Mr. Bug was quite distressed to see Mr. MacGregor, who was a colossal squid, extrude from the door of his bakery in an agitated state, in hot pursuit. Mr. MacGregor was the size of an omnibus (but bore a closer resemblance to an incubus, or perhaps a cthulu), if you included all his arms and legs, but although he was fast and graceful under-water, here on land Mr. Bug noticed to his relief that he was slowed considerably by his weight and the fact that his body possessed no hard parts but for his beak, which was contorted in an angry frown. Mr. MacGregor’s large eyes were angry as well, and bloodshot to boot, as he flopped and oozed down the street, making a great effort to avoid the electrical cable overhead that powered the trams.

Then, to Mr. Bug’s shock, Mr. MacGregor attached himself to a passing omnibus, gripping it tightly with the suckers on the underside of some of his arms, and rapidly closed the gap between them.

In his panic to escape Mr. MacGregor, who was a colossal squid, Mr. Bug overlooked an open manhole and fell down, down, down. He seemed to fall forever. Due to the aerodynamic properties of his carapace, he fell quite quickly too, passing a whole menagerie of other people falling down the same hole, including a little girl with dark rings around her eyes, and a gryphon.

Finally, just before he hit the bottom of the deep, deep hole, he woke up in a hospital bed. “You struck your head and lost consciousness,” said the doctor. “I shall notify your next of kin while the hospital clowns cheer you up.”

Several hospital clowns Mr. Bug had not previously noticed emerged from the woodwork and began performing comedic pantomime. “That won’t be nece…” Mr. Bug began, but stopped short when he noticed that one of the clowns, the one without a red nose, was actually Gwen Stefani.

“I do this in my spare time,” she said.

Mr. Bug realized that he must still be unconscious, and this was simply a new level of his dream. He sent away the other clowns, told the doctor he would contact his family himself in due course, and spent his afternoon in a sunbeam, discussing points of Sanskrit grammar with Ms. Stefani.

(to be continued…)