A few grebos dressed in a multicoloured assortment of tattered rags that passed for clothes with hair that looked like it was trying to escape, lazily knocked balls around the pool table with sudden short outbreaks of mirth. And through the hole at the opposite end of the bar a young man's denimed buttocks and thigh could be seen responding erotically to the staccato ring-a ding sirens bells'n'whistles music of the pinball machine he carresed with enthusiasm.

The front bar was typical of front bars in the types of pub you find in parts of cities where commerce, industry and poverty intersect with the night-time quest for entertainment. In Contrast, the walls of the pub's back room were matt black with punky hippy skulls and rainbows type stuff painted randomly around. From the ceilling dangled all manner of trash'n'treasure including the bottom half of a fashion mannequin, pieces of broken guitars, most of a shopping trolley and the front left fender of an FJ Holden painted black with red and yellow flames.
Luther sat at the bar, sipping periodically at the beer in front of him. His hand-rolled cigarette rested in the ash-tray and whispered little plumes of blue smoke in enlarging spirals. His gaze rested disinterestedly on the screen of the colour TV mounted high on the wall behind the bar:
"... and now back to everybody?tm)s favourite show, ‘LAUGH? I NEARLY PISSED MYSELF!?tm) "
Two women in a waiting room chat as they flip through cosmetic surgery catalogues. (Bone graft implants have recently become popular)

-darling,did you hear about Veronica? Her cute little imp horn implants turned out to be Texas Longhorn. they just grew ans grew, popped right out of her skin at a gala dinner-party, blood trickles smearing her mascara as the bony tip pokes through over the next month they grew into veritable antlers, my dear, until they started sucking all the calcium right out of her body and growing at an alarming rate. Of course mixing human growth hormone pills with surgery plastique is always risky business. Finally her skeleton just collapsed, crumbled and left a globulous pool of diamond-decorated flesh staring up from the floor under two enormous steer horns that must?tm)ve been as long as a tall man?tm)s arm span.

-Yes, darling, I heard, just a big sack of flesh under those horns with lumps of silicon and collagen and gortex floating to the top like a cosmetic irish stew. But, my dear, did you know they?tm)re building a new skeleton for her out of teflon coated stainless steel. Imagine; the first non-stick skeleton. hee hee hee hehe they?tm)ll be queuing up yet. Apparently she?tm)s hung up on a coathanger while she waits.

_That?tm)s nice, sweetie, much more dignified than the wheelie bin they poured her into and pushed around.

-Of course they?tm)ve removed the horns and she gets everything she needs I.V. - one drip for gin, one for valium, and one for vitamins and minerals. She?tm)s much happier: it?tm)s a far better setup than the 1" feed tube into her mouth and the catheter...
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hope you enjoy - Dr.D