CARTOON: the lies my wife told me

A painted ship on a painted sea. It's a busy ship, a cruise liner or a cross-channel ferry - the lines are not distinct and steady enough to be sure.

People are jumping over the bows or being thrown. Just after they hit the water, most are chopped up by the propellers. Soon, each of them is dead.

The sea is red behind the ship, broken by the white and blue and green of the wake.

The wake closes like a wound behind the ship and the red merges with the colour of the sea.

There is no sign of the blood. There is no sign of the death. (We may ignore the pieces of human body floating in the water.)

Lawrence Upton

1990