How about a carapace inhabited by the refugee children of the lost city of Len,floating down a river filled with elegant fat carp. The children cannot eat the carp as they can squirt boiling piss, so they live off the fungus that grows inside the carapace and wait for the river to reach the sea, where hopefully things will improve.
(
Smallbrainfield,
Mon 27 Feb 2012, 15:11,
archived)
