Little King December

For some time now, I've been getting visits, every now and again, from December II, the little pot-bellied king.

He's about three inches tall and so fat that he can't button up his tiny red velvet coat with the magnificent ermine collar. "Little King December" comes from a place where, the day you are born, you wake up fully grown and fully clothed, in a suit, say. And that very first day of your life you go into your office, do some deals, write a computer programme, or sell foreign rights in a first novel.

You are born big, knowing everything, but every day you get a little bit smaller and you forget a little bit more, so that at the end of your life you are tiny, and you spend your days forgetting things, eating jelly bears and chasing shadows in the garden.

King December lives in a tiny room in a hole in the wall, the shelves piled high with countless colourful boxes, full of his dreams.