Listing to Port

1. There was a time that all the bats of the world and all the owls of the world gathered together, somewhere near Marrakesh. They brought with them a great host of white moths, who covered the trees like snowfall until the moon came up, at which point they all whirled into the sky. I am not entirely sure what the bats and owls intended to do together, but in the event they spent the night eating moths and singing mournful songs part-way out of human hearing.

2. As every time traveller knows, there is an awesome party in the late Cretaceous. Nobody is invited to this one; you have to gatecrash or not go at all. Nobody is entirely sure how it started.

3. There was a night when all the people were asleep, even those who were supposed to be working, though they had particularly vivid dreams. That night, London and New York and Tokyo lifted up their built-up skirts and crawled on hundreds of legs to central Siberia, trailing their metro systems behind them. They drank snowmelt water and whispered some of the secrets of great cities between themselves, before trying each other’s landmarks on. Later, Lhasa and Luanda crashed the party and led the cities in a game or two of ‘I have never’. Two of the cities kissed, but I am not telling you which. Many of you did go to this one, of course. You were just asleep. By morning they were back in place, although they left some curious marks across Greenland if you know where to look.

4. Once all the letters had a party and when they woke up they were totally in your favourite book. Except they were in the wrong places; in places where letters aren’t supposed to be. So they waited until the hour before dawn and then ran off across the floor, and they didn’t stop running until they reached a pile of pizza delivery leaflets, where they were able to assume a disguise as typos.

5. There was that party at Anxiety’s place. You know Anxiety? Great guy, hangs around with Insecurity a lot. Anyway, all your friends were invited! But not you. Don’t worry, nobody noticed at all. Until later on in the evening when your name came up and everyone laughed at your badly-hidden flaws.  

1. The Holy Roman Emperor Lothair I. Reason: if your party is held during his lifetime, the cost of providing extra security will be prohibitive. If it is not, you will either need to mess with historical timelines or host a corpse, which is a bit of a downer.
2. The dwarf planet Pluto. Reason: it will not fit in the door.
3. Don Quixote. Reason: He is a fictional character, and thus unlikely to attend.
4. The North Sea. Reason: you will be too busy mopping up after it to enjoy your party.
5. Capybaras. Reason: there are too many capybaras in the world to fit inside a reasonably-sized party venue, and if you only invite some of them then the others will be jealous.
6. The platonic ideal of the colour blue. Reason: if it vomits on your carpet you will never, never get the stain out.
7. The norovirus. Reason: it is a terrible conversationalist, for one thing.