So there I was: facing the doors of the lift, tapping my foot and checking my watch every fifteen seconds. The lift had screeched to a halt between the third and fourth floors of my office building, but despite my best efforts—well, perhaps not my best efforts: I had screamed into the intercom—those responsible for operating the metal box in which I presently found myself could not be motivated to act with any urgency. I was surrounded by a bizarre cast of characters but I couldn't quite bring myself to care. If I was late for work that would surely be the third strike (there had been, of course, that incident with the ostrich and then that awful scenario with the orphans). In such circumstances, I did not have the luxury of wondering why some sort of deranged medium, a whiskered old clockmaker (he could have just asked me for the time) and what appeared to be a furry man in a suit were in the lift with me.

'You will meet a terrible fate ...' muttered the old woman in the corner.

'Oh do be quiet, for God's sake,' I said.

Every now and then there would be a mechanical whirring and I would be convinced the lift was about to start moving. And then it wouldn't.

'Miaow,' said the furry man.

'Kill me now,' I said.