It was a poorer collection, second time round. The latest offering from the neighbour’s cat was a bloody half-mauled thing with only three remaining legs that defied classification. The cockroach was disgustingly easy to find. Block collected three from the deserted kitchens of the kebab house beneath his apartment, along with the chip from a calculator left abandoned on the filthy counter top. A cursory rummage through a cardboard box labelled ‘BLOCK, ASSORTED JUNK’ in his mother’s neat red-penned hand, unearthed an absurdly feminine Christmas reindeer, another pointless present from his ever-absent father. Block pressed her nose one last time and watched her flutter her eyelashes, swish her tail and say, “Oh Santa, you are naughty,” before tearing out the battery and slicing her open with a serrated bread knife. He placed her innards in a shining metal heap inside the tank with the rodent-thing, the roaches and the calculator chip, the remaining Chemistry powders in faded blues and greens and still shocking red, and an assortment of tweezers and mini tools from an old Christmas cracker.

“The books are a little big to fit in,” he smirked, thumping Mary Shelley and The Idiot’s Guide down beside the tank.

“Nicodemus does not need books, oh great one,” cried the creature, turning his head to one side to read the titles printed on their spines. “Nicodemus has no wish to create a monster,” he explained, “and he is not an idiot.”

“We shall see,” laughed Block, almost sorry now to be going. It would be a spectacle worth the watching. “We shall see.”

No sooner was Block gone, dressed to kill in a scruffy pair of jeans and a ‘Smarter than your average bear’ T-shirt, than Nicodemus got to work. He hummed as he chopped and chiselled, Handel sonatas melting seamlessly into Mahler symphonies; he whistled as he spliced and grafted, a Billie Holiday-Beatles medley with scatterings of Bowie and Brahms; Spandau Ballet crooning for the last cosmetic touches and finally, for the ultimate electric flourish, the wild sparks, the mad professor moment, The Prodigy. With an exultant scream of triumph Nicodemus placed the fizzing battery wires against his creature’s heart and felt her leap beneath him, pulsing into life. He was ‘the fire-starter, the twisted fire-starter’, and he alone had created this thing, this charred ball of smoking fur and melted skin, this smouldering triple-antannaed twenty-one legged vision of love. He held her in his many arms as she took her first gulping breath, the exquisite swollen eyes blinking in confusion as she stared wildly about.

“Shh, my Edana” he whispered softly. “My little fiery one. Nicodemus is here.”

She looked up, staring into the soft marbled redness of his gaze. The clotted corners of her mouth cracked and wept.

“Oh Nicodemus,” she smiled.

.