Cleaning the platter.

Here was the face that only a fat man could love.

The thing started out so well. A little Spratly role-reversal, is all. And why the hell not? It makes more sense that a Sprat that 'could eat no fat' is really a fat Sprat on a diet, chafing under the thumb of his thorny wife. It was just so clever and cheeky. Him sitting at the table, stomach a-growl as he pushes around his perfect peas, while she parades the kitchen--all collarbones and grit--spooning potatoes into a frame that defies softening (she's very high strung, poor thing) and yelling a strident "Eat!" (German accent optional).

What a colorful spin, right?

But I passed it by the other night and under my drunk, unkind eyes it began to unravel. Sprat was slipping from his bench and those perfect peas were set to rolling. The flagstones blurred and the ceiling beams curled and wandered. Indeed, it seemed that every angle had decided to buck against my tinkering with convention. "Where is our Skeletal Sprat?" They asked. "Where is our Large-Bosomed Mistress?" And it keeps getting worse--so it's been posted as is, before it becomes more wreckage than rhyme.

Except for that mangled missus, whose death mask of a face will be kept in a sock drawer--stern warning against Inventiveness in Illustration.