The Hoarchive

Unlike so much that one drinks nowadays, the eliminator is not available in the supermarkets. By some miracle, the old world has triumphed — or at least has held out against — the modern tide of consumerism, instant gratification and genital shaving. To this day, the Eliminator is available at but one establishment: an eccentric public house in the oldest quarter of Royal Leamington Spa.

I first encountered the substance whilst curled up in the drawing room with an old book of pornography, left to me by my father, and a large glass of heroine. My dear wife, Honoria, grunted meaningfully at me over her shotgun. On raising my head, I found her pointing maniacally at the March 1902 issue of Lots-of-Expensive-Booze Monthly.

Reading that volume the previous evening, I had inadvertently passed out in a pool of my own vomit, leaving the publication partially submerged but open. Honoria — for she is an extremely intelligent woman — was greatly excited to discover a black and white image that depicted an asymmetrical decanter filled with a green liquid on the exposed leaf of the periodical.

I bolted from my Chesterfield to the bureau where the journal lay, unsettling a Queen Anne armoire en route, and read the article with uncharacteristic eagerness. In doing so, I learned all that I have recounted thus far.

A mere six months later — for these were the golden days of British railways, when no two towns of this sceptre’d isle were more than two years separated by rail — I emerged into the thick industrial fog of Royal Leamington Spa. I remember being shocked at how much less thick the thick industrial fog here was than the thick industrial fog at my home in the metropolis.

A passing vagrant informed me that the renowned eccentric public house was but a short walk away. Pleased, I rewarded him with two guinea pigs and a blowjob.

I enjoyed the walk. Only thrice did brigands succeed in looting me of my every possession, so I was not disheartened on arrival at the allegorical establishment, merely weary.

Contained within a tall building of Georgian sensibilities, the eccentric public house called herself Kelsey’s. Her doormen wore a dark uniform. From their accents, their demeanour and the dainty turn of their ankles, I would gladly wager that they were Poles.

I made myself comfortable inside the eccentric old girl, and waited impatiently for something to lubricate my throat. After perhaps four minutes and sixty-three seconds, a fine creature in Topshop pumps and a ski jacket delivered me a vessel of the green honeydew. Giddy with excitement and opiates, I was almost so ungentlemanly as to thank her.

I poured a quart into the lead crystal tumbler that I carry in my upper-left-inner-lower-right breast pocket as a point of habit. Lifting the chalice to my lips, I inhaled deeply. The liquid had the nose of an Afghan dancing girl, but the odour of a kiwi fruit. It flowed smoothly down my throat, evoking memories of other occasions upon which I had drunk from a glass.

The taste compares unfavourable to that of fermented goat faeces, a drink in which I overindulged whilst travelling Mongolia with Barry Manilow in the 1870s. Regrettably, I remember little else of the fabled drink, for my evening became clouded by busy, yet incomprehensible, conversation.