We all rub the oil onto our bodies every day, but how do we know it's doing us any good? Doctors have been telling us for years that it's only because of rats that we have our boils and our scars. But can we really find freedom in a salve or a balm or an ointment?

I know I can. When I'm all slicked up in front of the board of directors, I know that at the first false move I can be slithering across the floor and into the ventilation system before they know what hit them. Those encrusted old men with their lavender and their hot wax are no match for me and my trusty oil.

I like to harvest it myself, luring the children into my big cardboard box with delicate moist caramels. The parts I don't use, the stringy bits with none of those luscious hydrocarbons I crave, I sell to a man I met in the sewers of Osaka. He pays me with iguanas, which add a delicate scent to the final product.

Yes, there is true freedom in the oil, but at a price. I fear the day when we will run out of children; there is talk of importing some from the more unsuspecting countries, but I can't help but think they will provide an inferior result due to poor nutrition, unless we get them here when they're still small.