Poet and novelist Irving Vanderblock-Wheedle had a fortunate escape this week when his office at Duck Hollow University caught fire. The world of literature, however, was not so fortunate. This charred scrap of paper is all that remains of the long poem Mr. Vanderblock-Wheedle had been working on for the last three years.

—to whom
But the groom?
And the broom, I assume.
But still, to resume:
From the dark weeds that bloom
Where the dank shadows loom
Comes the straggling fume of a sickly perfume
In the gloom of my womb-like tomb of a room;
Then something goes boom,
And I flee from my doom,
And I get in my car and I rev it, vroom vroom,
And I step on the pedal and fly—zoom zoom zoom!
And I spill down the hill like a log in a flume,
Vowing never to stop till I get to Khartoum,
And I—

Police and fire investigators say they are proceeding under the assumption that the fire was set deliberately.