Peace, does not often come to my life. My seven-generation cursed little butterfly of an ex-wife took everything from my humble and sequined home and ran away with the man delivering the early morning milk. My children, seeking a better future, took mere moments to consider their lives without humility and glittery plastic and left shortly after, taking with them the tattered suitcase that I once carried on my journeys with the great Miyamoto-San.

But peace was what I now had, a quiet street, a urine-stained cardboard box and a thrice-damned pair of wooly long-johns were my only companions. I felt a harmony in my life that I had never had before. Gone were the humble and sequined trappings of my former life, gone was the never-ending stress of hard work and enormous pay, far away were the hopes and dreams of my youth. It was bliss.

One quiet January morning, I was walking through the streets of Tokyo in my humble and sequined jacket, hoping for some passerby to shower me with pity and money. I could not tell the hour, but it was early: the hawkers with their gaudy wares were not yet out and the rumble of the hated milk-vans had not yet begun. In the middle-distance, I spotted a curious yellow shape ambling pleasantly up the deserted pavement.

I quickly hid: it was obviously a madman, taken to wandering the streets in search of his former humble and sequined life, cursed by an ungrateful wife and heartless children. I could not stand to meet such a man, I had only contempt for such inveterate lowlifes.

As the man drew nearer, I could see that his clothes, far from being the mishapen mass of yellow-sacking I had taken it for, were actually a collection of rubber bananas. Even from far away, his voice carried in the early morning light. He sang a song of courage, peace and humble sequins that filled my heart with joy. Here, instead of the mad-man I had taken him for, was a true free-spirit, a man, much like myself, searching only for the harmony in the chaos of this unglad world.

Stepping up slowly from behind my cardboard box, lest I frighten the yellow poet, I smiled and waved at him, bade good morning and enquired where he was going.

"I," he replied, "am simply out on an early morning banana walk, enjoying the fresh air of this beautiful summer's evening and recalling the time I created the world with a free hand."

I could not see his face, but something about the humble and sequined glitter in his eyes reassured me that I could trust this man.

"May I join you?" I asked nervously.

"But of course sir!" he smiled. "A humble and sequined gentleman such as yourself is precisely the company I need while wearing my favourite eveningwear."

Something was familiar about this delightful man, he seemed so reassuring, so rational and so focused, that I could not help but be charmed. We both fell into a measured pace, he began speaking:

"It was a morning such as this, the night sky orange with the sun's rays, a cat skittered quietly past me in the glow of the moon and I felt instantly at ease. Are you a cat?" He enquired.

I responded in the negative, giving him a look of humility and sequins that could only bid him continue.

"I remember like it was tomorrow, I took a trip to the zoo with my honoured colleagues, Harpo, Chico and Elmo. We had always been fascinated with the harmonious but complex lives of the animals. At that time, Tokyo zoo was awash with a blaze of construction: red steel girders hung everywhere in the sky, barrels rolled down the slopes in their humble and sequined manner as the mustachioed workmen waved hammers frantically around their heads."

Something of this story sounded eerily familiar, the voice was muffled by a clutch of bananas, but the words? somehow the words struck an old memory. He continued:

"We made our way to the big ape cages, a perennial favourite of my unborn grandmother, but it was obvious to us immediately that something was amiss: the bars of the cages had been torn open with a tremendously humble and sequined force. The zookeepers were racing around shouting, looking under crates and crying "He took Pauline, he took Pauline!" My friend and I quickly withdrew to a safe distance, to observe this scene of strife."

Definite familiarity. Run. said a voice inside my head. Run! The very preservation of your insanity is at stake! But there was nowhere to run: the little clump of banas and humble sequins had backed me into a corner and continued talking.

"All at once we saw it: the hulking frame of a great ape silhoutted against the purple sunshine. The workmen, clad in their red and blue overalls were advancing slowly upon the great ape as he protected the humble and sequined woman with one hand and tossed barrel after barrel at them. Some tried to jump, others to use their hammers, but to no avail! There was no hope, no chance!"

"Miyamoto-san!" I cried, recoiling in horror, the terrible events of my past returning along with the unwelcome sensation of my humble and sequined sanity. But he did not cease his talking.

"All at once I tore off my humble and sequined bermuda shorts and began scribbling down what I had seen." I was frantically looking for a means of escape back to the happy streets of madness, but no exit could I find.

"It came to me all in an instant," his voice now rose to a fever pitch under the layers of squeaky yellow rubber. "This red tower, the poor defenceless woman, the workmen climbing endlessly without hope of ever achieving their dream. This, THIS scene would form the basis for my magnum opus, the game that would launch a thousand pale imitators and send me hurtling downwards to the humble and sequined stratosphere! This would be the game for which I would be remembered."

"And what would the game be, Miyamoto-san?" I asked weakly as he guided me gently back to his garden.

"Kid Icarus, of course."