Once upon a time, there was a magnificent five bedroom, tastefully refurbished, inter-war, detached home with two ensuites, and double garage situated within bullseye of the Tudor Grange catchment. The house was equidistant from the train station and Solihull Town Center, short enough for a latte cooling stroll.

One half term Tuesday midnight, two nitwit ne’er-do-wells approached the fine abode with improper intentions. Following a successful Facebook lurking mission, the numbskulls had become aware that the occupants of the dwelling, a family of five, would be away in the Canary Islands for the duration of the current school holiday.

A combo of photographs found on Facebook, Rightmove, and Insta gave the duo of would-be-criminals a plan, a route, and a shopping list. Their social media reconnaissance had been especially fruitful. The wrongdoers felt extremely lucky.

“Who even actually does this?” said one to the other at the entrance of the house as he produced a shiny silver key from beneath the only flowerpot to occupy the front or indeed the back garden.

With a huge amount of disbelief, the key turned in the lock and the grinning pair entered. In a mere matter of seconds of the door closing, a trap was activated. The floor separated in half and the not-so-lucky twosome fell through into the basement-come-torture center.

One of the two men regained consciousness. He was confronted with a witchy looking witch, a Primark witch, like a reception child’s drawing of a witch. The captured fool looked down and had two realizations almost immediately. One, the bone he could see jutting out of his leg should, in fact, be on the inside of his ankle, and two, it was probably the source of excruciating pain emanating from the lower half of his person.

The accomplice of the severely leg fractured man stood swiftly and courageously rushed at the stereotypically dressed witch. Only for his bravery to be met with a clunk of a hefty broomstick to the left temple. The simpleton fell back feet first in the air like a cartoon.

At this point, as entirely expected and with perfect timing, the witch cackled with cliched glee and retrieved her giant cauldron from the darkness of the basement corner. She moved the behemoth pot with super dark magic strength to within inches of the couple of failed thieves. She smiled with pleasure, watching them inhale the beefy smelling stock they were about to stew.

It took twenty minutes to tenderize, shave, de-nail, and season the victims before adding them to the soup. The witch gave the man broth a mighty stir with her broom. She withdrew the broomstick, gave the bristles a lick, and grimaced.

The witch had an exquisite palate gained from decades of deceiving and devouring criminals. She had a predilection for burglars. Burglars were her cup of tea. She was a cannibalistic supertaster who knew with complete certainty that more salt was needed to mask the unnatural metallic taste of cheap deodorant.

At the moment the witch turned to retrieve some salt, a sinew-exposed arm stretched from the bubbling cauldron and with one smooth motion grabbed the witch by the neck, lifted her in the air, and dragged her into the depths of the unholy casserole.

Leon Clifford is a full-time accountant who appreciates words nearly as much as numbers. As a stand-up comedian, he has taken three shows to Edinburgh Fringe Festival and loves using comedy in writing. Leon has a wife and two children and finds writing an inadequate excuse to get out of the bedtime routine.