Dear Nice Lady, Dear Kind Man

Dear Nice Lady, Dear Kind Man,

I am writing to you here because I could not speak to you in person. You were gone too quickly after your acts of kindness towards me and there was neither the time nor the opportunity for chat. Although you will never see this, I thought I should write it for my own good and also in case someone who has never done me such a kindness might read it and know never to do such a kindness themselves.

What did you do that was so kind and yet so terrifyingly dangerous that I hope to never see anyone do it again? 

What could it be?

Well, it’s not much really. Only a little thing. A passing moment in a busy day. But still, without any shadow of a doubt, a true act of kindness. A moment of unselfish generosity. A moment of reaching out and caring for someone you never saw before and who you will probably never see again. Let’s hold that in our minds, as I proceed to tear it all apart. How truly kind a thing it was to do.

I imagine you reading this now, wondering, “Could this be me? Was I the kind one? What did I do?”

You waved me across the street, that’s essentially what you did. And I appreciate you doing it. Can’t you tell? I just hope against hope that you never ever do it again.

I should explain.

Down in the town, somewhere between my house and my office, there is a very busy road. The cars in both directions are a pretty constant stream and the people inside them rarely look left of right, so intent are they on their destinations and the insulated worlds in which they sit.

Luckily, to help with crossing this road, there is a pedestrian crossing. It’s not a fancy zebra or pelican or any animal like that. It’s just a traffic light, green orange red, and a green and a red man for the pedestrians to know when to cross.

I have seen awful things at this pedestrian crossing. Cars that sail through the red light at speed, their drivers having no apparent clue that the light is even there. Mostly those drivers are on their phones, chattering away or, God help us, texting furiously, their face down deep into the steering wheel. Once, an oncoming car stopped righteously on the red and, as I was walking across, the car behind that one overtook it and tore through the red light, very nearly taking me with it.

These terrible things anger or irritate me, depending on what type of day I am having. Sometimes I shrug it off and carry on with my day. Sometimes I shout after the light-breaking fool and flip them an angry finger. Mostly I’m alarmed as I envisage what might happen as a result of this behaviour. Because I’m fairly okay, really, I’m a grown man who has navigated impossible traffic in London and Bangkok and Sydney. I can handle your ill behaviour. But this particular pedestrian light is on the route to and from school for so many young kids. When the little man goes green on the light, and they step out into the melee, do they know that the car bearing down on them might not be inclined to stop? It is a worry.

But, Dear Lady and Kind Man, you are the polar opposite of these maniacs. You are possibly the last caring people in the world and here I am about to put you down. I’m sorry but it’s for all of our own good.

Here’s how I met you.

It’s an awful day. The rain really pelting down. I arrive at the pedestrian crossing, just wanting to be home. I push the button and there’s a wait. There’s always a wait. The traffic is busy and demanding and it doesn’t grind to a halt easily.

So I wait.

And then, Nice Lady and Kind Man, here you come. Not together of course. You are separated by months and sometimes years but still here you come. You see me from your car when hardly anyone ever sees me and you see that it’s raining and that I’m getting wet and you note that you are warm and dry in your car and you do it. You do the most decent thing that anyone will probably do anywhere in that day. You slow your car and you stop. You smile at me warmly and you wave me across.

But the light is still green.

You shouldn’t be stopped. You shouldn’t be waving me across the road.

The road to hell is paved (or, in this case, tarmacked) with good intentions.

You mean well, you mean the very best, but you have to become aware that with your kindness and good intentions you are possibly waving me onward to my doom. The light is still green and the cars behind you may not be able to go anywhere but the cars coming in the other direction see only the green light and they know nothing of me being waved warmly across the road.

You mean well but you are killing me.

At first, I smiled warmly at you and waved you onward. And you went, obviously baffled at my lack of acceptance of your kind offer. But, as time went on, and more and more of your lovely kind appeared, I became ever more frustrated and even angry. As with the non-stopping fools on their phones, I thought of the kid on his way home from school. I thought of you stopping and smiling and waving him out into the gloom and the faint glow of the green light. I thought of the car roaring the other direction, impervious to the child marching out into their path.

These days, when you stop on the green light and smilingly wave me across, I tend to back off as if you have attacked me. I tend to scowl and I try to look mean and upset. I don’t do this to be mean. You can’t hear me in your car and it would take too long for me to try to explain and I would probably terrify you if I tried to do so. All I can do is try to show some visible annoyance at your kind offer and hope against hope that you might suddenly realise why that might be. I don’t think I’ve ever succeeded in this.

So thank you Dear Nice Lady and Dear Kind Man. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and kindness and warmth. But please, don’t stop when you have a green light and please don’t wave me across. It may be the worst kindness you will ever do.

Have a nice day, though.

Thanks for seeing me there.

Dicing with Story – Joey the Bear and The Twenty First Apple


For the 9 to 12 year old 2018 Roolaboola ‘Dicing With Story’ session, we threw the Story Cubes and we got  an Apple, a Car, a Lock, a lightning bolt, and a Vampire. 

Godzilla also featured rather prominently in the story development process so we put him in too.

This is the story we all came up with.






Joey the Bear and The Twenty First Apple

Joey the Bear was actually Joey Smith but he called himself Joey the Bear because it really annoyed his mother. In fact, his mother secretly loved it but she knew if she told Joey that she loved it he would stop using it immediately so she didn’t.

Joey the Bear was very good at most things. He was lucky like that. He was good at school and good at sports and good at making jokes and good at being nice. Important things like that. But Joey the Bear had one problem, he wasn’t the best at anything. In fact, he was pretty much second best at everything.

Did you ever hear of anything quite like that? A guy who was second best at everything he did? Well that was Joey the Bear. His friends called him ‘Mister Second Best’ when they weren’t calling him ‘Joey the Bear’ and that made him sad and frustrated.

It wasn’t just one person who was the very best at all of the things. Several people were very good at things and each of them were number one in their own field. But when it came to school stuff, there was really only one guy. Miles Long was the best at everything in the school, homework, sport, punctuality, popularity… you name it, Miles Long was it.

And, yes, that really was his real name. Miles Long. He was quite short too. It was the kind of name that people would inevitably make fun of. Except they didn’t. Miles Long was just that kind of guy. You didn’t make fun of him.

Joey the Bear longed to come first at something in school just once and he was constantly on the lookout for some way to make this happen.

“Don’t worry about it,” his Mother used to say, “Also could you please stop calling yourself Joey the Bear?” As we know, she meant the first part but she didn’t really mean the second.

But Joey did worry about it. He didn’t really have any close ‘call-around-to-the-house’ type of friends so he spent quite a lot of time plotting and calculating how he could ever manage to be first, just once. He sat on the floor in his bedroom, in among his huge comic collection, and wondered how he could ever make his dream come true. Sometimes, on really bad days, he would even ask the heroes in his comics how they always managed to come first and whether they had any tips on how he might do the same. Sometimes it felt like the comic heroes were almost building up to giving him an answer but they never did.

Then the ‘Eat an Apple a Day’ challenge came along and it seemed to offer the perfect solution to Joey’s troubles. Miss Brody announced that March would be ‘Healthy Eating Month’ and that everyone who ate an apple at lunchtime in school every day would get a gold star on the chart on the wall and that the person with the most gold stars at the end of the month would be the winner and would receive two of Mr Brody’s most collectible comics as a surprise.

Nobody cared about wall charts or about gold stars. Those things were from the era of first and second class and were now things to be actively mocked and sneered at. But Mr Brody’s comics were another matter altogether. Mr Brody was married to Miss Brody who was only a ‘Miss’ to suit the conventions of the school. She was a ‘Mrs’ everywhere else. Mr Brody’s comics were legendary. He literally had everything. The two comics on offer to the winner of the ‘Eat an Apple a Day’ challenge were there on display in the classroom, right beside the dopey wall chart and its dopey gold stars. There was a superb edition of ‘Vampire Man’ from the early Nineties and, prize of prizes, there was a first edition ‘Beast from Beyond’ from the late Eighties. Vampire Man was pretty self-explanatory. He was a blood sucking beast who had vowed to fight crime after he was bitten by a bat and his coffin was stolen by mobsters. ‘The Beast from Beyond’ was a lot like Godzilla except his tail was shorter and he didn’t roar in Japanese.

Joey the Bear wanted those comics. He loved Vampire Man and he positively revered The Beast from Beyond. But more than all of that he wanted to come first. He wanted to win just once. To be honest, he didn’t really think he could win. Miles Long was just too good, too consistent.

But, here’s the thing: Joey the Bear thought he could probably achieve a draw.

All he had to do was eat an apple every day and, if he did that, he simply could not lose. The worst he could possibly do would be to come joint-first and joint-first was still first, wasn’t it? He and Miles Long would both be first and they would share the comics and he would no longer be Mister Second Best.

And you might well wonder what of the rest of the class. Couldn’t someone step up from their ranks and also become joint winner? Well, yes, of course that might happen but it really wasn’t terribly likely. The rest of the class were fine, in their way, but they didn’t really care about things like Apples or Comics or Coming First or even Second. They cared about things like Soccer and GAA and Girls and Non-Mainstream Rap Artists and Video Games.

It all came down to Miles Long versus Joey the Bear and the race was on.

Jump forward to the morning of 29th of March. It’s Friday and it’s the final day of the ‘Eat an Apple a Day Challenge’. Of course there are thirty-one days in March, we all know that, but the challenge could only be run over school days as Miss Brody could hardly be expected to call around to students' houses to see if they had eaten their daily apple on the weekends.

On the morning of 29th of March, Joey the Bear carefully packed his twenty first apple into his lunchbox and sealed the lid. This was quite a job in itself because the apple tended to sit up higher than the lid so that the lid sometimes bruised the apple and made it a little less appetising when lunch time came. That didn’t matter though, the apple had to be eaten and that was all there was to it.

It was a dark gloomy morning which promised a storm later. You could feel it in the air, tingling and simmering nervously. The lunchbox was packed in the schoolbag and the schoolbag was packed in the back of Mum’s brand-new second-hand car, which was her absolute pride and joy, and off they drove to school in the gradually deteriorating morning.

Everything was fine.

Except for one small thing, which was very much not fine.

In his push to get everything right, Joey the Bear had neglected to attend to one small detail. He had forgotten to fully zip up his school bag, which was effectively a small rucksack. And although the suspensions of his Mum’s brand-new second-hand car were very fine indeed, they did not prevent tiny road vibrations causing the lunchbox to slip out of the open rucksack and fall down behind the front passenger seat of the car.

When Mum parked in the disused car park on the hill, as she always did, Joey grabbed his bag and Mum grabbed her briefcase and off they went to school and work respectively, never guessing that Joey’s world was about to implode.

Joey sat at his desk and waited for his adversary to arrive. He gazed over at Mile Long’s empty desk and thought about how Miles was a cool kid really and how it was a shame that their unspoken combative relationship seemed to prevent them from being friends. He gazed at the desk until the roll was called and he gazed at the desk until the maths lesson began and he gazed at the desk until…

…until he suddenly realised with an electric shock to his system.

MILES LONG IS NOT IN.

But what wizardry was this? Miles Long was always in. He had a perfect attendance record where Joey only had a second-perfect one. Joey shot his hand in the air, interrupting some trigonometry.

“Miss.”

“Yes, Joey, what is it?”

“Miss… where’s Miles?”

“Miles is off sick today. His mother phoned in.” Miles’ Mother was friendly with Miss Brody and they talked often on the phone. Miss Brody looked at Joey and then suddenly realised the implication of this news, “Gosh, Joey, you might win.”

There was no ‘might’ about it. The rest of the class had fallen away in their usual show of apathy and world-weariness. There was only Miles and Joey and guess what?

MILES LONG WAS NOT IN.

Miss Body smiled benevolently at Joey and then continued with her explanation of what a triangle was. But Joey could not just sit and think about acute angles and obtuse angles. He shot his hand up into the sky again.

“Miss.”

“Yes, Joey.” The smile was perhaps not quite so benevolent this time.

“Miss. Please… could I eat my apple now?”

Miss Brogan’s mouth gathered itself into a strongly worded retort. But then she saw the little boy in front of her. The expectation on his face. The need to come first just once. Her nicer smile crept back.

“Eat it quietly, Joey, and keep paying attention and then, at break, you can collect your prize.”

“Thank you, Miss.”

Outside the storm was gathering itself to strike. You could feel it coming.

Joey lifted his rucksack up onto his desk. He noticed that the zipper on the lunchbox compartment was hanging open.

Outside the dark clouds flickered with lightning. A distant rumble of thunder.

Joey plunged his hand deep inside of the lunchbox compartment of his rucksack.

And, right then, the storm hit, in all its rage and power.

Joey the Bear’s Mum always liked parking in the deserted car park on the hill because it was like her little secret. It was close to the school and a good healthy walk to her work and nobody ever went there ever, which was admittedly a little strange.

By the time Joey the Bear ran back to the car he was soaked through and he was shivering uncontrollably. The storm was at its zenith as it roared and boiled around him. Of course the car was locked up tight. Mum always secured her most prized possession. Joey pulled and pulled on the door handles but there was no way in.

Looking around in a blind panic his eyes fell on an old wire coat hanger on the ground. He bent and picked it up. He had seen it on the telly once, a guy had opened a locked car with a coat hanger. He had eased the wire through a gap in the door window. But there was no gap in the door window. Mum would not leave any gaps in the windows of her most prized possession. Through the rear window, Joey could see his lunchbox peer out from behind the front passenger seat.

Joey’s rage and frustration spilled over to match the rage of the storm. He raised his arm to the skies and shouted his defiance to the fates that had driven him to this place. He actually saw, in his mind’s eye, the comics being blown away from his grasp.

The arm he raised held the coat hanger aloft. High into the sky it pointed, as the storm raged about him, on the highest point of the deserted car park on the hill, which was the highest point in the entire town.

“Vampire Man,” he cried, “Where are you now?”

The lightning was always going to strike.

To Joey the Bear, it felt as if he had been pushed hard by the world. He never saw the blue bolt shooting from the heavens and striking the tip of the wire coat hanger. He never felt himself drop senseless to the muddy earth.

All he knew was the darkness.

When he opened his eyes it was still dark. He was sheltered from the storm but he could still hear it rage outside.

Outside? Outside of what?

He reached out in the darkness. The ‘thing’ that enveloped him was silky and smooth beyond belief. Panicked, he thrashed against it, struggling to escape its embrace.

“Be easy my child.” The voice was silky like the cape. It was strong and sounded faintly Eastern European, like some of the better-looking girls in his class, “You have been burned by the sky and you are weak.”

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“You are where you were. I am who I was.”

Joey the Bear found a gap in the silky envelope and he crawled weakly out. He struggled to his feet, he was wobbly and sick and the palm of his hand burned. He turned to meet his saviour.

The man who stood before him was seven feet tall at least. He wore a huge black cape and his long hair was pushed back to reveal a prominent widow’s peak. His teeth were not teeth at all. They were fangs.

“Vampire Man?”

“I prefer Marius, for that is my name.”

“Marius Cazacu, bitten by a Vampire Bat in deepest Congo?”

The vampire bowed deeply.

“At your service.”

“But how…?”

“You have called to me many times before but the barriers between legend and reality are heavily policed. This storm allowed me to ‘slip through’.”

Joey looked down at his aching hand. It was red and raw and it hurt as much as anything ever could.

“Can you help me?”

“You need to obtain the fruit that is inside the carriage.”

“Yes.”

“Alas, I cannot help.”

“But…”

“I have tried, while you slept beneath my cape. I assumed the shape of a bat and flew through the engine but there is no way inside. Besides, I found I would have had to be invited in for this carriage is revered like a house.”

“Then I'm finished.”

“All is not lost. There is a comrade nearby who can surely help us but she will not come unless you call her again.”

“Who is she?”

The vampire smiled his dangerous smile. “Joey the Bear… you know who she is.

Joey did not think twice, he closed his eyes and wished for the Beast from Beyond.

There is an old saying that goes, “be careful what you wish for.” When Joey opened his eyes it was to see a vast taloned foot embedded in the car park mud in front of him. The claws were already sunk deep into the ground. Joey looked to his right and saw the other foot and leg at the far end of the car park. When he dared to look skyward, the green and yellow scaled form vanished into the low-lying clouds above long before arms or head could even be seen. The thing filled the earth and sky and all around.

Joey had almost forgotten about Vampire Man but now he spoke.

Kaiju or the Beast from Beyond, as you know her, will open up this box with a single tear of her claw and your goal will be returned to you. I need only say the word and it shall be done.”

Above him, Joey could hear the rough breathing of the Beast as it awaited the command.

Joey looked at Vampire Man, whose teeth were fearsome but whose eyes were strangely kind. Then he looked at his Mum’s beloved car, which she had struggled so long and worked so hard to finally get.

“No,” he said.

Vampire Man muttered a single phrase. It sounded to Joey like ‘Creatură fi Plecat’. The gargantuan foot suddenly hauled itself from the mud and withdrew. There was a distant crash as it put itself down again in the next parish. Kaiju was gone.

“Will she damage the town?” Joey asked.

“She steps with care.”

Joey looked around. The car was fine. His apple was still inside. The footprint in the mud was already filling in with water.

“What now?” he asked.

“Now,” the vampire said, as he passed his thin hand over Joey’s face, “I exhort you to sleep.”

When Joey woke up, he was on the ground beside his mother’s car. He was wet through and alone but the storm had passed. There was no sign of a mark on the ground. He made his weary way back to the school.

As he arrived at his classroom door, he felt quite good despite his aching hand. He had defended his Mum’s car, he had met his heroes in person, and he would still get to be joint first with Miles Long.

Things could have been so much worse.

Except they were.

Joey opened the door to his classroom to find only two people in there. It was lunchtime, after all. Miss Brogan was sitting behind her desk and there, down the classroom and sitting at his desk was the only other person in the room.

Miles Long.

In front of him, on his desk, sat a large red apple.

Joey could have passed out then and there. His disappointment was beyond description. He would not be joint first after all. He would be Mister Second Best, just like he always was.

But, just as his misery was about to overwhelm him, a memory came. A memory of a pale hand passing across his forehead, it’s touch as cool as a gravestone. The words spoken, “Sleep” but also something else, a final benediction just as he faded away, “Be Generous.”

Be Generous.

Joey the Bear walked to Miles’ desk and he extended his burned hand.

“You won,” he said, “fair and square. Congratulations.”

Miles Long looked as if he might cry.

“Miss Brody called my Mum, they’re friends you know. When I heard what happened to your apple, I had to come in even though I felt like crap.”

Mile took up the apple on his desk and handed it to Joey.

“I don’t understand.”

“Take a bite, Joey. You’ve earned it.”

The apple was sweet and crunchy and good.

Miss Brody appeared at Joey’s shoulder and laid the comics on the desk in front of him.

“Congratulations, Joey, you won.”

Some of the other students had come back in from break and they actually cheered when they saw that Joey had prevailed. It wasn’t a sneery cheer either. It wasn’t one that would be taken back later. It was for real.

Joey grinned at Miles.

“You could call around at the weekend and help me read these if you like.”

Miles grinned back.

“I’m feeling a bit sick but, yes, I’d actually like that a lot.”

“Great.”

“Now finish your apple.”

Joey bit down hard into the fruit. A trickle of sweet warm juice ran down his chin and onto his collar.

And somewhere, far away, a vampire smiled.

Dicing With Story - Fut and Cucaracha


Two weeks ago, I ran two story workshops for young people for the Linenhall Arts Centre 'Roolaboola' Children's Festival.

We used Rory's Story Dice to demonstrate the elements of a story and then we took one final throw of the dice and made up a story based on whatever the dice gave us. The dice gave us a Foot and an Eye and a Cockroach and a Book and a House. As ever, I am amazed at the ingenuity and invention of our young folk. 

This is the story we all came up with. Full credit to my co-writers will follow shortly, both here and on The Linenhall Website. 


Fut and Cucaracha

Once upon a time…

No, wait, I don’t want to say ‘Once Upon a Time’ because then people will think this is a fairy story when, in fact, it is a story of gained mutual respect and co-operation. 

So, what shall I say?

Let’s try ‘Last Year’.

Last year…

But no. If I start the story with ‘Last Year’, and somebody finds it and reads it in fifty years’ time, will they be confused? Will they wonder if ‘Last Year’ means ‘Last Year’ or if it means ‘Last Year, Fifty Years Ago’?

I can see why people use ‘Once Upon a Time’.

Okay…

Once upon a time, in a decidedly un-enchanted forest just outside of Cong, in County Mayo, there lived a Fut. If you stand on the topmost roof of Ashford Castle and strain a bit, you can still see the Fut’s house. It is surrounded by trees and the trees are surrounded by fields. So next time you’re up on the roof of Ashford Castle, look north and scrunch up your eyes really tight and you’ll see the Fut’s House.

“Wait,” I hear you cry, which is odd because my computer speakers are turned right down, “we don’t care where the Fut lives or how to see his house. What on earth is a Fut?

Good question.

A Fut is a creature which is mostly comprised of one eye and one foot. Yes, it has a brown squidgy mass around its tummy to hold these two organs together but that is often disregarded. If you met a Fut on the High Street (unlikely) it would be the large green eye and the huge scaly foot that you would remark on first. The brown hairy bit in the middle would go largely unremarked-upon.

I hear your next question. I must get these speakers looked at. “How does the Fut eat?” “How does the Fut get around?’ “How does the Fut this? How does the Fut that?”

Yes, yes, only this is not a Fut biology lesson, it is the story of The Fut and the Cucaracha. We could jump down a rabbit hole of Fut physiology and, interesting and all as it might be, it would not get us to the story, the crux of the matter.

Let it suffice, then, to say that the Fut hops about the place and eats by shoving things up the gap between its upper eyeball and its upper eyelid. We will not discuss the function of the lower eyelid at this juncture because I’ve just had a sausage sandwich and frankly I’m not up to it.

So, yes, the Fut lived in the house which was surrounded by trees which was in turn surrounded by fields and it was very very happy. It watched Netflix with the sound turned down and did a sort of hopping Pilates to keep itself in trim. Life was good in that spectacularly un-enchanted wood near Ashford Castle in Cong.

Until the Cucaracha came along.

Everything changed when the Cucaracha came along and not for the better either.

The Cucaracha came out of the un-enchanted forest one fine morning and she liked the look of the Fut’s house and she decided, there and then, that she would stay. She was really just an ordinary common cockroach like the one you might find under the sink… or is that just me?

That’s just me, isn’t it?

Let’s move quickly along.

This ordinary cockroach had heard something somewhere. Probably up at Ashford Castle but you didn’t hear me say that. She had heard that the Spanish word for Cockroach was Cucaracha and she liked that. She has also heard a tune about a Cucaracha and it was very rhythmic and catchy so she decided to make it her theme tune. It’s the kind of a tune you might hear on ‘Strictly come Dancing’ on the nights when they all wear multi-coloured pom-poms up their arms. The rhythm to the tune goes dah-dah-daah-dah DAH, dah-dah-daah-dah- DAH.

“Why is he telling us all of this?” I hear you cry. The answer is simple. This is the crux of the matter. The Cucaracha and her dance/walk is the reason we are all here, telling and listening and reading.

Allow me to explain.

Please, allow me.

Every morning, at 5.30am, the little Cucaracha took its morning run. Okay, not quite a run, more of a scuttle. And she did it on the concrete footpath that ran right around the Fut’s house.

Every morning, hail, rain or snow, the Fut was rudely awakened by the Cucaracha scuttling around his house to the Strictly Pom-Pom rhythm of dah-dah-daah-dah DAH, dah-dah-daah-dah DAH.

It drove him completely loopy.

Every morning, the Fut ran out and tried to stamp on the Cucaracha with its one big foot but the little bug was too brittle and the foot too soft and scaly to exact any damage at all.

And so the Fut’s nightmare continued every day. Interrupted sleep, endless rhythmic scuttling. We have to feel sorry for the poor Fut, I think.

But the Fut was a vengeful beastie in his own way. He ordered a book on Amazon Prime which was called ‘How to Kill a Cucaracha if You are Only a Foot’. To be honest, it seemed right up his street. The book came and the Fut started to read it.

‘Wait’, I hear you cry, ‘Stop, Cease, Desist’. The Fut is only an Eye and a Foot with a hairy bit in the middle. How can he find a book and order it and take delivery of it? How can he do all these things?

All right, all right, I’ll take a moment and explain.

Not many people know that Amazon Prime has a Morse Code service where you can order things via the medium of Morse Code. The Fut blinked his order in Morse code into his computer with his one massive eye and the book arrived by next day delivery. Amazon Prime also have a ‘First Page’ offer where they not only deliver the book but they also unpack it for you and leave it open to the first page. It’s a service for extremely lazy people and it costs a packet but it also happened to suit the Fut very well. He got the book and there it lay on his carpet, open to page one.

He started to read, with his one good eye.

Page One said the following:

HERE IS HOW TO KILL A COCKROACH IF YOU ARE ONLY A FUT.

Then it said the following:

PLEASE TURN OVER TO PAGE TWO.

That’s all it said.

The Fut tried to turn the page over but he couldn’t. The Fut’s foot was not agile enough for the task and his eye was worse than useless. The information he needed to kill the dratted Cucaracha was probably on the very next page but it might as well have been a million miles away on the planet Foozebod.

The Fut took his one good eye and he wept. He wept from frustration and from sadness and from a profound lack of early morning sleep.

As he wept, his front door opened a tiny bit and the Cucaracha scuttled in with her little dah-dah-daah-dah DAH rhythm. She had heard the Fut crying and had become concerned. The Fut had his back to her and she wondered what to do because she knew that The Fut really just wanted to squish her.

As she wondered, she spied the book on the floor and she read the first page with interest. Here was useful information for her. If she knew how a Fut might kill a Cucaracha like herself then she could possibly devise a defence against it.

She stuck her little cockroach-horns behind page one and she flipped over to page two.

The Fut heard the page turn and turned himself. Here was the dratted Cucaracha, sitting on the page of the book reading. The Fut blinked. All he had to do was kick the heavy book shut with his Fut foot and that would be the end of the dratted Cucaracha. His turmoil would finally be over.

He hopped to the side of the book and prepared to deliver the final blow.

But wait…

The page had turned… to PAGE TWO.

How had that happened? The Fut paused. He so wanted to squish the Cucaracha but… but... PAGE TWO looked so interesting and inviting.

He started to read instead.

Side by side, the Fut and the Cucaracha sat and read PAGE TWO. The Fut had never seen the second page of a book before. It was really quite interesting. When they were finished, the Cucaracha did her little horn trick and flipped the page to PAGE THREE and on they read. And on and on until the failing light meant that even The Fut’s large eye could not continue.

Then they both laid down and slept. They slept so long that Cucaracha turned its early morning scuttle into a mid-morning scuttle and that allowed the Fut to catch up on some much needed shut-eye

‘See what I did there? ‘Shut Eye’? Oh, never mind.

And that is how they became friends. All through the evenings, they read together until the light dimmed. They read all the books that The Fut ordered on Amazon Prime by Morse Code and which the Cucaracha never could. The Cucaracha earned her keep by turning the pages, which the Fut never could.

They read all the Harry Potters and all the Twilights and then moved on to some classics like Pride and Prejudice and Moby Dick.

They read and they slept and they were company for each other and a help to each other throughout the rest of their days.

And they all lived…

No, wait, I don’t want to say ‘They all lived happily ever after’ because then people will think this is a fairy story when, in fact, it is a story of gained mutual respect and co-operation.

So, what shall I say?

I know. I’ll just say…


...The End.