PREFACE

A terrible suicide or accident or whatever it was leaves a Government minster very dead indeed...

The undecided deity, known in his region of Somewhere Above as Dingleboot, nodded his head in the direction of his pupil in the sort of way that will make any deity seem sage and wise and all things wholesome.

“I watched it happening,” he said, and that voice, so infinitely sensible and filled with guileless beauty, resonated in the cabin he called Heaven until the windows shook.

“Oh Master, would that I had been there,” replied the pupil, weeping at his loss.

“Look at this, then,” invited Dingleboot wafting a sheet of ethereal paper in front of the elderly lad, “take this facsimile of one of their newspapers and read for yourself, and by read I mean absorb. Soak up the emotion. Melt into the meaning. Be philosophical.”

“You are awesome,” sighed the pupil, and he took the facsimile copy of the Daily Mail from the deity’s hands and opened it on page three.

“Dang!” he exclaimed, “there’s nothing of interest on this page...”

“Look at the bottom,” advised Dingleboot, “can’t you see the article in tiny print, and don’t forget that tiny print means more words...”

“Ah. The one headed MINISTER OF PUBLICITY DIES? This one?” and he pointed to an outrageously compacted article almost invisible to the naked eye.

“That’s the one, lad,” nodded the sage and wonderful deity, “now you read that while I take a leak.”

He stood up and made his way to the smallest room in the cabin whilst the pupil screwed his eyes up and concentrated on the article in question.

“By your correspondent on the spot, he read, “last evening when it was time for the pubs to empty and people to make their slovenly way back to their beds where they might find the luxury of sleep or any other nocturnal activity that takes their fancy, Mrs Edna Tomkins, Minister of Publicity in the present government passed away in the most extraordinary way. She climbed onto the roof of the ancient castle ruins in Barney and started screaming, and as I was there, on the spot so to speak, I can render to you a little more than the mere gist of what she proclaimed, and I say that because other news outlets will only be able to provide a deserving public with the gist seeing as they weren’t there.

“’Pay attention you w***e-mongers,’ she bellowed in that loud and raucous voice we’ve all got so fond of, and the corners of her lips dipped so low it looked as though she may have chewed intensively on an unripe lemon before shouting, ‘pay attention, I say!’

“A crowd soon gathered, a mighty crowd of revellers as well as more serious folk, and they stared with disbelief when they realised that even in the dim moonlight of a night like that they could quite clearly see up her skirt, and the murmur you might expect from revellers became a deadly hush.

“’I am going to ascend to Heaven because I’ve been a deceiving and lying old tart,’ announced the Minister, “I am going to mount yon spike until I reach the top, and you will know by my actions that I am nearer to God than any of you lot, for my life is worthless and I see that now, and any life stripped of value might as well not exist.’”

“I see you’re enjoying it, my son,” interrupted Dingleboot, zipping up his flies with a dexterous flick of one hand, “it’s quite moving, I think you’ll find, quite disturbing, brings tears to the eyes.”

“Let me finish it, then sir,” replied the pupil, annoyed at being interrupted.

“Go ahead,” smirked his deity.

“Then I observed the elevated lady start climbing the ancient flag pole that rose from the centre of the ruins. I fear you may think I am exaggerating, but I fool you not, what I am about to write is one hundred per cent fact, as I alone of all newsmen witnessed the disaster that was about to unfold.

“I watched as Mrs Tomkins started to climb the pole. Using he knees and feet to slowly hitch herself up, she began ascending towards the very Heavens themselves, squawking every so often when a splinter of wood from the ancient pole jammed itself into her ministerial flesh. A flurry of breeze caught her magnificent skirt and lifted it well into the air, and a mighty gasp from the crowd indicated that every man, woman, and child noticed the hugeness of the lady’s bloomers.

“Then, when it seemed she could go no higher, and looking for all the world liker a gigantic spider clawing desperately for more air, she tried to stand, arms waving in what I took as an uncontrolled gesture, on the spike that was the top of the flag pole. But it was beyond her skill, and with a shriek that echoed round the town square and through the walls of the ruined castle, she slid slowly down that pole, one leg on each side of it as she went.

“The scream the split the air when the pointy bit did its inevitable thing with her more intimate parts was dreadful to hear, and the crowd was deadly silent with expectation.

“She could only slide so far back down, impaled as she was, before the rules of friction verses gravity took over, and with the life forced from her by the dreadful spike, she hung in mid-pole like a dancer frozen for all time in a broken strip of film on an old-time screen.

“It took some hours for the emergency services to recover her, and in that time the curious crowd melted away, jabbering to their hearts’ content at the tragedy that they had witnessed.”

The pupil looked at the deity and there were tears in his eyes. “What a way to go,” he whispered.

Dingleboot nodded his head. “Indeed, what a way to go,” he sighed, “but you’ll be pleased that this is not the end of the story. It was Kant, the great German philosopher, who suggested that it is the human mind creates the structure of human experience, and that being the case the human mind must go to wherever it is that Kant’s words may be heard.”

“Is there such a place?” asked an incredulous pupil.

The undecided deity laughed long and loud before answering that question. “Of course there is, my son,” he boomed until the Rafters rattled, “and as chance would have it that place is called Kantaberry, and it has crossed my mind that it would be a very wise deity who contrived to get all who put an influence on the deceased Minister to travel there, and tell their stories so that we can decide which one of them was so malign, so blindingly and stonkingly malign, as to sow the seed of destruction in the dead woman’s head.”

“You mean there is so evil an individual?” asked the pupil, “I would have thought that such an action would require the input of an army of gainsayers!”

The deity shook his head. “Nay,” he grinned, “it takes but an acorn to produce an oak tree. Mark this well as you discover what happened next.

“There is a group of people, none of them previously knowing any of their number, all strangers to each other, and they are travelling towards Kantaberry. But before they get there they pause for the night in an inn where they get talking to each other.

“Mark well their stories, my son, mark well.”

© Peter Rogerson 19.09.18

Reviews

[Great Aunt Astri]

Oh I would say this story has great potential. A lot of 'truths' can be told in a tongue-in-cheek fictitious tale. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry about poor Mrs Tompkins ... ouch! I love the 'parody' on the Canterbury tales and look forward to reading some of the stories told in the Inn.

[Peter Rogerson]

I feel you will get a more cert
ain opinion of Edna Tomkins as the story progresses. After all, she's a politician.