'Ropes' entered the room through the front door, and found Gordon and Borstal arguing loudly.
"It's a plum!" screamed Gordon.
"It's a bloody nectarine!" Borstal yelled back.
"It's a large plum! Any fool can see that!"
"It's a nectarine! I've never heard of anyone who can't tell the difference between plums and nectarines!"
"Nor had I until this moment! Now unless you concede that it's a plum, I'm going to give you a thick ear!"
'Ropes' decided this was a good moment to intercede. "Fellows," he said, although Gordon and Borstal were both female, "I can see what's happening here. You're both hallucinating and each imagine that you're seeing a slightly different kind of fruit. In fact, there's nothing there at all."
"Oh," said Gordon, calming down. "That does explain a lot. So who are you, anyway?"
"I'm 'Ropes', and this is my house," said 'Ropes'.
"No, this is my house," said Borstal. "Perhaps you're hallucinating and seeing your house instead of mine?"
"I suppose that would explain why my house is in a different town to the one it was in this morning," conceded 'Ropes', sitting down in an armchair. "What's on telly?"
"A programme about Greek table tennis stars," said Gordon, sitting down in the same armchair, with some difficulty. "There's no way to change the channel on this kind of television, so that's the only thing we can watch."
Borstal picked up a hammer and started smashing the coffee table to pieces.
"Perhaps we could listen to the radio instead?" 'Ropes' suggested.
"Nothing on it but the same programme about Greek table tennis stars, only without pictures," said Gordon, quite loudly so as to be heard over the sounds of hammering and splintering wood.
"Still sounds better than the telly," said 'Ropes', going over to the washing machine and turning it on.
"That's the toaster," said Gordon. "You're hallucinating and believe it to be the radio."
"Why do they call you 'Ropes'?" asked Borstal, suddenly. "Is it because you're not a human being, but a collection of ropes knotted together and able to move around and talk by some means beyond my understanding?"
"No, that's just a funny coincidence," said 'Ropes'. "They started calling me 'Ropes' before they'd seen what I'm composed of, and still assumed me to be a human being. I acquired the nickname because of sausages."
"Oh, the coffee table's broken!" Borstal lamented. "I was going to put coffee on it!"
"There's no such thing as coffee," said Gordon. "You must have hallucinated it."
1 comment:
That's great! Strange and great! You should write more stuff like this!
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