The Queue

There was only Mrs Brown and the vicar from St Martin sin front of me so it shouldn’t have taken long to get what I wanted. I could have them without gift wrapping, that would save a bit of time as I didn’t want to be late for the match at the Karl Marx snooker club.

      I tried not to listen to what they asked for, it was none of my business but what would a vicar be wanting at this time of night and why hadn’t he gone straight to the event horizon anyway instead of here at the five corner shop?

      ‘I’ll just take a sermon today please Mr Patel, if that is your pleasure’ said the vicar irritably. I think he was a little cross with himself, which he wore on a silver chain, bouncing against his chest, with his belly shelfing enough to catch it if the chain broke and choked the monkey.

      ‘Mounted, rev?’ asked the shop keeper.

      ‘Always, it wouldn’t do to hide our lamp under a bushel would it?’

      ‘Err, whatever, that’ll be thirty five beatitudes Mate.’

      ‘Bless you my son,’

      ‘I haven’t sneezed yet, your Grace.’

      ‘Well, just keep it in your bushel until you need it then. Thank you. I’ll wish you a very good night Mr Patel.’

      ‘Any indulgences today, your Eminence?

      ‘Not a chance’ said Reverend Bishop, as he stomped off up the Mount to deliver his sermon on horseback.

            ‘Hi there Mrs Brown, we ain’t seen you around here for a while have we? I hopes you ‘aven’t been disloyal, doing your shopping at nouns-R-us or up at that new gerund place?’

            ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t do that, it’s just that I haven’t been too good lately, I’m a slave to me bunyan so I haven’t been making much progress recently, just a pilgrim through life making do with adverbs, and treating myself to the odd coincidence on Sundays.’

            ‘Only teasing Mrs Brown, what can I get you this evening?’

            ‘I think I’ll try two wins and a coincidence please.’

            ‘Any special medium you prefer?’

            ‘No, I don’t really do paranormal, just standard is fine.’

            ‘OK, I’ll just drop a little telepathy in the brown paper bag then, OK?’

            ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have said that, it’s really not necessary.’

            ‘I know, but I do enjoy a spot of telekinesis, BBC2 mainly’

            ‘And what’s wrong with Emmerdale then?’

            ‘Well it’s not Corrie is it and it never has that nice prof Brian Cox in it.’

            ‘That’s ‘cos he’s a physicist.’

            ‘Could still leave BBC2 now and then couldn’t he, even if he is a necromancer. There’s no art blacker than Emmerdale to my mind.’

            ‘OK then, I’ll arrange it for you, but it will cost extra you know, plus tax..’

            ‘That’s fine, just take it out of my paradocs’

            ‘OK, see ya Mrs Brown.’

            ‘’Night Mr Patel, see you next week.’

It was now my turn but, before I had a chance to step up to the plate, a saucer landed just in front of me and demanded the cup that it had just one so where was it? Mr Patel had to admit that he had swatted it, thinking it was a fly. It was not one of the main characters in the film, just an extra…terrestrial. I knew then that I would have to charge him with cuppable homicide.

            Swatting flies soon becomes a habit with anyone who lives here in Cue. The town makes its living from exporting flies and dust by rail to Meekatharra and then on to Perth. You can’t see the flies for dust of course. The gold mines closed at the end of the war. A few men work at the Crosslands iron ore mine to the west. So iron or flies and dust just provide a living for this forgotten town of 328 people.

            ‘G’Day Bruce’ I said to Mr Patel as I arrested him.

            ‘Should get your shopping done before you arrest me, mate,’ he said – always the salesman.

            ‘Ok, I’ll take an infundibulum then, I don’t want to be late for the barbie do I?’

            ‘D’ya want the chronosynclastic or the antediluvian model?’

            ‘I’ll take the chronos, don’t try and fob me off with one of those old models that don’t work during the Wet. Can you deliver it to the snooker hall for me?’

            ‘No worries, mate,’ said Mr Patel as he struggled to rain in his sled dog.

            ‘Woooof,’ coughed the dog who was feeling a bit husky and a little horse.

            ‘Could you throw in a paradox please, I don’t think Occam is on duty tonight?’

            ‘OK, mate, that’ll be twenty seven dollars but, of course, it will all be free.’

Excellent service I thought, right on cue.

            I looked out the door to see if Mrs Brown’s coincidence had turned up yet. She had. ‘How nice to see you Mrs Brown,’ said Lydia. ‘I havent seen you for years. I didn’t know you lived here, you were the last person I expected to meet. How is your daughter doing, I believe she went off to Perth to marry that nice miner? How long ago was that? Must have been just after my second operation…’

I walked up Main Street after dropping Bruce off at the sheriff’s office to be charged, he was getting a little dim. The snooker hall was on the Left and the barbie was just being lit in the fire pit.

            That was my cue from the infundibulum, which had clearly done its job well, to join the queue to use the only available cue in Cue to take my shot before heading off down the pit to the barber queue for a shave, a horse burger and a cold tinnie.

Cue house lights and curtain.

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