Accident Prone

Funny or not? Post a comment and tell me......

I sat, blankly sipping a cup of coffee that I detested so strongly. Glancing expertly up, I stealthily made my way to the kitchen. My wife was still busy at the terrace, tending and talking to the plants. With a mischievous smile somewhat like that of a child who has laid a whoopee cushion on a seat, I poured the coffee into the sink and washed it down. I loudly kept the cup down, hoping my wife would hear it.

“Martha, dear, I’ve finished my cup of coffee!” I called up. Down came the answer with which I was not at all pleased.

“I won’t believe a single word of it till I see the cup.”

I proudly held my cup up for inspection. After peering at it for a while, she said:

“Well, Robert. You’ve finished your first cup of coffee.” She said so warmly that it made me feel guilty. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it. And-”she halted for a second, glancing out of a window, “I reckon it’s time for your walk. You did say that you wanted to walk after sunset, didn’t you?”

I nodded quickly, pulled on my overcoat and hurried out the door. Everything was dark and blurry.

“Durned sun,” I said grumpily, “Why can’t you stay up a bit longer?” I would have to talk to Titan Eye+ about this. Their glasses didn’t work in the dark….well, they hadn’t even informed me about that.

“Honey!” Martha called. “You forgot your glasses again.”

Ah, yes, that must be it. I stumbled towards the house, reached for my spectacles, and put them on. Everything was a lot clearer, yet the glasses felt strange upon my nose. The shape seemed different too.

“Oh dear. Robert. You’ve worn the glasses upside down now. Must I tell you everything?” she said, quite indignantly.

Without an answer, I stepped forward, entering the relatively populated colony next to us. I greeted the watchmen (who smirked), and stepped in as dramatically as a rock would have. Nobody turned around and gasped in astonishment. Ah well, I thought. I guess that’s what you get for being a commoner. With a great sigh, I took a step forward, slipped and fell on my face.

Now everyone turned around and started laughing. Crazy kids. Why don’t they have the milk of human sympathy? They could at least have cleaned up whatever I tripped on, just to make sure nobody else suffers the same fate. I gingerly picked myself up, and scanned the area around me to see what sort of debris I had slipped on.

It then hit me that I had tripped on my own leg. That’s all right. It happens to all people above the age of seventy, right? Yet the fact that I was still forty remained strong in my head. I sat down at a bench a couple of meters away from the children. Filled with relief at my resting point, I realized that the dust in the area would make me sneeze.

Too late. The children immediately looked around to see which type of airplane had just crash-landed in their colony. Mothers rushed out of their houses as if on cue, slipping of H1N1 masks on each of their children, then returned to their houses, staring at me fearfully as if I were a monster. One went as far as to drag her child indoors to tell him that I was probably some sort of nutcase who hadn’t taken a Swine Flu test yet. Except in more polite words, but that was the main idea.

I shook my head. The parents were role models for children. How could they behave like that? I walked ahead with the speed of an injured snail, and managed to stub my toe on a tree trunk before I began the upslope to leave the colony that I found so evil now.

I bid farewell to the guards, ducked under a lonely tree branch, and failed to notice the vibrantly coloured gate right in front of me. The resulting clattering sent a flock of birds soaring into the sky, and the watchmen to my side. I occasionally lost my footing or hit my head on a tree branch, but I returned home without much pain, except for a sprained ankle I got when dodging a bush.

“So how was it, dear?” asked my wife.

“A lot worse than today morning.”

“I should think so. After all, you forgot your shoes in the darkness. You left off without a word, so I couldn’t tell you.”

I decided then and there not to go for a walk after sunset.