Exercises
Last Exit to Melbourne. Or something like that.
Last Exit to Melrinua
Melrinua was the last stop on my route. It was the place every delivery man hated to end up, and just outside the city limits there was a place we all knew about where there was a big pile of parcels where past deliveries had been dumped. Easier just to throw your packages there and let the shuffling little dark men of Melrinua sort it out for themselves. There wouldn’t be any compliants. But sometimes I was feeling generous, and I’d just been dumped by a cute brunette, so I thought what the hll and spurred my glodbeast past the pile, over the last ridge and down into the city.
It was getting late, and if I hadn’t been a delivery man I would have been fair game until I’d made it to Sanctuary. The big brown leather sacks hanging off my glodbeast were like a beacon to the Melrinuans though. Nobody messed with the guy who brought the packages.
by Peter Gifford
Last Exit to Melbourne
He bowed and turned to leave, coat tails flapping. Small applause from the little group huddled in the cold, trailing off to nothing. Then silence.
Then a snicker.
From the almost closed front door came the question:
“Who snickered?”
“No-one”, they cried in horror fearing his reappearance but it was too late. In he came. Audible sigh from the group; someone whispered:
“That’s the eleventh encore!”
The Miller, eager to grab every last morsel of attention before his eagerly anticipated last exit to Melbourne, swept back in. Top hat and tails swishing around the little throng. They sucked in their breath as one. He swept his eyes over them all before hat off and a long bow, his forehead grazing the floor.
Sporadic clapping, then silence.
Someone’s stomach growled, more claps.
Then one clap.
And then a little fart.
His smile vanished, he turned and swept out, lips pursed. The door making a precise ‘snick’ behind him for the very last time.