JG's Pages for Poets  ( and the occasional prose)

Page No S11

A second, short, short story from GORDON LINNELL

MRS McRUNT GOES TO THE PARK

   The sun poured forth from a uniformly jet-black sky as Mrs McRunt made her way slowly across the park lawn; she needn't have hurried - her favourite seat by the lake was vacant. She sat down.

   Mrs McRunt was a short woman, some six feet tall, thin but of very ample, quite matronly figure. She had come to the park for the usual purpose - to count her apple. She took it out from the pocket of her overcoat, polished it vigorously and regarded it fondly. Then she began:

   "One!"

And again:

   "One!"

A duck carrying a cricket bat waddled up from the lake and looked at her curiously.

   "One!" she exclaimed and the duck, choosing to ignore her now, practised an immaculate forward defensive stroke.

   Some children passed, carrying Ashanti spears.

   "One!" said Mrs McRunt.

   "What are you doing?" asked a little girl with a long drooping moustache.

   "I'm counting my apple," replied Mrs McRunt amiably, a degree of annoyance apparent in her tone.

   "Do you need any help?" asked a boy of about eight, his knees liberally coated in beetroot juice.

   "Go and jump in the lake!" said Mr McRunt with a smile. The boy leapt into the water crying "Vive la France!" and drowned.

   The rest went on their merry way, harpooning an old Chinaman emerging from the refreshment pavilion with a Kit-Kat.  Mrs McRunt ignored his screams and returned to her favourite occupation.

   "One!" she said. And again:

   "One!"

   A naked policeman came by cheerily, stopping by the lake to force a Fyffe's banana up his posterior, whooping with delight as he did so.

"One!" said Mrs McRunt, quite oblivious.

   A distant clock struck two and night fell on the park. Mrs McRunt thought of the scrumptious breakfast of frogspawn and marzipan that waited her back home. She counted her apple for the final time. Then she rose from her seat, replacing her cherished Golden Delicious in her overcoat pocket. What a wonderful day it had been.

   And many such days went blissfully by. Mrs McRunt cared not a jot if any insolent squirrel should point at her and laugh or if any rabbit should hurl its dung in her direction. Over and over again she counted her  beloved apple.

   "One!" And again: "One!" Yet again: "One!"

   But gradually her apple began to lose its full-blown appearance. It became, slowly but surely, older, lined, shrivelled and wizened and Mrs McRunt had to face the inevitable - her apple was going to die.

   And one appalling Sunday morning, after Mrs McRunt had hurried downstairs to check on the condition or her adored fruit, she had to come to terms with the hideous truth.  Her apple had passed away. She collapsed to the floor in inundations of lachrymose grief.

   "Oh no!" she lamented loudly, "my apple, my lovely, lovely apple is dead!"

   She staggered into the kitchen where she found and old PG tips box in a cupboard. She carefully placed her deceased apple into it. Then, with her trusty Bolivian shovel she began to dig a hole in the corner of her garden. When it was big enough she lowered the box into it, weeping copiously once more. She filled the top of the hole with soil and placed a small wooden cross into it. Then she sang soulfully four verse of "Praise My Soul The King Of Heaven" in Portuguese.

Following this the chorus of her garden gnomes, conducted in an impassioned manner by their mistress, hummed Albinoni's Adagio. Three Eskimos, watching from over the garden fence, respectfully lowered their blubber sandwiches from their mouths and bowed their heads.

   The next day Mrs McRunt went again to the park and sat on her usual lakeside seat.  She looked up at the grey-black heavens and wailed piteously:

"None!, None!, None!"