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Feabhra / February

A little February fiction based on a radio phone-in caller ///

I will never answer the door again after what happened this morning. There was a frenzied banging on the door. Sure enough, I opened it. There stood the sort of person I dread, lots of polyester, triple-jabbed and that ‘look’ that comes from watching sky news and cnn.

“Are you alright?” he says.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“have you got a problem?”

“No.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Is there something wrong with you?” I enquired.

He spoke in bullet points:

• “It’s broad daylight.”
• “You have a light on in your house.”
• “Switch it off.”

Now, most people would be surprised if that happened but not me. In life I get people ‘coming at me’ all the time, and in this case it was because of a decorative light bulb at the back of the living room, the type you see in coffee shops. Our hero had been driving past and seen it.

“Friend, that bulb draws only two milliwatts and I use it on a timer and it would take a thousand years to use one unit of electricity.”

• “Don’t get smart with me.”
• “Switch it off.”
• “Switch it off or I will.”

(Jabbing his finger at me.)

“you’ll have to kill me first” I replied.

• “Switch it off.”
• “Switch it off.”

“Yes you clearly lack even the most basic understanding of electricity. I will decline” I politely closed the door. He burst through it. There was a scuffle. I punched him to the ground fifty or sixty times but each time he would spring back up as if nothing had happened. And this was an old-timer not Greta’s generation. With, I suspect, a lot of time on his hands. He forced his way into the house. But as he approached the floor lamp he fled in terror, whooping and screeching, back into his car and whizzing away towards the next village. So what happened? An electric shock? Well, right there by the lamp is a full length mirror. I think what happened was that he saw his reflection.

Epilogue

Well, if isn't one thing it’s another. I am heartily sick of these randomers coming to my home. From now on I’m not opening the door to them. These people are all the same. Mainstream media have a lot to answer for.

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