*
“Why did the slug go parachute jumping?” Bert asked Fred..
“I don’t know,” Fred answered, staring up at the sky, thinking about it.
“To see the world beneath his feet, of course,” Bert replied, chuckling heartily over his joke.
“But slugs don’t have feet?”Fred protested.
“Shush, he hasn’t copped on yet!" Bert warned him. "I’m making a whole lot of money bringing him up there in my plane!”
I am so Forlorn
Rich slug, poor slug, fat slug, thin,
I am a slug that just cannot fit in,
To categorising, following the norm,
I was born with a shell; I am so forlorn!
Do not be upset, said a stranger to me,
Look at me, she said. Pray tell what you see,
I see a slug with a shell, but how can that be?
I am a snail, she replied, and so are you – can you see?
Yes, I replied, this is true – I can see!
The what and the wherefore are included, said she,
Come slime down the path; forget slugs and their ways,
Snails on life’s journey, together each day.
Myles Gets His Comeuppance
Myles was a slug, and I emphasise WAS, because he is no more. You see, he got his comeuppance. Let me explain...
My story begins long, long ago, a full three months previous.
“Morning, mum,” Myles sang out, one wonderfully damp, drizzly cold morning.
“Good morning, Myles,” his mother replied. “What has you so chirpy, apart from the fine day that is?”
“I don’t know,” her son replied. Mulling it over, he added, “Perhaps it’s because...”
“Because – what?” she asked, her head nudging a half-rotten cabbage leaf in his direction.
“You will think me silly...” he mumbled, eyeing the dainty morsel with some considerable delight.
“I will if you don’t eat your breakfast,” she chided, nudging the leaf closer to him.
Taking a bite out of the decaying leaf, Myles said, “When I awoke this morning...”
“Yes?”
“I thought, I somehow knew – and I have absolutely no idea why – this is the day I leave home. Taking another mouthful of cabbage, he chomped away quite happily on it, then said, “Does this make any sense to you, mum?”
Smiling, tears of slime running freely down her slippery brown face, his mother said, “My child is all grown up!”
Later on, after he had finished his fine meal, Myles said, “Well, they say there’s no time like the present, so I’d better be off.”
“But where are you going?” his mother asked. “There is so much danger out there, in the garden.”
Laughing it off, her son replied, “Danger is my middle name!”
“Now, you will stay in the garden, won’t you?” she asked. “If you enter the street, outside, it will mean almost certain death, so fast a place that it is!” she warned.
“Don’t worry; I am only going into the garden,” he replied. “I am sure there will be more than enough adventure for me, there.”
“You will write?” she asked anxiously as he began sliming away from her.
“I would if I had hands to write with,” he replied, laughing. “But since I don’t, I will not.”
“I will be so lonely without you...”
“You still have the rest of your children,” he replied, “all four hundred and ninety-three of them.”
Nodding, she said, “Yes, I do, but I will still miss you. The hovel will seem empty without you.”
“Thanks, mum, that was a nice thing to say, however, my time is up, I am away.”
Dolefully accepting her son’s imminent departure, his mother said, “Here, take this.” She nudged a shoulder bag in his direction.
Curiously eying it, he asked, “What’s in it?”
“A radish,” she replied. “I was saving it for Christmas, but since you won’t be here, you can take it along with you, to sustain you on your journey.”
Poking his head into the bag, inhaling the fine smell of rotting radish, Myles said, “Thanks mum, I will remember you with each and every bite I take from it.” Slipping his head through the strap, he picked up the bag and set off on his travels.
For more than an hour, young Myles slimed his way through garden, past beds of fine dahlias, expanses of green sward glistening brightly with dew, gnomes scary and intimidating, and vegetables tender and succulent. Then he saw it, the gate, Myles spotted the gate leading onto the street...
“Wow!” Myles exclaimed, the instant he poked his head under the gate. “Mum was right; it sure is busy out here!” The street was a hive of activity, with cars, vans, lorries and buses speeding along it, all of them vying for space on the crowded thoroughfare.
Ignoring his mother’s advice to stay in the garden, Myles slimed his way under the gate, onto the path. The path was almost as busy as the street, with a multitude of people making their way along it.
There were men and women, and boys and girls, but not one of them noticed the slug, below. As if to enforce this fact, a fat woman pulling an even fatter shopping trolley almost stood on Myles.
“Oi!” he cried out at the top of his voice. “Watch out where you are putting those clodhoppers of yours! You almost stood on me!”
The woman, however, oblivious to goings on in such lowly locations, continued her way along the path, saying nothing.
“Well, of all the!” Myles grumbled, mentally shaking a first as she disappeared from sight round the corner.
Having learnt a valuable lesson, that paths are dangerous places for lowly creatures such as slugs, Myles slimed his way more carefully along the path after that. Keeping to the inside of the path, to the wall running alongside it, away from shoes, boots and other such objects that could all too easily blot him out of existence, he drank in the sights, sounds and smells of life in the fast lane, outside the garden...
Reaching the end of the path, Myles stopped. Gazing across to the other side of the street, to a green, open area, with trees and shrubs and all sorts of wonderfully coloured flowers and fine dahlias, he wanted so desperately to go there. “How can I get there,” he mused, “without being run over by one of the HU-MAN THEINGS’ cars, vans, lorries or buses?” Mentally scratching his head, trying to work out how might possibly do it, he said, “There must be a way to get across this street, to the far side, there must!”
Then he saw her, the same fat woman who had almost trodden him out of existence, minutes earlier. Exiting from a shop, she pulled hard on her trolley, bouncing it over the step and onto the path. Without giving either trolley or step a second glance, she made her way down the street, and then stopped dead in her tracks.
“What on earth is she doing?” Myles thought.
The woman, however, in a world of her own, oblivious to anyone who might or might not be watching her, looking right, left and then right again, stepped off the path and into the street.
Although the woman had almost trodden him out of existence, Myles was aghast that she had done so reckless a thing. “Has she no idea how dangerous the fast-moving traffic could be?” he wondered, but there she was, shopping trolley and all, making her away across the street like she hadn’t got a care in the world.
She was in no danger, no danger at all, because the fast moving traffic stopped the instant she stepped onto the road; every car, lorry, bus, bicycle and van came to an halt. “Wow!” Myles cried out, surprised, seeing this. ”She sure packs some authority!”
No sooner had the fat woman reached the far side of the street, and the traffic resumed its hectic pace, did another person attempt to cross. This time it was a young girl. “They won’t stop for her,” Myles whispered, though watching with interest.
He was wrong; a middle-aged woman in a people carrier, spotting the girl, applied her brakes, bringing her vehicle to a stop. “There you go, little girl,” she said, wav
ing her across the street. “And have a nice day.”
Hopping, skipping her way across the tar macadam, the girl reached the far side of the street, and said, “Thanks, lady. You have a nice day, also.”
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said Myles, totally perplexed at such strange goings on.
An old man creakily preambling his way along the path caught Myles’ attention. This man, though ever so old and frail, stopped at the very same spot on the path as the two previous persons. “Surely HE cannot ever imagine crossing the street on his own,” Myles squeaked in surprise, when he saw him waiting patiently for the traffic to stop. “If anyone stops to let him cross, they will be waiting forever, so slow a person that he is.”
Applying his brakes, the wheels of his vehicle screeching to a stop, the driver of first vehicle to see him said, “Go on, old man, it’s safe for you to cross.” The driver, a big burly man with an ever so curly moustache then added, “I am in no hurry, take your time.” Lighting a cigarette and taking a drag on it, he inhaled a lungful of grey/blue smoke. It made him feel goosepimply all over. “What a fine day it is, to be alive and well,” he said, taking another pull from his cigarette.
“It won’t be for you, if you keep smoking those things,” Myles scolded. “You will be six feet under and not one inch less!”
The driver, however, like the fat woman, the girl and the old man, was oblivious of slug talk no matter how dire it happened to be.
Once the old man had reached the far side of the street, the driver slammed his vehicle into gear and drove away. Waving a hand out the window, he called out, “Goodbye old man. Have a nice day!”
“Have a nice day, have a nice day!” Myles grumbled. “Is that all that they can think of, having a nice day?”
The green open space on the far side of the street, with all of its wonderfully succulent plants beckoned Myles on. Abandoning the safely of the side of the path and the wall, Myles slimed his way towards the very same spot from which the three HU-MAN THEINGS had set off across the street. “If the fat lady can do it, he said, with full conviction of his hypothesis. “And if the girl can do it, not to mention the ancient, decrepit old man, then I must surely be able to do it!” With that, he slimed his way down the curb and onto the street.
WHAM BAM SQUIRTY SQUASHED BANG!
MYLES WAS STRUCK HARD BY A SPEEDING VAN,
IT FLATTENED HIM THIN, AS THIN AS CAN BE,
NO MORE TRAVELLING FOR HIM OR HIS RADISH SMELLY.
Myles was dead. A camper van – and a Fiat at that – had struck him, had flattened him, had squashed him (and his radish) clean out of existence! Myles, the slug, had got his comeuppance.
The End
Pardon? You think this is a terrible end to give a story? Listen, my friend, there are more important things in life than uppity slugs that take no heed of their mother’s advice.
Definitely The End.
What? You are not happy with my justification of how the story ended? You think there should be a moral? Okay, I will give you a moral. The moral of the story is as follows:
If you do not look right, left and then right again BEFORE crossing the street at a zebra crossing, you could all too easily end up like Myles – squashed out of existence. How is that for a moral? Bye...
I am a Poor Slug...
I am a poor slug; it’s true,
A slug with so much to do,
From making slime trails,
And getting under your nails,
I am a poor slug – how do you do.
I am a poor slug – green and clammy,
A slug without father or mammy,
They were poisoned – it’s true,
By some gardener’s taboo,
To slugs, be they fathers or mammies.
I am a poor slug; I’ve been knocked,
A slug whose parents were lost,
So I will eat up the plants,
And destroy all the crops,
Of the gardener who killed them with Slugtox.
Horrible Horace and the Slug
A slug was out sliming one fine summer’s day,
When out from the garden he happened to stray,
Far onto the path he wandered along,
Until Horrible Horace happened to come.
*
Hey, a slug, it’s a slug, he chirped with some glee,
With that in my possession, some fun I will see,
I will take it to school and show it about,
Then play a fine trick on teacher no doubt.
*
Horrible Horace set off for his school,
And when he got to the gates, he called out to the crew,
Come see what I have ensconced in my bag,
The fattest brown slug in the world – it’s a fact!
*
A slug, what a slug, Tinkering Tom said, looking on,
The biggest and best, Barmy Bernard chirped with a grin,
It’s clammy and slimy, Lousy Linda complained,
Throw it away or I will tell teacher, she rained.
*
If you tell her, Horrible Horace advised,
It will be a mistake; this is not a mean lie,
If teacher confiscates slug from my bag,
I will find another one to drop down your back!
All right, she replied, just keep it away,
I’ll say nothing, you creep, but I’ll yet have my say,
You’ll get your comeuppance, you will, it’s a fact,
Boys who play tricks come unstuck; it’s their knack.
*
Laughing and chortling, the boys let out a roar,
Girls are so stupid and, oh, what a bore!
A slug in an apple is only a joke,
Teacher will see it, the funny side, we hope.
*
Inside the classroom later that day,
A rosy red apple to teacher’s desk made its way,
Picking it up, she mused, wondering who,
Had donated the apple, and such a nice one to boot,
*
Opening her mouth, she took a large bite,
From out of the apple, but then got a fright,
On seeing the slug, slimy and brown,
She abandoned the apple and then fell to the ground.
*
Look what you’ve done, Lousy Linda whined with a pout,
You’ve killed her, get the cops; get them out!
They will put you in prison without leave to appeal,
It’s your comeuppance, she said as she let out a squeal.
*
When the shock had subsided, teacher stood up,
And questioned each pupil, saying, Own up!
Whoever did this despicable deed,
Will have to be punished, now who was it please?
*
Raising her hand, Lousy Linda spoke up,
It was Horrible Horace, I watched as he snuck,
A slug into your apple, oh miss, it really was him,
Thank you, dear Linda, teacher replied with a grin.
*
Turning her attention to Horrible Horace,
Teacher eyed him with distain and a great deal of menace,
But being himself, he shrugged it off fast,
Saying, Linda put me up to it, I’m the innocent part.
*
Paying no attention to his horrible excuse,
Teacher smiled, then laughed, cooking his goose,
Stay after school, she said, and write one million times,
I will not insert slugs into apples, not even one time.