Photograph and Poem by Rhys Hughes
West Exit Barrier Operational,
declares the sign,
but I ask you: is this really the
best way to ease
my considerable stress?
I am a carrier for a postal outfit.
Dressed in a vest
and shorts and little else,
I confess to feeling
vexed by the implications.
The package I carry contains
something sensational.
Dare I risk passing under such
a rickety barrier?
Don’t look now but my precious
cargo has come all the way from
Lucknow in India,
and I am supposed to deliver it
safely to Ludlow,
a town on the border of Wales.
But the West Exit Barrier doesn’t
look to me as operational
as it claims to be
and I find this fact worrying.
What’s the point of hurrying if I
run into a trap?
My package is full of sweets
from the streets
of the City of Nawabs, wrapped
carefully and warily.
Shahi Tukda, Sheermal, Nawabi
Zafrani Kheer, Makhan Malai,
Kali Gajar ka Halwa…
All as pleasing to the famished
eye as they are
to the drooling mouth.
I suspect an ambush ahead.
Some villain with a craving for
sweets intends to
knock me over the head
and render me unconscious.
Then he will loot my package
and gorge himself
and in my unplanned sleep I
will dream that I am
forging ahead on my mission.
But when I awake with a skull
as heavy as lead,
throbbing and wobbling on my
aching neck,
it will become apparent that I
failed to fulfil
my vow to my regular clients.
I promised to defend
their sweets with all my might!
What a sight it will be
if I am found asprawl,
able only to crawl, victim of an
outrageous robbery!
What should I do
to assure the safety of delights
that can be chewed?
I might as well open the parcel
and eat them myself
just to keep them out of the hands
of the scoundrels
who plan to steal and scoff them.
Then the sweets
will be safe for eternity
in my stomach and the West Exit
Barrier will hold no
terrors for me, operational or not.
Yes, that’s the best
solution to the difficulty I face.
Waste not, want not.
With maximum grace
I devour the lot
and now my vest no longer fits
me: I slump in
satisfied torpor, a justified hero,
chomping jaw
swollen slightly, adjacent to the
West Exit Barrier,
and I no longer care about how
operational it is.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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