DUCK IN DISGUISE
A curious duck disguised itself as a human and went off to the big city to see what life was like there. He nodded politely at everyone he passed in the street and said, “Good morning.” And the people always responded to him as if he was a real human being.
The duck knew that his disguise was effective, and he felt pleased with himself. In the afternoon he went to the park to feed the ducks, which was very ironic and thus amusing. Then in the early evening he visited a pub and drank several pints of strong beer.
“Pretending to be human is easy. No one suspects the truth!” he said to himself in glee as he waddled out of the pub. Next he went to the nearest fashionable theatre, bought a ticket and saw a play. The play was about a goat that was stuck at the top of a cliff.
The actor who played the goat was a sheep and wasn’t much good, so the duck left the theatre early and strolled casually down the alleyways. In a shadowy doorway directly ahead was a woman wearing a very short skirt. “What can I do for you, ducky?” she lisped at him.
The duck was so shocked he quacked.
It was now too late to keep up the pretence. So he turned and waddled away as fast as he could. “Of all of them in this vast metropolis,” he told himself, “only she is smart. But why?”
THE BOMB SCARE
A man wanted to go to his favourite coffee shop during his lunch hour but the police had sealed off the street.
“What’s going on?” he asked a nearby officer.
“There’s been a bomb scare!” came the reply.
The man tried to peer through the cordon to see for himself. “But how did that happen?” he asked nervously, because he realised that the bomb must be right outside his coffee shop.
The policeman answered, “The bomb was sauntering along innocently enough when suddenly a ghost jumped out from nowhere and frightened it. The poor thing’s a nervous wreck.”
The man stood on tiptoes and now he could see the bomb shaking and sobbing in the street. A man in a padded camouflage jacket was patting it gently and offering it a cup of sweet tea.
“Luckily the bomb squad got here quickly,” the policeman said, “and I am confident they’ll soon calm it down.”
The man snorted in anger. “What’s the world coming to? Those ghosts ought to be ashamed of themselves, scaring a harmless bomb like that for no reason. They should be locked up!”
“We tried that a few times, but they just float out through the walls,” said the policeman.
THE FRUITY ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGE
A polecat decided to throw a party for all his friends. On the morning of the occasion, he went into the forest and gathered as many kinds of fruit as he could, including apples, pears, plums, peaches, kumquats, bananas and pineapples. Then he chopped them up, threw them into an enormous bowl and poured in bottles of rum and brandy.
When the first guests arrived, he ladled some of this brew into glasses for them. It was powerful stuff and they were soon rather tipsy. More and more guests arrived and everyone had a really enjoyable time. There was music and laughter and dancing, and even, for those who like that kind of thing, plenty of howling at the full moon.
But things got out of hand when one of the drunken squirrels snatched a lighted candelabrum and ran with it up a tree. The wax dripped down on the heads of some of the other animals. “Stop that!” cried the polecat who was the host, but the squirrel ignored him.
“Let me try!” suggested a bear, and he roared up at the squirrel: “What are you doing? You’ll set the tree on fire!”
But the squirrel gave an incomprehensible reply.
This made the bear angry. “Come down here at once or I’ll punch your lights out!” he bellowed in a fierce voice.
The squirrel blew a slobbery kiss and giggled.
“I warned you!” cried the bear.
“Are you really going to punch his lights out?” gasped a worried raven who was a close friend of the squirrel.
“Too right I am! Watch this!” growled the bear as he stormed over to the table where the bowl was located.
With the polecat’s ladle he filled his glass to the brim with the fruity alcoholic beverage and then he came back and flicked his paw so that the contents were flung upwards into the tree.
The liquid splashed over the squirrel and the candelabrum but instead of extinguishing the flames it made them flare up as the rum and brandy in the mixture ignited.
The raven said: “Oh no! You punched his lights up by mistake!”
THE MAGICAL EYE
There was a magical eye that didn’t belong to any head. It just rolled over the ground and played tricks. “I bet I’m more magical than you,” it said to a genie it met on a beach one morning.
The tide had washed the bottle containing the genie onto the sands and left it there. The genie was willing to accept the eye’s challenge. “I am an outstanding genie and I’m able to transform myself into any object just by thinking about it. Can you do that too?”
“Yes, I can,” said the eye. “Watch this!” And it changed itself into one of those mechanical devices that lift heavy weights into the air. The genie scowled and copied him. “That’s very simple!” he chortled. So now there were two of those devices on the beach.
“Well then,” said the eye. “Try this for size!” And it turned into one of those tools with teeth that are used to cut through wood. The genie wasn’t impressed and he too became an identical copy of the same tool. “Child’s play!” he rasped in considerable derision.
“How about this?” cried the eye. And it transformed itself into a horse chestnut minus the spiky casing, but not an ordinary chestnut of that type. No, it had a hole drilled through it and it dangled from a string. The genie had to admit defeat. “I can’t match that.”
The magical eye was triumphant. “Then I am the best, I am the king, I am the Caesar of shapeshifters, yes I am!”
The genie was confused. “Why the Caesar?” he asked.
The answer was as follows:
“Eye crane, eye saw, eye conker!”
The genie glared at him
The magical eye said, “I’ll get my quote and leave…”
AN ANGRY CONDIMENT
A bell pepper went on holiday with a pinch of salt. After they settled into the hotel, they began unpacking. “I don’t believe this!” cried the pinch of salt. “You forgot the toothpaste!”
“I didn’t forget. I deliberately neglected to bring it.”
“But why? Are you an idiot?”
The bell pepper said, “We don’t have any teeth, so what’s the point of taking along tubes of toothpaste?”
The pinch of salt wasn’t pacified and roared: “When normal couples go on vacation they always pack hygiene items in their luggage! You bulbous lout!”
“But we’re not a couple, just good friends.”
“So you don’t fancy me?”
The bell pepper said, “Not really, no.”
There was a tense pause.
Then the pinch of salt flung itself in the bell pepper’s face. It was very lucky the pepper didn’t have eyes, otherwise they would have stung quite a bit and the salt would have dissolved in the resulting tears. Nonetheless, the bell pepper screamed loudly.
And the manager of the hotel burst into the room.
“What’s going on here then?”
He studied the situation and came to a sudden decision. Pointing at the open door he remarked coldly, “Assault and pepper, eh? Well, the holiday seasoning is over now, so get out!”
THE SHORT SENTENCE
A short sentence said, “Wait!”
“What for?” wondered a pendulum clock.
“For just a minute!”
“Which minute? I have lots!”
“Any you can spare,” said the short sentence.
“Well, I suppose you can have this one, but it’s second hand,” offered the pendulum clock as it ticked.
“I thought the second hand was the minute hand?”
“The little hand is the minute hand,” explained the clock. “The second hand is the third hand. Get it?”
“Not really, but thanks,” said the short sentence.
The pendulum clock asked meekly, “Are you entirely certain you’re a short sentence? It’s just that sometimes I can’t see your full stop. I know I’m a bit shortsighted and yet—”
“I must confess that I am mildly insulted by your remark, which tends to suggest that I have been deceiving you and the readers of this fable for reasons that probably are dubious and possibly felonious, and I wish most strongly to stress that I am now, always have been, and certainly intend to remain, to the utmost of my ability, for the entire duration of my lifespan, however long that may be, a very short sentence, and I will regard anyone who insinuates that the contrary is true with enormous rancour and I may even resort to legal proceedings to restore my tarnished reputation, so let this be a warning,” said the short sentence.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” sincerely apologised the pendulum clock.
BRASSED OFF
“I’m really rather good at my job,” said a wolf, but a wise sage overheard him and wagged a finger. “Never blow your own trumpet,” he quoted. He then went back to meditating and levitating.
The wolf frowned and thought deeply about this advice. “He’s right. I won’t forget his words in a hurry!”
Talking about a hurry, the wolf was late for work.
He turned up at the concert hall with just a few minutes to spare. Then he took his position on the stage. The conductor, who was a pine marten, used his tail as a baton to keep time.
The music burst from the orchestra like an exploding simile!
It was Honey Empathy’s Sympathy in Bee.
Are you familiar with that piece?
I’m not either. Anyway… Now was the exact moment when the brass section had to join in the music with their own instruments. But the wolf remembered what the sage had told him and he leaned quickly across to his nearest neighbour, who happened to be a rabbit. The rabbit saw what the wolf intended and tried to stop him.
“What are you doing? Get your paws off that!”
“Sorry,” said the wolf, “but I’ve been told by a reliable source that to blow my own trumpet is wrong. So I intend to blow yours instead. If you like, you can play mine on my behalf.”
“You buffoon!” wailed the rabbit. “I don’t play the trumpet. I play the trombone. They sound utterly different!”
SLEEPY UPRISING
The squirrel roared, “When are the people of Hiber going to wake up and become a nation?” His tone was passionate and his audience agreed that it was a dramatic speech. They applauded with their paws and hooves or whistled with their beaks. The squirrel acknowledged the reaction with a wave and dismounted the platform.
But an alligator approached him and said shyly, “I like the sentiments you expressed, but there’s a flaw in your reasoning. You want the people of the province of Hiber to wake up?”
“Yes, yes, it’s about time,” replied the squirrel.
“Why is that?” asked the alligator.
“Because they’ve been oppressed for generations and only when they win independence for themselves will they be free to embrace the liberty that is the birthright of all beings.”
The alligator cleared its throat and remarked, “If the people of Hiber wake up and become a nation, they will automatically be in Hiber Nation and therefore unable to wake up…”
The squirrel frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
CLOUD DISCO
A buttercup said to a fox, “Isn’t it weird how the clouds seem to gather on the horizon at sunset? The sky above us is mostly clear but in the far west there are many clouds packed tight.”
“The twilight sky is a disco, that’s why,” replied the fox.
“What do you mean?” asked the buttercup.
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” said the fox. “Clouds often like to go dancing in the summer evenings. The dome of the sky is the dancefloor but only a few clouds are confident enough to go to the middle and strut their stuff. The others tend to linger on the edges.”
“I wonder what music they dance to? Do you suppose it might be the music of the spheres?” cried the buttercup.
“That’s classical music. I already told you that the sky at this time of day is a disco. It must be disco music.”
“Name me some examples,” pleaded the buttercup.
“I can’t,” admitted the fox sadly. “I can’t think of any puns involving clouds and disco music, sorry. Maybe the reader can do that for you. I’m off to my own dance class now. Bye!”
“Really? Are you learning disco dancing too?”
“Nope, the foxtrot,” said the fox.
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.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Click here to access Wild Winds: The Borderless Anthology of Poems
Click here to access the Borderless anthology, Monalisa No Longer Smiles
