The ambulance roared into view and whisked Old Jim Young off. Little Laura Long actually had the nerve to try and persuade the ambulance drivers to get her cat down from the tree. They recommended calling the fire brigade, then they drove off. Of course she didn´t bother calling them. Ernest was about to call them for her when he saw her attempt to climb up the tree. He decided to put a stop to this tomfoolery. He ran out and told Laura that he thought he had seen smoke coming out of her kitchen window. As she dashed inside, he simply blinked twice and the cat was in his arms. He ran in after her and handed the bamboozled cat to the bewildered woman.
She slapped him across the face. “That´s for telling lies and frightening the heart out of me,” she shrieked. “Don´t mention it,” replied Ernest. Then she slapped him again, “…and that´s for watching everything from the window and not helping me sooner.”
With this slap his wig fell onto the cat who got such a fright he ran out the door and back up the tree. Little Laura Long saw Ernest´s pointy ears and scrumped up her eyes. She peered at him but said nothing more. Her little head was doing some mean calculating. Ernest almost saw the numbers flying out of her head. He muttered some embarrassed excuses and ran out across the road to his own place, holding the wig in place. He slammed the door. He felt safer. He lifted the peephole.
“Thank you for helping me,” came the squeaky voice of Little Laura Long. She was looking in the peephole at him which is impossible to do. “I´ve got some cookies for you. Why don´t you let me in and we´ll put the kettle on.”
He ignored her completely. “Oh no,” he sighed, “She knows.”
Ernest Elf put on his jacket and straightened his tie. Another day on the telly, reading the news. He scooped on his big black wig that covered his pointy ears. Until now no one knew he was an elf. He had a problem. If word got out that he wasn´t human he would probably lose human privileges and worse of all he would probably lose his job. The real problem was that the one person who knew he was an elf was better at spreading stories than any known newspaper. She was lethal. Little Laura Long was a little woman with long reach into the public. She was almost 92 years old but it didn´t stop her getting out and about.
It all started the day her cat got stuck up a tree. He watched the drama from his kitchen window. She was trying to persuade old Jim Young to climb up and bring it down. He actually got close to the cat . Then the evil thing scratched him and he came tumbling down. Ernest thought for a moment that he should go out and help. However, previous experience with old Laura Long told him to stay put. She was cursing and crying over poor old Jim Young who was desperately trying to get up off the ground. Ernest calmly rang for an ambulance. Then he sat down to watch the drama unfold.
It was Tuesday but it felt like Wednesday and when it suddenly dawned on me that it was Tuesday I sighed at the thought of the long week ahead. The truck whacked me with such force against the traffic light I hardly felt it. Then it surged over me, the pain, red wetness all over me. I felt high. The pain was indescribable. Everything went into slow motion. I switched off from the noise of people screaming. I wanted to close my eyes and sleep but pinned where I was, I was in no position to tell them to be quiet. I felt the tap on my shoulder. It made me smile. My dad always said that when the man taps you on the shoulder and says it´s time to go, well it´s time to go and that´s that. It made me laugh that he actually tapped me on the shoulder. I couldn´t turn around so he slided up to my face. The sight of her, him or it terrified me. It was an enormous pink dinosaur.
“Hey I thought you´d at least carry a scythe and be dressed in black for the occasion!” I said through bloody tears and some kind of foam and green bile that flowed from my mouth.
“You can´t say anything, you´re no pin up yourself.” replied the disgusted dinosaur. Then it added, “You got the sign so let´s be off. Normally I let inquisitive creatures have one question before we go but seeing as you are an atheist I think you´ve already asked the right questions.”
“No, we most certainly will not.” I replied angrily. “It took a long life of learning and reading and trying out different religions and inventing my own beliefs and suffering from other people´s twisted sadistic ones that got me to this state of calm that I´m in right now. I know there is no life after death and I´ll be damned if I´m going to follow you to a land full of pink cheerful looking dinosaurs. I want it to end, not to continue.”
“ I´m not really a pink dinosaur, I´m a figment of your imagination as is all this. But what I really am is a channel in which the energy that you are can transform into another energy.”
“Oh no, not reincarnation!” I pleaded. “I just want to sleep.”
“Oh you will sleep,” said the dinosaur, “and you will be totally unaware of how your body will go back into the earth it fed off and exploited for years. Your rotting flesh will feed the worms and they will crawl through the earth and it will all go full circle. Humans flatter themselves with notions that they will be reincarnated into higher beings. Well be flattered. Your energy will go into one little earthworm and that little earthworm will do more good than any of your kind ever did.”
“I think I can die peacefully with that thought.” I replied.
“Of course you can, it´s a real honour and this is all only your imagination anyway.”answered the smiling pink dinosaur who was now sponging my face clean.
“One more thing…” I began, but the dinosaur evaporated and with it so did I.