RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34127, 13 April 1976, Page 30

RANDOM REMINDER

BACK TO FRONT

If all the billions now spent on armaments were used to build a giant spaceship, and all the alcohol in the world were stowed aboard this spaceship to be blasted off to some far away planet; a small ad. in the North Canterbury Section of “The Press” for a conscientious captain-naviga-tor would probably be answered by the man whom this story is about, because he lives in that area. He is a school teacher and counters the raging urge to exterminate his pupils with occasional visits to the local pub. One chilly night he stayed longer than his leave pass was made out for and when he arrived home he found his house in darkness and his wiife in bed. Wondering what he could do to be saved he helpfully gathered the empty milk bottles and set out for the front gate via the back door. Having

put the milk bottles down he returned via the front door. It was locked. Mistakenly thinking he had come out of the house by that door he assumed his wife had not been truly asleep, was really cross and had locked him out just to be nasty. He knocked and waited, knocked a little louder and forgivingly called her name through the keyhole. He would have acted in louder fashion but was afraid of waking his two children or disturbing the neighbours. So, with heavy heart and sad step he made his way to the garage. Here he found a roll of old underfelt wherein he rolled himself and fell into a sound sleep. In the morning his little wife woke and was greatly upset to see the other side of their bed untenanted. Her little heart thumped remorsefully as she asked herself how she could have been

so callous as to have gone off to sleep not knowing where or how her dearly beloved was. One second she saw him whispering her name in a darkened hospital ward, next her name could be heard creeping through the twisted framework of their upturned car in some dirty ditch; then she heard only silence emanating from a long white sheet. Shivering in her thin nighty with the little pink bows that she sadly recalled was his favourite, she made her slipperless way to the back door wnich she found was wide open. Out she hurried to the garage. There she was amazed to find the car and greater was her amazement to see her husband’s sleeping head poking from a roll of dirty old underfelt. It is not for us to report what she said to him through her tears of rage, relief, love and disgust.