It was a tragic sight, comical yet tragic.
As Harry waited by the bus stop, he gazed across the road at the crowd of hunchbacked goblins slumped in battered chairs, looking lost and bewildered.
Men in white coats walked amongst this sea of dithering heads, when one wrinkled nonagenarian cried out for her mummy. That soon set off the rest of those ancients, as they all wailed in incoherent distress.
God, it was a sin to keep them alive.
Anyhow Harry couldn’t waste time feeling bad for the crones. His own life had begun, twenty-one years old and landing a once in a century opportunity with Bayview Studios. Which meant moving up to London and perhaps even buying property in the pretty prestigious Tonsley area.
Best of all, he had asked Sophia, the woman who happened to be the love of his life, to marry him and she, crying, had enthusiastically agreed.
Cheesy but they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Oh, there you are!”
Wonderful, Sophia had appeared, grinning over some private joke. She loved her secrets, as Harry, an earnest fellow, answered: “Ah my love, I’ve got a great day planned. There’s a splendid restaurant in Birkenhead, Daniel took me there last week and…”
But Sophia burst out laughing, almost as if the scene amused her.
“Oh Grandad,” she giggled “you really believe there’s a bus coming, don’t you?”
“Hey, I might be a bit old fashioned,” Harry replied chafing under the grandad remark “but I’ve never cocked up the bus schedules.”
Sophia wasn’t listening as she dug into her handbag, pulling loose tissues and black matts, before bringing out a fancy mirror, the type shaped like a tennis racket.
“I’ve got a surprise for you” she said gleefully, “brace yourself!”
Marvellous, what was the issue? Ketchup on his cheek, or had Daniel scribbled something obscene on his forehead? But as Harry took the mirror, and held it to his face, he gasped as a wave of confusion and fear engulfed him. For what was reflected back in the glass was the visage of the ugliest, feeblest old man he had ever seen.
No, no, he dropped the mirror to the ground, and could not, would not accept that all of his time had been sucked out of him in an instant. Was this a joke? A magic trick? He was not one of those decrepit old trolls.
“What have you done!” he wailed at the gloating Sophia “What have you done!”
The men in white coats, ran over. One large brute, built like a nightclub bouncer placed a hand upon Harry’s shoulder, saying “Alright Mr. McLeod, we’ve had enough excitement. Just come along and we’ll fix you up with a cuppa.”
And as Harry was led away, he saw another man speaking to the smiling Sophia “Must you always rile him up like this. You know he’ll be impossible to deal with for the rest of the day!”
