PICTURES THAT PAINT A THOUSAND WORDS ( OR SO…)

WELCOME.

Please spend time and

contemplate a picture,

cogitate on the story with it,

compose a comment and continue on your way,

cheered not chaffed.

PICTURES THAT PAINT A THOUSAND WORDS ( OR SO…)

This series of short stories was inspired

by a visit I made to

the National Gallery of Scotland.

I was playing hookey from

an international medical conference

that had bored me to coma.

Instead, I discovered the joys of

meditating on pictures, and the reason

why they might have been created.

MAN ON THE WALL

“Inspector? This is PC 958 Evans. I’m ‘phoning from the call box

on Canal Street. What?... yes I know I’m off my beat, but Sarge told me

to check on the body reported by old Mrs Skellern. Well, it’s like this, Sir.

I don’t really want to get too close, contaminate the evidence, you know,

but, to me, well, the person looks dead!”

Harry Evans paused as the divisional control room fell silent at the duty

inspector’s command.

“Yes, Inspector, I did say dead. Funny colour, lying motionless on the

bridge parapet. Tidily dressed, I’ll say that. Even got a carnation in his

button hole...”

The old policeman listened again as the senior officer directed an incident

response unit to the scene. Evans could remember when this new boss

had been the snotty nosed son of a neighbour on the Constabulary

Housing Estate. Now, a university degree followed by handfuls of short

term duties in various sections, not including pounding the streets, and

the nipper has accelerated promotion.

“Sorry, inspector, I didn’t quite hear what you said? No, I haven’t let my

mind wander off the task before me. No, I can’t see any kids, nuns,

vicars or old ladies likely to get a nasty shock by seeing the stiff. Yes, I

will mount an obvious presence until back-up arrives. Over and out!”

Original artwork by LS Lowry, available at

http://www.lowry.co.uk/lowry-manonawall.html

Evans briskly returned to the remains, and stood on the opposite

pavement to consider them again. Its presence had been first reported to

the police at 4.30 am, just forty minutes ago, when dawn illuminated the

bleak street. The PC had been on site for the last 12 minutes, and the

corpse had not moved, he was sure of that. There were no obvious

signs of violence on the formal dress clothes, the attaché case and

umbrella looked to have been neatly placed.

Who was, or who had been, this Mr LRL ? Why on earth, come to this

dreary, dirty, industrial backwater in all one’s finery? How come the unlit

cigarette was staying upright?

PC 958 was well aware of his intellectual limitations, so decided to let the

clever dicks in CID sort the answers. He crossed to stand a few yards

upwind of the deceased and looked down onto the canal that the bridge

spanned.

Looking up, the constable checked his fob-watch against the Town Hall

clock. Nearly half past 5, just another hour until he would be home, off

night shift, temporarily cuddled up to his misses, before she went out to

her day job. Assuming that he was stood down on time?

His reverie was broken by the squeal of two sets of vehicle brakes, as the

ambulance and police vehicle arrived simultaneously. Evans went to the

rear of the latter, whilst the crew from the former went to examine the

body and pronounce life to be absent. Barely had he started to speak to

his colleagues, when Evans heard loud, raucous, belly laughter from the

supposed incident scene. He ran to its source, the ambulance men, who

were pulling two pink, false feet from up the sleeves of the now upright,

immobile and glaringly obvious tailors window mannequin, still sporting a

neat wedding suit!

PC 958 Evans was mortified at his mistake, and was dreading the

dressing down he would receive at the station. “Never mind,” called out

one of the other coppers, “at least you’ve found the dummy nicked from

Moss Bros Hire shop last evening. Sarge will be so pleased with you,

raising the dead and solving a crime in one shift!”

Original story by dave hambidge

published on this blog Spring 2007

revisited in issuu format 08/03/09

feel free to copy and use with acknowledgement of source