Reilly the Slug Gets His Comeuppance
Gerrard Wilson
Copyright 2015 by Gerrard Wilson
Reilly the Slug gets His Comeuppance
Reilly the Slug Gets His Comeuppance
Reilly was a slug, and I emphasise WAS, because he is no more. You see, he got his comeuppance. Let me explain...
My story begins long, long ago, a full three months previous.
“Morning, mum,” Reilly sang out, one wonderfully damp, drizzly cold morning.
“Good morning, Reilly,” his mother replied. “What has you so chirpy, apart from the fine day that is?”
“I don’t know,” her son replied. Mulling it over, he added, “Perhaps it’s because...”
“Because – what?” she asked, her head nudging a half-rotten cabbage leaf in his direction.
“You will think me silly...” he mumbled, eyeing the dainty morsel with some considerable delight.
“I will if you don’t eat your breakfast,” she chided, nudging the leaf closer to him.
Taking a bite out of the decaying leaf, Reilly said, “When I awoke this morning...”
“Yes?”
“I thought, I somehow knew – and I have absolutely no idea why – this is the day I leave home. Taking another mouthful of cabbage, he chomped away quite happily on it, then said, “Does this make any sense to you, mum?”
Smiling, tears of slime running freely down her slippery brown face, his mother said, “My child is all grown up!”
Later on, after he had finished his fine meal, Reilly said, “Well, they say there’s no time like the present, so I’d better be off.”
“But where are you going?” his mother asked. “There is so much danger out there, in the garden.”
Laughing it off, her son replied, “Danger is my middle name!”
“Now, you will stay in the garden, won’t you?” she asked. “If you enter the street, outside, it will mean almost certain death, so fast a place that it is!” she warned.
“Don’t worry; I am only going into the garden,” he replied. “I am sure there will be more than enough adventure for me, there.”
“You will write?” she asked anxiously as he began sliming away from her.
“I would if I had hands to write with,” he replied, laughing. “But since I don’t, I will not.”
“I will be so lonely without you...”
“You still have the rest of your children,” he replied, “all four hundred and ninety-three of them.”
Nodding, she said, “Yes, I do, but I will still miss you. The hovel will seem empty without you.”
“Thanks, mum, that was a nice thing to say, however, my time is up, I am away.”
Dolefully accepting her son’s imminent departure, his mother said, “Here, take this.” She nudged a shoulder bag in his direction.
Curiously eying it, he asked, “What’s in it?”
“A radish,” she replied. “I was saving it for Christmas, but since you won’t be here, you can take it along with you, to sustain you on your journey.”
Poking his head into the bag, inhaling the fine smell of rotting radish, Reilly said, “Thanks mum, I will remember you with each and every bite I take from it.” Slipping his head through the strap, he picked up the bag and set off on his travels.
For more than an hour, young Reilly slimed his way through garden, past beds of fine dahlias, expanses of green sward glistening brightly with dew, gnomes scary and intimidating, and vegetables tender and succulent. Then he saw it, the gate, Reilly spotted the gate leading onto the street...
“Wow!” Reilly exclaimed, the instant he poked his head under the gate. “Mum was right; it sure is busy out here!” The street was a hive of activity, with cars, vans, lorries and buses speeding along it, all of them vying for space on the crowded thoroughfare.
Ignoring his mother’s advice to stay in the garden, Reilly slimed his way under the gate, onto the path. The path was almost as busy as the street, with a multitude of people making their way along it.
There were men and women, and boys and girls, but not one of them noticed the slug, below. As if to enforce this fact, a fat woman pulling an even fatter shopping trolley almost stood on Reilly.
“Oi!” he cried out at the top of his voice. “Watch out where you are putting those clodhoppers of yours! You almost stood on me!”
The woman, however, oblivious to goings on in such lowly locations, continued her way along the path, saying nothing.
“Well, of all the!” Reilly grumbled, mentally shaking a first as she disappeared from sight round the corner.
Having learnt a valuable lesson, that paths are dangerous places for lowly creatures such as slugs, Reilly slimed his way more carefully along the path after that. Keeping to the inside of the path, to the wall running alongside it, away from shoes, boots and other such objects that could all too easily blot him out of existence, he drank in the sights, sounds and smells of life in the fast lane, outside the garden...
Reaching the end of the path, Reilly stopped. Gazing across to the other side of the street, to a green, open area, with trees and shrubs and all sorts of wonderfully coloured flowers and fine dahlias, he wanted so desperately to go there. “How can I get there,” he mused, “without being run over by one of the HU-MAN THEINGS’ cars, vans, lorries or buses?” Mentally scratching his head, trying to work out how might possibly do it, he said, “There must be a way to get across this street, to the far side, there must!”
Then he saw her, the same fat woman who had almost trodden him out of existence, minutes earlier. Exiting from a shop, she pulled hard on her trolley, bouncing it over the step and onto the path. Without giving either trolley or step a second glance, she made her way down the street, and then stopped dead in her tracks.
“What on earth is she doing?” Reilly thought.
The woman, however, in a world of her own, oblivious to anyone who might or might not be watching her, looking right, left and then right again, stepped off the path and into the street.
Although the woman had almost trodden him out of existence, Reilly was aghast that she had done so reckless a thing. “Has she no idea how dangerous the fast-moving traffic could be?” he wondered, but there she was, shopping trolley and all, making her away across the street like she hadn’t got a care in the world.
She was in no danger, no danger at all, because the fast moving traffic stopped the instant she stepped onto the road; every car, lorry, bus, bicycle and van came to an halt. “Wow!” Reilly cried out, surprised, seeing this. ”She sure packs some authority!”
No sooner had the fat woman reached the far side of the street, and the traffic resumed its hectic pace, did another person attempt to cross. This time it was a young girl. “They won’t stop for her,” Reilly whispered, though watching with interest.
He was wrong; a middle-aged woman in a people carrier, spotting the girl, applied her brakes, bringing her vehicle to a stop. “There you go, little girl,” she said, waving her across the street. “And have a nice day.”
Hopping, skipping her way across the tar macadam, the girl reached the far side of the street, and said, “Thanks, lady. You have a nice day, also.”
“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said Reilly, totally perplexed at such strange goings on.
An old man creakily making his way along the path caught Reilly’s attention. This man, though ever so old and frail, stopped at the very same spot on the path as the two previous persons. “Surely HE cannot ever imagine crossing the street on his own,” Reilly squeaked in surprise, when he saw him waiting patiently for the traffic to stop. “If anyone stops to let him cross, they will be waiting forever, so slow a per
son that he is.”
Applying his brakes, the wheels of his vehicle screeching to a stop, the driver of first vehicle to see him said, “Go on, old man, it’s safe for you to cross.” The driver, a big burly man with an ever so curly moustache then added, “I am in no hurry, take your time.” Lighting a cigarette and taking a drag on it, he inhaled a lungful of grey/blue smoke. It made him feel goosepimply all over. “What a fine day it is, to be alive and well,” he said, taking another pull from his cigarette.
“It won’t be for you, if you keep smoking those things,” Reilly scolded. “You will be six feet under and not one inch less!”
The driver, however, like the fat woman, the girl and the old man, was oblivious of slug talk no matter how dire it happened to be.
Once the old man had reached the far side of the street, the driver slammed his vehicle into gear and drove away. Waving a hand out the window, he called out, “Goodbye old man. Have a nice day!”
“Have a nice day, have a nice day!” Reilly grumbled. “Is that all that they can think of, having a nice day?”
The green open space on the far side of the street, with all of its wonderfully succulent plants beckoned Reilly on. Abandoning the safely of the side of the path and the wall, Reilly slimed his way towards the very same spot from which the three HU-MAN THEINGS had set off across the street. “If the fat lady can do it, he said, with full conviction of his hypothesis. “And if the girl can do it, not to mention the ancient, decrepit old man, then I must surely be able to do it!” With that, he slimed his way down the curb and onto the street.
WHAM BAM SQUIRTY SQUASHED BANG!
REILLY WAS STRUCK HARD BY A SPEEDING VAN,
IT FLATTENED HIM THIN, AS THIN AS CAN BE,
NO MORE TRAVELLING FOR HIM OR HIS RADISH SMELLY.
Reilly was dead. A camper van – and a Fiat at that – had struck him, had flattened him, had squashed him (and his radish) clean out of existence! Reilly, the slug, had got his comeuppance.
THE END.
Pardon? You think that is a terrible end to this story? Listen, my friend, there are more important things in life than uppity slugs that take no heed of their mother’s advice.
DEFINITELY THE END.
What? You are not happy with my justification of how the story ended? You think there should be a moral to it? Okay, I will give you a moral. The moral of the story is as follows:
If you do not look right, left and then right again BEFORE crossing the road at a zebra crossing, you could all too easily end up like Reilly – squashed out of existence. How is that for a moral?
See ya.
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