Tales Of The Gurrier

I had one of those rare moments the other day. You know the ones, epiphanies, I believe they’re called. I was standing in the kitchen making coffee and all of a sudden I felt a tingling in my arms and legs. A kind of, sweeping pins and needles, in all my extremities. The air about me appeared turgid and congested, and I chanced to hear the peal of bells far off, and indistinct.

‘Uh oh,’ I thought. ‘Here comes trouble.’

At first, I thought I was having a funny turn. I had an aunt once who had funny turns. The doctor called it bipolar disorder but mum called it Aunt Aggie’s funny turns. Her funny turns became so prevalent she took herself off to the countryside to commune with nature. There she spent many an unhappy year as a recluse and finally drowned herself in the village pond. I never saw the funny side of it myself.

Uncle Peter once had a fit at the supermarket. He went all pale and wobbly down by the leafy greens and an ambulance was called. They tried to stretcher him away to hospital, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Uncle Peter was a tough old bird. The doctor called it hypertensive anaemia with early onset diabetes. Uncle Peter called it a funny turn. He refused all medical assistance and insisted his cure of boiled ham and pig tongue with brandy would put him right by Easter Sunday. He never made it through Lent.

My Gran never used to have funny turns, but she said something odd at Christmas dinner one year. She looked at me, with her sad rheumy eyes, and said she never knew who my dad was. I said ‘Don’t be silly Gran, that’s Dad over there, tucking into the sprouts.’ She said, ‘that’s not your dad, we never knew who your dad was.’ Mum went all quiet and nobody said anything. That was the last year Gran came to Christmas dinner. The following year mum said Gran couldn’t come, she’d had a funny turn.

I saw a dog have a funny turn once, he lived down the street from us in a house with a big front garden; all worn away and covered in bits of old rubbish. He was a nice old dog, brown, with a white patch over one eye. Everyday he sat in the front yard chained to a rusty refrigerator. He never barked or growled at anyone. He just sat there, chewing on a shoe. One day I was playing in the street and saw him take a funny turn. He stopped chewing on his shoe and stood, stiff and straight as a board, the hackles on his neck standing out. Making a small growling whimper at the back of his throat. Nobody knew what was wrong with him, even the vet, who said sometimes a dog will take a funny turn like that and the only thing to do is to put them out of their misery. So he did.

I sincerely hoped I was not having a funny turn. But, as my feet lifted from the floor my spirits rose comparably, for there was, to my knowledge, no funny turn I had heard tell of commencing with spontaneous levitation or similar gravitational hi-jinks. My buoyant mood increased appreciably when my upward progress took me past the crest of the door-frame and I discovered where the landlord had secluded the spare key.

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The last Flickr Fiction of the year and I managed to post it on a Friday too. This weeks excellent photo was brought to you by Flickr user Dejon. I’m not sure who else has braved turkey overdoses and swollen livers to bash out some words for us but I will add them as they appear. Other participants this week are Chris, Tadmack, TeaandCakes, Aquafortis and Elimare

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Flickr Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.