This is the first in a series of stories I call JC’s Imaginary Adventures: Chronicles of Things that Never Happened.
The British Isles, Sometime in the Not-Recent Past.
We rolled into Waring Down in a persistent drizzle— outside, it was still raining.
I shoved the car into “park” while we were still moving, delivering a minor whiplash to my passengers and shortening the life of the tranny by a couple of months. That was minor damage compared to what could have happened while driving this British right-side-driver piece of shite on the left side of the road. In the States, this car was known as a Ford Pinto. Here it was called a Crumpet, or, Coronet. Not sure which.
We hadn't been to the island in a decade, but Grandma Fellagin was on her last legs, and we had to get to Minor Skirmish before dawn if we wanted to see her alive once more. After a short stop at a quaint little store in Whirling, Dervishire for some Twinkies and a whizz, we resumed our trek, and soon crossed Uptha Creek, an all-too-familiar landmark (or more accurately— watermark), that signaled our approach to the slowly-collapsing Victorian structure known as Abbey-Moor-by-Wayside-on-Prawn Farthing. I was pleased to see that the embankment I helped build, made entirely of scones, was still intact, holding back the floodwaters of the annual rainy season, which lasted from the first of January through December.
Grandma was the fourth cousin, twice removed, of the Grand Viscount Edouard Stickler-Herpes, eighth Duke of Snotley— although that didn’t count for much, the family fortune having been squandered by a group of drunken, layabout sots— the progeny of the Viscount and his Irish mistress, a scullery maid of questionable background who went by the name of Feely O’ Love-Nubbin. This scandal brought a taint to the Herpes name that could never be erased.
Upon spotting our ragged crew, Granny launched into a blistering dressing-down that may or may not have been profane, impossible to ascertain due to her thick Welsh/Cambodian brogue. This gave us hope that she had energy enough to host our visit— hope that was immediately dashed when she choked on her own words and dropped dead on the vast, rotting porch. The Heimlich maneuver produced little more than a few gurgled obscenities. Granny was gone.
As the presumptive executor, I set about determining the value of the dilapidated estate, which turned out to be less than nothing. Granny, it turns out, had a chronic penchant for oven mitts, and the mansion was awash in them, only affording passage through the house via canyon-like trails akin to shoveled passages through deep snow. The oven was inoperable.
Granny had a lifelong belief that she was the lost offspring of the Duchess of Malfesia, or by other accounts, the Electress of Hangover. Accordingly, the library was filled with rejection letters and cease-and-desist orders from the British Office of Peerage, Dukedom, Order of Ascension, and Disowning Megan Markle. That, and scores of empty prescription bottles of syphilis medication, none of which was prescribed for anyone who ever lived there.
Having determined that the estate was worthless, and worse, in arrears and in danger of collapsing, we jumped back in the car and made a hasty exit, eventually bound for Heathrow and safe passage off the island.
It would be for the authorities— or wildlife— to discover Granny’s corpse.
Perfect length for me!
😂😂😂 👏👏👏