Philosophers'
Corner
by Roger
Pattison
“You’re
talking wubbish,” shouted Marl, from his
position of intellectual eminence. Although but
one of a line of similar soap boxes, Marl’s
box was a good four inches taller. This put his
head around six inches lower than his tallest
competitor.
Whether due to
a deficit in the legs department or some
congenital fault of his head or box, would be a
petty gripe.
“You’re
a fine one to be criticising the educational
system, mate. You can’t even spell”
shouted his detractor, who, fortunately enough
for Marl was amongst a crowd of far less
interested members. The man’s dog in fact.
“And how
might you have been drawn to that widdiculous
conclusion?” yelled Marl at the top of his
voice; the top of his voice, of course, still
being six inches lower than anybody else’s.
“Because,
mate” screamed the heckler, “you
introduced yourself as Marl Karx!”
“And what
of it, you fool?” bellowed Marl.
“It says,
in big red letters on your box, ‘Karl
Marx’. So, by a process of elimination, you
either
a) Can’t spell your own name; or,
b) You’ve nicked somebody else’s box.”
A small voice
‘ahem-d’ from the end of the line.
“What?”
shrilled Marl through an apoplectic fit.
“What?”
belted out the almost solo audience.
“Woof!”
said the man’s dog, getting into the mood of
the occasion.
“That’s
my box, actually,” said the small voice.
“So your
name is?” shouted the man with his dog.
“Barrington
Fotheringay.”
“Wait a
minute” said the bellicose Marl Karx,
“it says Marl Karx on this box.”
“No, it
doesn’t” said the audience.
“Well it
doesn’t say ‘Bawington
Fothewingay’” blistered Marl.
“How
would you know? You can’t spell” yelled
out the man.
“The box
is not big enough to fit ‘Bawington
Fothewingay’ on it” yelled Karx.
“Perhaps
if you look at the back..?” came an
apologetic suggestion. Marl Karx craned his neck.
“There is
wather a long word on the back” noted Karx.
“Well
there’s no point you looking at it then, is
there?” observed the audience.
“I think
it says ‘Sunnyways Soap’”. This
subdued comment met a derisive broadside.
“Widiculous
wubbish” shouted Karx.
“You’re
telling me that I’ve been standing here all
afternoon, supposedly broadening my mind, and
none of you can read. I bet you can’t even
add up.”
“It
doesn’t matter for me” joined in a dog-collar.
“I’m religion.”
“But
you’ve got a book” said the bewildered
man.
“Yes, but
I don’t read it. It’s in Latin or
somesuch.”
“But
aren’t you supposed to know what it’s
about?”
“Nobody
else does. I can order a pizza during a service
and nobody knows the difference.” He smiled
benevolently. “Pepperoneus maximus extrem
anchovus. That’s the important bit. The rest
I make up.”
“So
people are hoping for spiritual fulfilment from
your pizza takeaway?”
“If it
works, don’t knock it.”
The day was
drawing to its world-weary close and soap boxes
were sulking into oblivion.
The diminutive
Marl Karx girded up his loins and prepared to go
home for tea.
“You’re
surely not going to leave it at that.” The
man and his dog hadn’t moved.
“Well we
found out whose box it was, what more do you want?”
“Whose
box was it, then?” asked the man, intrigued.
“It
belonged to ‘this way up’.”
|
