The Brave Police Officer

I went to my sister Kati’s place for dinner, and when I arrived she was washing up a couple of things and her lime green rubber gloves matched her lacy shirt. There was a triple-decker chocolate cake sitting on the bench. “Look at that cake!” I said. “Oh,” she apologised, “it’s not finished yet.” Then she peeled off her lime green gloves, took a saucepan from the stove, and began to slather frosting on the cake. To be honest, the whole thing, the matching greens, the triple-decker cake, my sister’s generous swoops of chocolate cream, all of it made me very happy.

I drove home through the new tunnel, and that made me happy too. There was a haunted, whooshing sound, and it seemed to go on and on. I kept thinking, “Surely, this is it?” But no, there was more. Like an especially satisfying theme park ride.

And yet, there was an edge of uneasiness and then I remembered why: when they were constructing the tunnel, there had been some kind of error, and the whole thing had collapsed. It had taken an apartment building with it. The building is now buried underground.

Still, I remembered next, nobody was injured. Everyone got out. There was some sadness about a budgerigar having been left behind in an apartment, but even that was rescued by a brave police officer.

So then I cheered up and enjoyed the tunnel, driving its generous swoops.