The Roomy Shoe

Can we come in if we're a bit wet? Yes. But if you get any wetter I'll have to ask you to leave. They all had hot chocolate and ate fruit and hooted kayak-related technical terms at each other and laughed. One of them was particularly not good at doing something while also doing something else, they said.
They got in their boats and went away. I mopped up. The remaining customer returned from the garden and saw the floor and said Jesus did they all piss themselves? He left and no one came in for the next five hours.
I thought about going over the road. There's one road in the village and you can, if you like, go over it. That's what there is to do. On that side there is another pub. It has an enticing outer shell but the unbearable typeface used in the under new management banner tells you the inside is probably full of blind people being lied to by their dogs. There's a shop, but it doesn't sell newspapers and I've heard its sandwiches described as catastrophic. Up the road a bit there's a different shop with a big sign on it I can't quite make out. Something to do with a barn. I haven't been up there, either. I went to the post office next door and asked them if they had what I wanted and they said sorry we sold out this morning.

Less of This In Future

Some temporary work in the country near the wet place known as England's most beautiful lake. They say. And they've seen them all. They had a big lake show and everyone put their lakes into carrier bags and went to a stadium and poured them onto a catwalk. This one won because of its versatility, unusual length and agreeable breeze. Some of the other lakes thought they should've been allowed to bring their surrounding scenery, but the chief judge said no, you don't judge the food by the cupboard it's kept in, do you? Do you? And does this look like a fucking cupboard-judging competition? And all the lakes were quiet and dribbled back into their bags and their owners took them home and sloshed them out into their holes.

The Shirt On Him

The box of flashing lights made a noise like a boiling zoo and its lights stopped flashing and everyone stared at it and stared at each other with their longest faces and stared at it again and someone switched it off at the wall. Speculation built. We had to get a man in. He arrived early and we posted him through the slot and he furtled about with the innards and dropped out through the bottom with a snort and a chime and dust on his arms and old money shards on his face. Should be right now, he said, and we gave him a bowl of soup and he went off over the bridge on his electric wagon.

Mouth Isn't

Everyone puts their money in the box of flashing lights. They soon run out of money. They get some more money and because the box hasn't given them their money back they put more money in it. It's a laughing matter. Eventually the maximum amount of money that the box will ever give back if it feels like it which it nearly never does is less than the total amount of money everyone has put into it. At this point they put money into it in small amounts although they have agreed not to. One person tells another one off for doing it and hours later the person who told the other person off is at the box again doing the same thing. Sometimes a person who hasn't put any money in the box comes along and starts putting money in the box. Then everyone gathers in a hush to see what will happen. What will happen is that this person will put all their money in the box and leave. The behaviour of the box is very predictable and no one can predict when it will become unpredictable. It doesn't ask any questions but it does offer some choices like whether or not to associate flashing lights with disappointment. It has never pretended it doesn't do what it does.