Dead Again: Or How I Saved Mankind...now read on

Chapter 2: A disrupted journey to work, Adrian and his wife’s unfortunate mishap.

The tube had just pulled out of the station and I started to read the local rag. My eyes alighted on an inside page headline “Christmas joker gets the sack”. The article described how an attractive mortgage adviser at a local estate agent had, as a joke, photocopied her backside. The fetching photograph (of her face) accompanying the article attested to her attractiveness. 

Unfortunately for her the sophisticated machine e-mailed the facsimile of her bum to about two hundred prospective house buyers. It also e-mailed her bum to the firm’s head office in Leeds. About half of the prospective house buyers put in “realistic offers” for the owner of the bum but that didn’t stop her boss, with some pressure from head office, having to let her go.

 The worker had, I thought ill advisedly, taken out an unfair dismissal claim. Hence the report in the local rag. I didn’t think any more of it.

The train terminated at the next station, “operating difficulties,” we were told by the driver and we all disembarked onto the platform.

 It was then I bumped into the fellow traveller who I’d seen regularly on the tube.

 “Glad to see the service is maintaining its usual high standard of reliability and punctuality.” My fellow traveller chirped. I took an instant liking to him – just the sort of comment I’d have made.

“Yes”, I said, “I’d wanted to stretch my legs – thoughtful of them wasn’t it.”

We waited on the platform for about 10 minutes without a hint of when the next train would arrive. And by then it was getting extremely crowded as more people entered the station.

 “I’m running late as it is.” – My fellow traveller complained.

 “So am I. I was thinking of going to ground level to see if I could catch a bus – at least I could phone the office and let them know what has happened.”

 “Good idea”, said my companion and we worked our way through the platform crowd to the exit.

In the street we both phoned our offices and struck out for the nearest bus stop. There was a very long queue and when we asked we were told that the last bus came about 15 minutes ago and it was completely full. 

I knew that about 5 minutes walk away there was an over ground station where we could get a train to King’s Cross. From there we could pick up the underground or a bus.

  “I’m Adrian,” my walking companion said.

 “And I’m Dave. Nice to meet you – the station’s only a few minutes away.”

We reached the station as an almost empty train pulled in.

 “What luck” I said as we found ourselves two seats.

 I handed him the local paper while I read “The Independent”. 

“Thanks”, he said as he perused the paper’s headline “We campaign to get London moving” rang out the overblown headline. “Not much success so far” he added.

The train purposefully, if slowly, headed towards our destination and we were each engrossed in our journals.

 Then, Adrian took in a sharp breath of air, followed by an “Oh no!”

“What is it?” I asked.

 He handed me the page he’d been reading. The headline was “Christmas joker gets the sack”. “That’s my wife! I knew this would happen if she went to the tribunal.”

Chapter 3: In Dead World again, a live white Rabbit and an interesting proposition.

 “About your wife and the photocopier.” I continued, “It sorted out your difficulty with her boss didn’t it?”

“I suppose it did. I hadn’t really thought about it in that way. However, it sets me up for more trouble in the future.”

 “What do you mean?”

“Well, if we’re to believe what Fritz told us my wife is the “fit bird” seduced following the arse searing episode.”….