Ciarán Ryan notebook

For example:

A routine

Got home. Said to the wife: “What are you doing here? You and your husband live next door”.

Got home. Said to the knife: “If I had known cutlery could talk I would have attempted to speak to you earlier”.

Got home. Said to the mice: “Get off that phone. You’re costing me a fortune with all those long distance calls to Mouseland”.

Got home. Said to the rice: “No thanks. I don’t want your expert advice - this is not your field”.

Got home. Opened the door. No one there. So I went up the stairs. Goldilocks was in my bedroom. So I ran downstairs into the kitchen, checked the cupboards and ran back upstairs. “You stupid cow”. I said to her. “I’ve told you before. Stop eating my porridge”.

Got home. Opened the door. No one there. Went upstairs. There’s a big dairy cow in my bedroom. So I ran down stairs into the kitchen. Checked the cupboards. Ran back upstairs and said to the cow: “You stupid cow. You should be outside, playing with the other cows. In the field”.

Got home said to my shoe: “You’re on my foot. Get off my foot” etc etc “Ow” etc.’

Story: Giant Rabbits

Many years ago…

“Yup” said Karl, in his greenhouse, cap on head, ‘phone in hand. Robert the rabbit draped around his neck.

“Karl Schlincky the farmer / breeder of giant rabbits - with the dour expression on his pudgy face?”

“Yup that’s me” said Karl, who spoke remarkably good English for someone who was German and couldn’t speak English.

“Great! My name’s Clive. I’m one of North Korea’s leading TV pet doctors.” came the voice out of the ‘phone.

Robert the 10kg rabbit shifted uneasily on his owner’s shoulders. Maybe with his great size came increased intelligence, or powers of premonition. Or maybe he was hungry and considering eating Karl.

The greenhouse was warm under the German sun.

“We’d like to invite you to North Korea” continued Clive. “We’re wanting some giant rabbits. Do you do squirrels, too? Anyway we want to invite you to our country so that we can extract from you the hints and tips of your fledgling giant creature breeding programme. Of course, this being the North Korea you’ve read about, we’ll do the extracting in a secretive way.”

So Karl bade farewell to his wife and climbed into his van. It took ages for Karl and Robert to reach North Korea. The van was more suited to transporting vegetables to the local farmer’s market. It wasn’t very fast or comfortable.

Despite Clive’s fine words Karl only met Kim Jong-Il, the de facto head of North Korea’s state and government, once. And that was briefly at the official welcoming ceremony.

Karl told Kim Jong-Il about how he feeds Robert lots of spring rolls. Kim didn’t look suprised. Karl suspected he wasn’t listening. From what he could make out, Kim Jong-Il, had bet Kim Yong Nam, the President of the Supreme People’s Assembly, £10 that Karl was really really small which made the rabbits in the newspaper photos look larger. Karl couldn’t be sure of this.

When the people’s band stopped playing and the giant rabbit banners were taken down from the great assembly hall, Karl was led away to a concrete prison. Later he was moved to another more secretive facility when tests confirmed he wasn’t concrete.

In a reflective mood, Karl thought back to when he began breeding giant rabbits. He had not anticipated the great personal cost.

Big furry Robert looked on from a nearby bridge.

The end