Simon had been stranded in the moors for eighteen hours when he spotted the tent. It stood like a house-shaped bon bon amid the dead trees and bracken - a fluorescent pink poof at its peak knocking in the breeze.
'Oh thank God' - said Simon.
Not 48 hours prior Simon's blonde locks had shimmered in the sunlight as though he were the poster child for a shampoo commercial. His blue jeans had been creased and his sneakers all but blindingly white. He had embarked on an afternoon stroll in the fields at the back of his office - hoped to get a breath of fresh air before getting stuck into another set of spreadsheets.
Now though matted hair plastered his cheeks and recalled the colour of algae. His jeans were ripped at the knees and plastered in mud from the ankle down. His sneakers he'd had to abandon to avoid being sucked into a bog some miles back.
It had not been a pleasant afternoon stroll for Simon.
He fell to his knees and clasped both hands above his crown.
'Thank God' - he rasped. 'Thank... God.'
Simon picked himself up with a sigh - then launched himself on.
Each step his head bounced down against the front of his chest - it took strength even to look up and make sure the tent was ahead. He felt the mud between his toes where his sock had stopped keeping the sludge out but packed it tighter around his feet. He focused just on keeping his eyelids open – not succumbing to the need to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later he was there.
'Hullo' – said the teller in the kiosk. 'How are you this beautiful afternoon?'
Simon peered at the man through blood-shot eyelids.
'I'm... sorry?' – he said.
'I said – how are you this beautiful afternoon?'
Simon forced his blood-shot peepers open to examine the man.
He was a fresh-faced gent that couldn't have been a month over 80. His cheeks were pink and his thick black eyebrows arched up as though he were forever surprised to see you. He had long white hair that fell across his shoulders and over a pin-striped waistcoat. In his hands he carried a cane striped like a barber's pole. He leaned forward against it so that he seemed to peer into Simon.
Simon decided the man deserved swift entrance to a retirement home.
'Look' – he said. 'I've been lost on the moors for 18 hours. I haven't had a thing to eat or drink and I've not slept and I'm drenched in mud. I need to get to a phone and tell the people at work I'm not dead. Can I please borrow a phone?'
The man didn't flinch.
'Of course' – he said. 'There's a phone in the tent.'
He bought the cane across his mouth and and turned aside.
'Bwahahahah.'
Simon felt the breeze might knock him down if he stood much longer. He didn't have time for entertain the geriatric fogie.
'Right then' – he said. 'Then can I use it?' His anger was palpable through the rasp of his voice.
'Of course' – said the teller. 'Just enter the tent.
Bwahahahah.'
Simon squinted.
'I – excuse me. Is that a megalomaniacal laugh?'
'No – not at all. Don't mind me. For I am a pleasant old gent charged to welcome visitors to this tent.
'Bwahahahah.'
Simon did not have time for this. Breathing deep he summoned all remaining strength and leapt the table that blocked him from the entrance. Pushing the old man aside he swept back the curtain to the tent to isolate that phone.
Simon promptly disappeared into the black hole that greeted him the moment he stepped inside.
'Noooooo' – he cried then was never seen again.
Outside the old man tottered forth on his cane to pull back the curtain.
'There's a phone down there somewhere' – he hollered.
He returned the curtain as though its contents meant less to him than something found on the underside of one's shoe.
'Bwahahah' – he chuckled then disappeared in a puff of smoke – taking the tent with him.
The dead trees and bracken of the moor rustled in the breeze.
