Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf

Author:Mazen Maarouf [Maarouf, Mazen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General, Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author), Literary
ISBN: 9781846276699
Google: RcmGDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1846276675
Barnesnoble: 1846276675
Publisher: Granta Books
Published: 2019-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Biscuits

MY MOTHER WAS SITTING QUIETLY IN THE BACK seat. I was telling my wife a joke and driving the car. We were on our way to the care home, taking my mother back after her day out with us. My mother stays at the care home six days a week. Alzheimer’s. The car was travelling at fifty miles an hour. This is not just a detail. I never found out whether my wife got the joke or not, since she didn’t have a chance to laugh. Just as I finished telling the joke, we saw an old man crossing the motorway on the other side. When you’re travelling at high speed, sudden death looks like it’s happening in slow motion.

I stopped the car, of course, like a number of other people, and with my wife’s help I got my mother out of the car and left her to watch the scene from behind the concrete barrier. The old man was truly amazing. He was hopping nimbly between the vehicles, avoiding one car, dodging and weaving, whirling around, spinning like a wheel, doing the splits and throwing feeble punches. I kept my mother and my wife at a safe distance so that the old man wouldn’t touch us with his boxing gloves and turn us into biscuits. The old man’s gloves grew bigger and bigger whenever he touched the side of a car and turned it into a biscuit. My wife tried to say something to the old man, but I nudged her with my elbow and she realized she should keep silent. As for my mother, her eyes drank in the whole scene, especially when I started describing it to her in precise detail, with the enthusiasm of a sports commentator: ‘He’s touching the side of a car and turning it into a biscuit.’

The old man didn’t look anxious. He stepped out into the motorway between the speeding cars, then took off his white hat and wrapped it around his fist like a boxing glove. He didn’t want to punch the cars, just to touch them. The speeding cars tried to avoid him, but they didn’t succeed. Every car he touched turned into a giant biscuit. Since they were going so fast, they overturned and crumbled into pieces by the side of the road. The scene was riveting to watch as the first three groups of cars passed. Soon there was a giant pile of biscuit crumbs on the side of the road.

Later, on the way to the care home, my wife said with a smile that she would have liked to ask the old man just one question. I didn’t comment. We reached the door of the care home. I got my mother out of the car and, as I handed her over to a beautiful nurse, I whispered in her ear, ‘Mum, tell the nice lady the story about the old man.’ And Mother did then launch into a monologue about the biscuits as she went off with the nurse.

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