Larry and Mick and the Disregarded Safety Announcement

 

 

"We are now approaching Kidderminster. Please mind the gap between the platform and the train."

 

"Pardon?" said Mick.

 

"It wasn't me," said Larry; "it was the lady on the tannoy."

 

 

 

The lady on the tannoy climbed down and took a seat.

 

"Hey, put that seat back!" said the train guard.

 

"Sorry," said the lady.

 

"Strange things are occuring," said Larry and Mick in unison (not the trade union (because that would have a capital 'U')).

 

 

 

The train pulled into the station.

 

"Mind the gap!" said Mick, as Larry pressed the button to open the sliding doors.

 

"Don't worry, friend Mick," said Larry; "they just have to say that."

 

He would soon regret his nonchalance.

 

 

 

Larry was about to step onto the platform, when he was shoved from behind.

 

"Hey wha-!" he started, but in the moment of distraction his foot slipped into the undefinable zone between 'train' and 'platform' and he felt a preternatural force begin to tug at his loafer.

 

"Oh bugger," said Larry, as like a drowning man, he instinctively grasped at the nearest thing to hand, which happened to be the strap of his friend Mick's manbag, and thus they were both tugged into the rainbow-hued vortex which opened beneath them.

 

 

 

"Aahh!" said Larry.

 

"Aahh!" said Mick.

 

 

 

The rainbow-hued vortex swirled and pulled and tugged and whirled, and generally made them feel dizzy and in need of a wee.

 

"Idiot!" said Mick.

 

"Buffoon!" said Larry.

 

"Why am I a buffoon?" said Mick.

 

"Since when have you had a 'manbag'?"

 

"Don't change the subject."

 

"What is the subject?"

 

"Dunno."

 

 

 

"I think I'm gonna wet myself."

 

"Please don't."

 

"I think I'm gonna be sick."

 

"O cripes."

 

"I think I'm gonna-... oh there's the toilet."

 

 

 

Unbeknownst to them, in the space of less than a minute, Larry and Mick had been transported through twelve spatial dimensions, seventeen temporal ones, a McDonalds drive-thru in Hull and a service elevator in a non-specified branch of Marks and Spencers. Fortuitously they were then dropped off in the toilet of the train upon which their journey had commenced. Not so fortuitously, they had missed their stop.

 

 

 

When Larry had had a wee, been sick and done other unmentionable things in the toilet, then complied with Mick's instructions to apply vigorous cleansing to his hands, Mick went to press the button to open the door.

 

"Wait!" said Larry.

 

"What?" said Mick.

 

"We can't go out together."

 

"Good point."

 

So Larry went out first, took a seat two carriages down, then Mick waited a suitable amount of time to also exit the bog.

 

 

 

"Hey, put that seat back!" said the train guard.

 

"Sorry," said Larry.