Bernard Shaw

The Pie Man.

Four of five times a year a man comes into the street going from house to house he sells pies. He has a van that is filled with built in shelving. On the shelves he has his pies for sale. All sorts of pies from meat pies, fruit pies and many others are for sale. I have sometimes bought one of his pies and after warming the pie in the oven it had made me a good nourishing meal. Today he rang my front door bell, Opening the door he told me that today’s speciality was one of his famous mushroom pies. I have never eaten one of his mushroom pies and decided to buy one for my lunch.

The pie was ready for baking and he told me to put it in a hot oven and bake it for one and a half hours. I paid for the pie and wishing the man a good day I went back indoors with the pie. Placing the pie in my warm oven I sat back to read the daily papers. Soon a delicious smell was coming from the oven. I was now beginning to look forward to eating the pie. In other words with the delicious smell my appetite was awakened. Taking my thick cooking gloves I opened the oven door. The pie looked scrumptious and I was now looking forward to my meal.

Laying the table took only a few minutes and I sliced into the pie. I placed a huge slice on to my plate, taking my knife and fork I put the first bite into my waiting mouth. The taste was out of this world. I remember thinking that the pie man was a master of his trade. Slowly I eat piece after piece soon a warm flush spread over my whole body. I had this feeling that the whole world was going into a spin and decided to lay myself down on my settee. I made it to the settee and the pictures flooded into my mind. First it was as if I was looking through a kaleidoscope. Weird and wonderful patterns flooded through my brain.

I could not move and the puzzles changed to vivid pictures. People that I had known in the past came pouring into my mind none of them walked all just floated in and out. I saw children’s faces that I had known as a young child. Relations came floating into my view this was the weirdest dream or whatever it was that had ever happened to me. I do not know how long I was in this state it was a loud knocking on my front door that stopped the dream like state. I struggled to the door my legs were as if they were made of rubber. I managed to open the door. The pie man stood there and asked me if I had eaten the pie. It turned out that the pie was for his own use and he had mistakenly sold it to me.

He told me that he had used some mushrooms that were really a drug that made one hallucinate. I told him that I had eaten at least half of the pie and that he was welcome to have the other half back. He insisted on giving me another pie this time it was a plum pie. “No ill effects from this pie,” he said it is made from fresh plums from my own tree. I gave him the half of pie left from my lunch and he gave me the plum pie. I watched him drive off and wondered whether he had given any of the mushroom pies to his other customers. Bern