cruise

It was the third night of my trans-atlantic cruise aboard the good ship,“Titanic”.

As I sashayed into the ballroom after an impressive dinner I thought how easily inert objects such as peas and cabbage could migrate from plate to dinner jacket and be glued there by misplaced gravy. I skilfully flipped a cigarette from my pack into the corner of my mouth and lit up, but the nearest waiter threw the contents of an ice bucket over my head as the filter tip burst into flames . I smiled and waved to the startled passengers as if it were a common occurrence (It was).As the chilled water dripped down my shirt, I realised that my jacket had lost some of its’ dining room adornment. This upbeat result was spoiled by the head waiter asking if I wanted to keep the tea and coffee sachets I had purloined from the dining room and had dropped as I sashayed in. From the promenade deck outside I could hear the booming voice of the Colonel “Waiter, I asked for ice, but this is ridiculous!”

Then I saw her, sitting by herself at a dimly-lit table for two beside the dance-floor. I nodded towards her and winked, she rolled her eye at me. I picked it up, wiped it and rolled it back. She stood up as I approached and I could see she was a tall beauty, (probably Seven foot six,) with long, blonde hair curling down her back. ( none on her head , but you can’t have everything). As I held her wrist to help her onto her foot (she had a wooden leg) I realised she had the one thing that would interest me in an affair -- a pulse!!. I did not mind the wooden leg, in fact I found it attractive, although that was a matter of opinion. Some years before I had had a passionate affair with a woman who had two wooden legs but, sadly, she had been caught in a fire and burnt to the ground.

As the band struck up with a tango, she quickly fitted a roller blade to her good foot and hissed at me ”DANCE!” I had no chance of keeping up with her so I did my notorious Arabesque in the corner. Meanwhile she completed a technically perfect routine including a triple selko and a double toe-loop. Later, as we sat and talked, she told me that her name was Helga bomsadasey and that she was aboard with her two brothers, Hans and Neesan. After some more small talk, I suggested going back to her cabin for a nightcap. “You naughty boy!” she pouted provocatively, “I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m a Smith!” I had to shout, to compete with the scraping, ripping noise from outside the ship. “Tom Smith”. I then looked in amazement as her face turned white with anger, then red with rage, followed by blue with cold as a double door burst open and a freezing wind blew in. After this patriotic display of the union jack colours, she screamed at me. ”My brothers have sworn to kill all of you for the murder of my father. You bright blue Scandinavian dwarves will rue the day you heard of Hans and Neesan Bomsadasey !” The ship lurched and I fell to the deck, by the time I got back to my feet she had disappeared.

My mind was in a whirl. This was the woman I had fallen in love with, but her brothers wanted to kill me because she thought I was a Smurf !