Pest

He missed the train by just two minutes.

It was a cold evening with a constant, chilly wind blowing along the platform. The weather forecasters had definitely got it wrong today. He looked up at the display. It told him he had a fifteen-minute wait before the next one was due. He began stamping his feet to keep warm. It wasn’t working. He looked around at the dozen or so passengers, most of them were doing the same. After about five minutes the cold really began to bight. He was so focused on the fact that, like most of the others, his clothes didn’t suit the weather, he hadn’t noticed the man next to him had moved a little closer. He was quite short and wore a large hat. He was amazed to note that the man was also wearing a heavy overcoat with a great woollen scarf wrapped around his neck.

Sideling up even closer, the man said, “You know, I’ve just been reading this really great book.”

He said, “Oh, yes,” out of politeness and looked to see if the train might possibly arrive early.

“Yes, for instance, did you know that there’s this island that France and Spain take turns owning, every six months they sort of swap around, and I found out it was actually a dentist that invented the electric chair and believe it or not, the opposite sides of a die will always add up to seven, that a blob of toothpaste is called a nurdle, women blink nearly twice as much as men, the King of Hearts is the only king in a deck of cards without a moustache, bees have five eyes and that nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.”

Feeling that he had to reply, the man said, “No, I didn’t know any of that,” while wondering what had attracted the pesky little man to pick on him.

The other went on. “Not many people know that ketchup was used medicinally in the early 1800s or that maps sometimes have fake placenames to prevent plagiarism, that about one trillionth of a second is called a jiffy, that a snail can sleep for three years, your body contains about 100,000 miles of blood vessels, a crocodile is not able to stick out its tongue, that the cigarette lighter was invented before the match or that apple seeds contain cyanide.” He grinned up at the other.

Despite the man feeling that the unwanted pest was actually making both the wait and the cold even worse, he mumbled, “Oh. Really? You don’t say.”

“Ah! But I do say. I bet you didn’t know that Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise or that playing dance music can help ward off mosquitoes, that babies are born without kneecaps, that a cat’s jaw cannot move sideways, that your fingernails grow faster on your dominant hand, that your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every fortnight, that the house fly hums in the middle octave key of F, that dragonflies have six legs, but can’t walk, that Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button or that a female mayfly only lives for five minutes. Only five minutes! I bet you didn’t know that.” He looked up at the other with wide-eyed wonder. “Just think of that. I mean, just imagine, what would you do if you only had five minutes to live?”

With a wince and a shudder, the man said, “I would certainly start looking for someone better to spend my time with.”

At which point, he moved further down the platform.