By Ira Maine

I wondered if it was enough.  Thoughtful enough, I mean.  It is, in the end, quite difficult to ascertain when a sufficiency of pondering, of taking others thoughtfully into account, has been achieved.

I had as an example, behaved in what the Lady of the Manner considered to be a wholly thoughtful way when I had decided to treat her to a helter-skelter ride which I had secretly built in the back garden.  The device took her, at a height well clear of neighbouring pergolas, washing lines, and sundry other garden affectations, over the fence to the starting point.  Clad in her Isadora Duncan extravagances and anticipating the off, she waved her ebony cigarette holder to indicate her readiness.

The carriage paused for a moment, gathering it’s awesome strength.  It moved almost imperceptibly, but with gathering grace and  power, down the lane, past the Monument, before skillfully skirting the butcher’s shop which is, I must say, an immaculately presented emporium (Magdalena Fly-Shacker, Prop.).  Then the breathlessness, the dry mouthed fear which go heart in mouth with the slow anticipatory ascent to almost steeple height.  A moment to enjoy the panorama before the ear-splitting shrieks which inevitably accompany the terrifying descent to the supermarket car park.  This shrieking is particularly marked when Heinrich Stauff-Bullivant, our local police sergeant (easily impersonating Lauren Bacall) carries out secret elevated reconaissance in the interests of law and order.

All things considered then, I felt I was being entirely thoughtful when, following the unfortunate unpleasantness with the Reverend Molesworth, (our footballing Man of the Cloth, affectionately known as Moley, the Holy Goalie) regarding unsolicited banshee interruptions to choral practice, I offered to supply the entire choir with industrial ear muffs.  Furthermore and to wit, I further offered to have the wheels of my helter-skelter vehicle shod with trade quality carpet, (at no cost whatever to the Church).  These more than generous offers were derisively and unceremoniously rebuffed by Holy Moley himself although some of the more daredevil members of the choir did exhibit more than a little interest in giving their cassocks an airing on board my new mechanical wonder.  As a final and deeply thoughtful gesture, I even offered to bus in, at my own expense, coachloads of out-of-town congregations, who, unaware of my contrivance, might easily be persuaded that the screams from on high and descending therefrom were those of lost souls who, having failed in their earthly duty to attend church services, were even now being consigned irrevocably to one of Dante’s more infernal circles of Hell.

Later, motoring into the dawn, the following thoughts occurred to me:

You will remember my doubts, expressed at the beginning of this tale, as to whether one ever knows if one has been thoughtful enough, has fulfilled one’s obligations well enough to allow one to believe one is now at last free of the ‘thoughtful’ contract.  To this end I have outlined to you, step by step, my commitment to honouring my side of this bargain.  Well, I had begun to think, in a frighteningly heretical manner, that perhaps thoughtfulness can be taken too far.  What if I had, long ago, already fulfilled my obligation?  What if, despite all of the sweat of my brow in recent times, the struggle naught availeth?

Deliberately I slowed the car on this beautiful Spring morning, and rolled to a halt.  Drawing the toilet roll wrapper out of the glove compartment I re-read the advice thereon;

“Please dispose of this wrapper thoughtfully”

Immediately I could feel the insidious nature of this admonition begin once more to seep into my soul.

“Thus far and no further!” My mind screamed.“Have I not been thoughtful enough already?”

Before I could weaken, before  my courage evaporated, I savagely crushed the wrapper in my fist and flung the wretched thing straight out of the window.  Breathless I fell back, my body exhausted, terrifyingly aware that the die was now cast.  There was no going back.

After what seemed like a lifetime I slipped the car into gear and drove slowly away, into the great thoughtless unknown.