It’s not a long story to tell and not much happens in it but the eventual outcome is quite serious and there is almost an element of humour as well when you consider the circumstances that led up to me running over a middle aged man yesterday morning at about half an hour before midday. I know what you are thinking right now. Some of you who know me are thinking something along the lines of ,”Yeah, right Bruce, make up another tall story why don’t you.” And you would be right if it were not for you being wrong. Yesterday I ran someone over in my car and dragged him for about a yard and a half before his hipbone became jammed between the front right tyre and the metal wheel arch of the chassis causing my car to stall. As I jumped from the car I realised that his name was Paul because that was the name that was being screamed by the old lady with a lovely blue rinse perm who had dropped her shopping and was hobbling towards the accident almost as fast as the oranges that had fallen from her bags rolled down the slope.

Paul wasn’t overly mangled. My car was just fine. It had all occurred because I am an animal lover who had stopped at a junction to let a couple of, either very arrogant or awfully stupid, pigeons decide if they wanted to move out of my way or die squished. I was berating them verbally with such scathing remarks as ,”You know that I am officially higher in the food chain than you so you’d best flap off if you know what’s good for ya!” and gesturing wildly with my hands in an attempt to move them along, such movements which Paul, standing on the kerb and waiting to cross, must have mistaken for a signal that I was allowing him to cross the road before I drove on. He can’t have seen the brace of pigeons at his feet nor realise that it was at them and not him I was signalling because just as they walked to one side of my car he alighted from the kerb and directly into the path of my accelerating vehicle. Then there was a bang on my bonnet as his head bounced off it and then a dull wet smack as he hit the tarmac, limp. Then the oranges started rolling and the screaming began.

I was late for work. Paul is just late. The police have called it Involuntary Manslaughter. I blame it all on the effing pigeons. True story. Most of it.