(This is an extract of 278 words out of the 1487 words in the full tale of "The Chiropodist")

.......This particular afternoon I was laying on my bed, when I heard this, almost a wailing coming down the lines. It sounded something like this, "Corn wallow, in growin' toe nails." At the end of every utterance, this bloke reached a higher pitch with his voice. I was curious, I thought, "What the bloody hells this coming down?" Well I looked outside the tent and I saw this little Indian bloke with a little attaché case walking down the lines between the two rows of tents. So I collared him showed him my corn. He had all the typical 'bull shit' on the side of his attaché case, 'expert and this that and the bloody other. he motioned to me, "Atcha sab," that means to say very good. He opened his case and took out a little cone shaped thing. It was like a tun dish. Then he put the narrow end of the tun dish on my corn, then he sucked the other end. I didn't feel any pain, but he showed me this little hard piece of stuff, which he said was the corn he had sucked out. Well I didn't know what the hell he'd done. I can't now remember if he then put a plaster on it, or not. All I can remember is that, a few hours later my toe was throbbing like hell. I paid the little bastard bear in mind, for so called curing my corn. A few hours later I tried to put my boot back on, it was bloody hopeless. My foot had swelled up that much. I thought, "Oh Christ what do I do now?"

I decided to........

© COPYRIGHT RICHARD PATTERSON 2001