Golden memories: The Wizard

By drkevin

Sun, 08 Nov 2020
  • 370 reads
2 comments
 

 

Back in the 1970's I used to go to a packed post-hippy pub every Saturday night. One fellow often swaggered through the melee looking like a loose-limbed tarantula, shaking his head slowly and chuckling at the people around him, as though he had transcendental knowledge of some sort. And the rest of us didn't.

Then one night an ambulance turned up and took him out of the toilet on a stretcher.
He'd apparently slipped on his own urine and fractured his skull. Witnesses reported that he always emptied his bladder with his hands in his pockets and this precluded him from saving himself when the slip occurred. A nearby wash basin did the rest.

He never returned to the pub, but somebody told me the guy had lived in a bed sitter for many years, unemployed and relatively detached from the outside world. His life revolved around esoteric texts, sword and sorcery novels and the occult.

Free of contradiction, he was the wizard.

Certificate 15
Story
Other Non-fiction
Humour
Miscellaneous
Autobiography

Comments

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on

Sounds like the kind of pub I hung out, in the 1970s. I always say don't run or walk with your hands in pockets, it can only lead to accidents, now I can add: don't pee to the list. The poor wizard guy must have been devastated, no wonder he never went back to the pub.

But he sounds like a cool guy with some imagination for reading.

Jenny.

 

Submitted by drkevin on

 

When I look back, most of us probably thought we were wizards. Time told a different story! Thanks for your comment.