Craving For Muffins

“Old Chas. has had his chips they say; his days are nearly numbered now.” So Harry told us in the pub, and then he said “Somehow, I think, we should go and see him, before he falls off the perch, ‘cause if we don’t then very soon we’ll only see him in the church.” “What’s wrong with him?” I’m asking Harry, who said he wasn’t really sure, but it seems to be a virus thing that the doctors cannot cure. Then Joe cut in and said aloud “I don’t think what he’s got is strange. His missus treats him like a dog so he’s probably got the mange.” Now that’s another subject which gets underneath our skin. Perhaps she has been poisoning him, that’s why he looks so thin, and she isn’t kind to visitors who come to wish old Charlie well. Perhaps it’s best we stay away; ‘Now hang on! Bloody hell.’ Chas. is our mate who’s pretty crook and his traveling’s all down hill. He’s been our mate for thirty years, so ‘bugger’ her I will go ‘round and try to cheer him up, and lift his spirits up a bit, so then I left the pub alone, to show the other blokes some grit. I knocked on the door; she answered it. She smiled and said “Come in. Chas will be so pleased to see you” … said with an evil viscous grin. She led me through the kitchen; an odour permeates the air of something she is cooking. She points. “Chas is lying down in there.” Before I went to see old Chas. I said “Your kitchen smells aglow” … “Oh, I’m cooking choc chip muffins, they’re Chas’s favourite you know.” She lifted them out of the oven and then placed them on a rack. She didn’t see Chas. stagger out, because he was behind her back. He looked so pale when to his lips, he put his finger for the sign, to not let his missus know that he was staggering behind. Old Charlie might be awful crook, and closing in on fate, but with those muffins on the bench, his time will have to wait. Then while reaching for a muffin, Chas. moved his chair and she, turned around and with a scream “Hey Charlie leave them be! I didn’t bake these muffins for you, I’m taking them down to the hall. They’re for folks who come on back after your funeral.”