I sailed into the meeting, the first since my two weeks off, expecting to be cheered for my negotiating skills, but instead was met with a sea of grim faces.

“Didn’t the trade go through?” I asked. “Isn’t the menace gone?”

“He’s gone alright,” said the chairperson. “But in exchange we got someone worse.”

“Not another brother?”

“No. The wild one.”

The week before I left on holiday we’d had a meeting at which we had finally decided to get rid of the whiner.

As usual we were clustered around fluffy white tables, enjoying a break and beefing about clients who moaned about their fate: the whiner being the worst.

“I wish he’d been sent to hell,” said one disgruntled worker. Nods all around.

“As if we could choose who goes where,” said the trainee.

“It’s not as if the proper procedures aren’t followed,” grumbled another.

“So today the usual complaint from the McLean boy?” asked the chairperson who never had to serve on the Complaints Desk.

“Yeah, whine, whine, whine.”

“Why are we called the McLean Boys without first names and Hare is called the Wild Alex Hare? Why is he the only one who’s wild?”

“Did you explain we had no authority on earth?”

“Of course, for the 25th time.”

“I blame this on the wipe out. The technology they were using last century was so bad people could remember things.”

“Worse still they seem to be able to hear what is going on down below.”

“Yeah. He’s read all the books and seen the movie. He wants to be the star but is only a walk-on.”

“So is there anything we can do to shut him up?”

“No. But if the boys ended up here why wasn’t Wild Alex Hare sent here?”

“He was sent back to earth for another round. Hoping he would be less wild.”

“And was he?”

“Well less violent and in a more acceptable way. He was a minister of the Church of Forgiveness. “

“So he didn’t kill people?”

“Only if they came unto his property but mostly he just slept with their wives.”

“And in the trade we got him?”

“Yeah, he ended up below but they decided to trade him.”

“We keep asking for a check on who is being traded but we just end up with whoever they want to get rid of.”

“And I can see why they wanted to get rid of him.”

“He’s already been at the Complaints Desk five times in four days.”

“And what is his complaint?”

“Hates harp music, argues adultery should be a sin so he shouldn’t have been traded and doesn’t want to be the same place as the McLean boys have been.”

“Well, so what to do?”

“Why not put the four of them somewhere where they can fight it out?”

“Sure. What about the middle waiting room?”

“I thought it was shut down in an austerity move.”

“I say we open it up.”

~Melodie Corrigall

Published in Corner Bar Magazine. Vol.4, Number 3, 2019.