A man continues to delight me!

C’est toujours l’écrivain Monsieur Fraser.

Today I was on the very odd invention that I call a ski-ing machine, no one else calls it that, but it looks like elevated skis tramping through the air, and these two handles are inconveniently located and tend to clout me in the head if I am not careful. I am an ardent believer in the art of multi-tasking that I take to a sad and ridiculous level. Thus I was on the machine mostly to read and secondly, a very distant second, to puff.

The book precariously balanced, I held it rather than the flying handles and tried not to knock myself out before I’d covered the pages I intended to.

In the quest to put eyes on the page I somehow forgot to turn the machine on, which was perfect, since I’ve little intention of getting galvanized over those mounting digital blocks that are supposed to encourage progress but when I see them mounting I immediately want to dismount and take up a supine position in the nearest corridor.

So as I skied unheeded, unimpeded, I read DM Fraser’s story The Examination about a teacher (Prof?) planning to divorce his wife, amidst a treaty of text on how to write an examination.

The small trickyness with ski-ing midair and reading is the text becomes blurry. So the only thing was to read it aloud. The neighbouring ski-machines (they are not called ski machines, but sure never mind, name them at your leisure), with more intended for the purpose occupants make so much whirring — they actually make a noise if you use them properly — that it would drown out my bleating.

Until the puffing began. The point being the story had to compete with blurred vision, panting delivery, and the odd clout on the eyebrow from a flying pole. And still again it rose.

The final line:

At the end, proofread.

had me in stitches.