Mrs Magwitch's 24/7 Diner

It was not the most easily accessible of places at the best of times, but worth the journey if one could make it. Mrs Zelda Magwitch’s 24/7 diner overlooked the town and was positioned at a precisely not perpendicular angle of -4° on Zig Zag Hill. This was to help with the drainage. If the weather folk decided it would rain on Sunday, it would rain daffodils, and if on Tuesday, it would rain tulips. And so, the slight angle helped with the necessary Tuesday/Sunday sweep. It was customary for the youngest of the Magwitch brood to act as broomsweep, until he was considered wise enough to learn the kitchen alchemies. Today just so happened to be one of those rainy days.

“Oh, hogs trotters! It’s trottin’ flowerin’ again.” came a croak, as a burly but wrinkled man peaked his bulbus head with a frown, that protruded like a fist, when he saw the rain through the windows. “Flowers, Martuni!” he shouted behind him.

Barry Magwitch, who ran the diner, did not look like ordinary men, nor did any of the Magwitch brood look like ordinary people. They began to age much younger than most but tended to live much longer and had a curious strength within them. What was strange about his appearance was that on the surface he had the loose and saggy skin of a 90-year-old. However, he intangibly radiated an underlying strength.

“Flowers! Martuni!” he shouted again, then muttered to himself “where’s he trottin’ got to?”

His hands were large and gripped the door frame with such pressure that it left a shallow imprint in the metal. And when he spoke it was with the support and depth of man confident in his own power and vitality.

“FLOW…oh. There you are.” he flinched as he felt a little nudge beside him. “Son, where’s your broom? You silly sock.” Barry said in a fatherly tone.

Underneath his mighty arm appeared a small and timid boy. He reared his head out from behind the door frame with a puckered face like a tortoise. He emerged like a cautious rodent, with his head jutted forward wearing his little diner staff uniform. He had all the trappings of pubescent innocence but looked like a gnomish geriatric. Martuni, was said to have been eleven, but nobody had recorded his date of birth, because his parents refused to have it Typed by the officials at the hospital.

“We don’t need no Type to tell us when our son were’ born!” Barry had proclaimed to the nurses, as he had wrapped the boy up in his massive but wrinkled wings.

He had three folds of flesh under his eyes and his hands were pruned and crinkled. And he had particularly blinky eyes as if he had trouble seeing where he was going. Martuni bounced and wiped his hands on his red striped apron, before scampering away to try and find the broom.

“Sorry, Dad.” he said before grabbing it and darting for the door.

As he closed the door behind him it slammed and the whole diner trembled. Pictures fell from the walls and saltshakers clanked and toppled over the tables.

“Careful!” shouted the man.

“Sorry, Dad!” yelped Martuni, as he shrugged and grit his teeth after realizing what his carelessness had done.

The diner was empty, except for a single tiny patron that looked like a frog sitting along the middle of the bar. Suddenly, a little voice piped up. “This pie is excellent! Excellent! I simply must have some more.”

“You’ll burst if you have too much, how many have you had already?” said Barry.

“Twelve, but I assure you I could eat a horse and I wouldn’t put on a single ounce.” he leapt off up the chair and stood in a bodybuilders pose, proudly flexing his arms to show off his physique. But there was nothing there. His clothes hung off him like melted cheese on twigs, and his belt was so small that the excess wound round him three times.

“See! Fit as a fiddle. My weight is quite desirable for a man of my stature.” he said proudly, before horse vaulting back onto the chair and devouring the rest of his pie. “I must say you do have quite a knack for food, old sport! Everything I try here engages all of my senses. It tastes as tactile as anything. Smells beautiful. Feels delicious. Looks aromatic and sounds as harmonious as an orchestra once it sits in your belly!”

“Why, thank you. I am very humbled indeed. Everything on the menu was created from scratch by a Magwitch. We’ve been chef’s for thousands of years.” Barry said smiling through his wrinkles.

“I’m a food critic you see! And I’ve been critiquing your food for quite some time” he looked at his watch. “thirty-seven and a third minutes now, and I am thoroughly impressed!”

“Aren’t food critics supposed to be undercover?” said Barry as his frowning fist reappeared.

“Of course! On most normal occasions. But this is an abnormal occasion, my friend. Thoroughly abnormal indeed! And I struggle to contain my joy when my belly starts to sing. I am very expressive for my size, you see. Heart as big as an elephant!” he overzealously outstretched his arms to demonstrate its size and fell backwards off the chair.

“Don’t mind me!” the little voice croaked from under the counter. “I’m as clumsy as a cow on roller-skates!”

“Oh, dear! Do you want a hand?” Barry said peering his bulbous head over the counter.

“Me? No, thank you. I’ve proudly never needed a hand in my life.” he sprang back onto the seat like a grasshopper, startling Barry. In his shock he gripped the counter edge so tightly you could see his grasping fingers imprinted into the metal.

“Oh, hogs trotters! Not again.” he muttered to himself.

The tiny man rummaged around underneath the counter and pulled out a tiny typewriter from his suitcase.

“Now, my dear fellow. I’m going to write you an excellent review and post it immediately on your Notice Board for the whole world to see!” he said through the clink-clank of the typewriter which “dinged” with a flourish.

Barry looked uncomfortable.

The tiny man pulled out the piece of paper and examined it with a smile. “Here you go, it reads ‘Food: Magwitch Diner. Most Excellent! Do come. 5/5 Senses. Must try. Open 24/7.’ Now, if you could show me to your Notice Board, I can post it to the world!”

“Well, that’s the thing, see. We don’t have no Notice Board!”

The tiny man’s mouth dropped like an opened bowling ball bag. “You don’t have a Notice Board? But how do you get your news? How do you keep up with current affairs? How does anyone even know you exist if you can’t even post that you’re here?”

“We don’t believe in Type and Notice Boards around here, I’m afraid. Rots the brain. Besides, there’s so much stuff cluttering it up how do you know what is real and what’s not? That’s why we do all our menu’s audibly.”

“Oh yes, I did think that was quite odd. Kept forgetting what the options were.”

“Keeps the punters in, you see. If they forget, they order a coffee and then ask to hear it again. Then they order some more coffee to mull it over. Sometimes the process can last for days. It’s good for business.”

“Well, I must say I frankly I think it’s unacceptable you don’t have a Notice Board in your establishment…”

Then, there was the clink of the doorbell. And in stepped a long and spindly man in a pinstriped suit. He wore a black fedora and his trousers were three times thicker than they needed to be. He had a face like a squashed pastry. In one hand he held a brown leather briefcase and in the other a black umbrella. He was so long and spindly, that at any moment it looked as if his limbs would spring up onto themselves. He stepped in, looked around, and shook the flowers off his umbrella.

“It’s really coming down out there isn’t it?” He said, cheerily in his clipped and high-pitched voice.

“Good Evenin’” Barry said, glancing with curiosity at this smartly dressed fellow.

The spindly man checked his watch and frowned then looked up with a dead eyed smile. “Technically, it’s this morning, actually.”

“Is it now?” Barry said, unamused.

“I was wondering if you’d be so kind as to show me to your Notice Board, please?”

“We don’t have no Notice Board.”

“Well, I’m afraid that’s why I’m here.” he put out his hand to shake. “Mr Bertrum Longjohn, but you can call me Mr Longjohn for short. I’m from the Ministry of Information.”

“I ain’t heard of no Ministry of Information.”

“Well, you would have done if you’d had a Notice Board.” he gave a conceited chuckle. “We’re represented on every one.” he smiled, as if to be polite but it reeked of smugness.

“Don’t believe in no Notice Boards.” said Barry, curtly.

“You don’t believe…?” he tutted. “But it’s the law!”

“I ain’t ever heard of no law.”

“Well, you would have if you’d had a Notice Board and obeyed the law in the first place! Now, what I want is for you to realize your actions could be construed as seditious, and I want to make sure it doesn’t get to that.”

The tiny man ripped up the review and put away his typewriter. “Well I’m afraid I can’t be advocating any seditionists. Would be bad for my reputation. Thank you for the pie. Tarrah!” he said as he leaped off the chair and strolled out of the door.

Barry, exhaled and gave a fed up look. Then returned with a hard glance to the spindly man.

“We don’t want none of your Type clogging up our eyeholes, thank you very much. It’s always depressing, and nothings ever consistent. Everything changes on a daily basis.”

“That’s the price for being informed. And all citizens must be informed.”

“Since when did you have the right to enforce, your hullabaloo on all of us?”

He scoffed and made a big grin. “Look, I can understand that you might not be the best informed up here in the mountains. The New Government, has made some important changes. Would it be possible to speak to the owner of this establishment please?” he fumbled around and opened his briefcase to rifle through some papers.

“Speaking.” Barry said, sturdy as a rock.

Mr Longjohn’s head vibrated a little as his eyes widened in disbelief.

“You’re Mrs Zelda Magwitch?”

“No! Of course I’m not. Do I look like a hoggin’ woman?”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to make any assumptions. You can get in a lot of trouble for saying all sorts these days.”

“And I suppose you got all them written down somewhere as well, ‘ave ya?”

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Its just common courtesy. But one day I expect they will be. I’m here to inform you, you must get a Notice Board. First time offence can be forgiven, but if you deliberately flout the rules, you can be in serious trouble Mr uhh…oh I’m sorry I didn’t catch your name.”

“Barry. Magwitch.” he said leaning back as to make himself taller.

“Oh yes. Of course.”

“But you can call me 'your maj' for short.”

“I assure you if you don’t obey…”

“Oh, so you’re giving me assurances now are ya? How’s about I gives you my assurance that if you don’t clear off my property right this instance I’m going to take every inch of you and curl you up and put you into that dustbin over there!”

He sniffed at Barry and loosened his collar. “I can see we’re beyond reasonable conversation here. But trust me when I say you’re asking for trouble.”

“Would that be in Type, I wonder?”

Mr Longjohn picked up his belongings and scrunched up his face. “Good day!” he said. Before flouncing off. Behind him he left a peculiar scent of freshly moulded plastic and hot paper.

Throughout the whole of the exchange, Martuni had slipped in and had taken refuge behind the Jukebox. “I wonder what sort of deodorant he uses?” thought Martuni. Before looking back at his dad, now in suspended in thought. He came out from behind the Jukebox and shuffled up to his father.

“Daddy. What are we going to do?” he said.

Barry stood still looking off at the door, before turning to acknowledge his son. “Don’t worry boy-o. Those flatland folk, have tried to impose their funny ways for years, and none of ‘em have succeeded yet!”