2554. Dylan self-combusts © Bruce Goodman 24 October 2022

Leah wasn’t at all surprised when her husband, Dylan, self-combusted. They had not long finished dinner and were sitting in armchairs watching an old episode of “I Love Lucy”. Leah mentioned that such an episode would never appear on television now because some of the characters were smoking cigarettes. Dylan said “That’s stupid. That makes me really angry” and then he self-combusted. POOF! and there was left only a little pile of ash on the armchair. Leah had a difficult time explaining to the police exactly what had happened. Police Officer Plod said he thought self-combustion was a little bit unusual. In fact in his thirty-five years in the police force he’d never encountered it before. Leah looked at the little pile of ash on the armchair. She couldn’t believe it. “It was like one of those electric car batteries in Florida that got wet and exploded,” said Leah. But Police Officer Plod didn’t have a clue what she was talking about because he never watched the News. “The electric car batteries got wet in the hurricane and exploded,” said Leah before realizing that her analogy wasn’t really helpful, and besides, Dylan’s self-combustion wasn’t anything like a 15 to 20 thousand dollar electric car battery exploding in the wet. “What are we meant to do with these ashes?” bemoaned Leah. Police Officer Plod got a dustpan and brush. “Look Leah, we usually cannot ignore the fact that a husband has disappeared. I’m going to make an exception. In this case we shall simply sweep it under the carpet.” The next day Leah and Police Officer Plod got married. Contact Author Back to Index Next Story Previous Story