Writers Abroad Magazine Issue 3 September 2015 | Page 13

WRITERS ABROAD MAGAZINE

Over the Edge
Flash Fiction by Sally Robinson
Ambrose looked contentedly down the long table. He felt happy at last …
He stirred a mug of hot chocolate. His favourite non-Fair Trade brand with a lashing
of cream.
It had been the comfort stops that got him in the end. Or rather her. They’d been
on holiday in Jordan, travelling by coach with their preferred travel company, “No
Boundaries”, and were on the long stretch from Amman to Petra. Far-reaching barren
hills stretched endlessly before and behind them. As usual she’d bagged her favourite
seat for them both, in front, right behind the driver. A fierce noonday sun glared down,
and most of the group behind flopped and slumbered.
“Will you put up the blind please, driver,” Marjorie demanded. “We can’t admire the
view.”
Then a short time later: “Driver, could we stop here please?”
“Not here, darling, surely?” he whispered. “Where on earth will you go?” he asked,
eying the bare brown hills.
Mahmoud, their tour leader, stood up and assured them over the microphone that
they’d be stopping “in a very few minutes”.
“To see where Moses showed the children of Israel the Promised Land. And a
splendid panorama, right across the canyon,” he announced to his waking flock.
“Where there are also facilities,” he added.
They trundled on for half an hour. Ambrose was reminded of their last holiday, and
in fact, countless others.
“Tour leader,” Marjorie squawked, “It’s not the Promised Land I want, it’s the
toilet.”
Ambrose blushed and squirmed. He loved travelling, especially to unusual places,
with unusual food. And that was the problem. The more he enjoyed the unusual food,
the more she needed the comfort stops.
There was the lovely creamy yoghurt in Cappadocia. “Fattening, Ambrose.”
Then that delicious sizzling crocodile meat, turning slowly on its pit, the roaring fire
beneath spitting as the juices dropped, in a moon-drenched camp on safari in Kenya.
“How could you, Ambrose!”
And last time, all those wonderful cooling tangy wines on their wine-tasting
Rhineland cruise. “Behave, Ambrose.”
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