The Last Pieman

The Pieman wasn’t feeling well.  He had wiped down the tiles, washed the floors, scrubbed the counter, hung things up and stacked the pies for the morning’s baking.  Pies, pies, pies. Every day, the same thing. Pies. I have a name, he thought to himself, but everyone calls me the Pieman.  When people look at me they see a pie.

Mushrom pies, chicken pies, leek pies, rabbit pies, pigeon pies, duck pies.  Pies, pies, pies. He had made them all.

He rested his fat face on his fat hand.  He made up his mind.  He was going to shut down his pie shop and go to another country.  A country with sand and sea and sun.  No more rainy days and ‘good mornings’.

He left things exactly as they were, put together a few bits and pieces into a bag and left for the airport.

Now, to save you time, I’ll tell you what happens as quickly as I can.

1. Pieman arrives in Zanzibar where he buys a big, cheap house.
2. He enjoys himself for a while.
3. He wakes up one night with his nostrils filled with the smell of pies.
4. He tries making his pies on the island but can’t find the ingredients.
5. The islanders are intrigued by the stories of the Pieman’s pies. They beg the Pieman to describe his pies.
6. The Pieman exagerrates the flavours of his pies and stories of his piemaking until he begins to believe his own stories.
7. The islanders gather outside his house to hear his stories.
8. He enjoys making up pie stories, but after a while tries to elaborate too much.
9. The islanders don’t like his elaborations.
10. He yearns to return home.
11. The pieman returns to his pie shop to find it is now a hairdressers. The town is a damp and dreary place, the people are miserable and no one remembers him.
12. A month later the people of the island receive an enormous meat pie. They manage to share it, then get together and sing songs about the Pieman who came and went, and who told ridiculous stories about pies.