An Ugly Way To Go and Other Quirky Comedy Tales: Quintessentially Quirky Tales, #2

By Iain Pattison

Laugh-out-loud stories packed with gags, groans and great fun characters.

Enter the weird and wonderfully witty world of award-winning humorist Iain Pattison, and delight to these feel-good tales of madness and mayhem, each story a coffee-break delight guaranteed to banish the blues.

In this second collection of Iain's offbeat satires, you'll find:

A bus driver who emerges from a coma to find he can speak every language on the planet.

A hideous man who thinks facing a firing squad will make him a babe-magnet.

A disgruntled wife scheming to sacrifice her husband to a slavering zombie horde.

And Little Red Riding Hood finding out that murderous grandma is more than a match for any wolf.

From the droll and slapstick to the surreal and silly, this fun compilation is guaranteed to make you smile - and demonstrates why Iain is acknowledged as a master of comedy's wickedly witty and unexpected. Buy it now to brighten your day.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iain Pattison
• Release date: Jun 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9798201034689

Iain Pattison

Having discovered that he was not The Chosen One of which the ancient prophesises spoke, Iain Pattison ditched his kaftan, sold his sandals and vowed to eke out a living as an author and humorist. Between penning funny tales, he battles to give obscure words like eke a place in polite society. He resides in Birmingham, England but often feels a mysterious urge to return to his cave in Tibet for Bank Holiday weekends.

Book preview

About the Author

Internationally-acclaimed humorist Iain Pattison has been entertaining readers on both sides of the Atlantic for more than 20 years with a succession of short stories that have won prize after prize, appeared in magazines and anthologies, and been broadcast on the UK’s most prestigious speech radio station, BBC Radio 4.

As well as penning quirky tales, he is a creative writing tutor, competition judge and after dinner speaker.

Originally from Glasgow but now living in Birmingham, Iain hates shortbread and porridge, can’t abide whisky and has never worn a kilt – not even for a bet. All of which may explain why they didn’t give him a vote on Scottish independence.

To find out more about Iain follow him on Twitter @AuthorIain or visit iainpattison.co.uk

An Ugly Way to Go

Barry squinted cross-eyed in the searing midday sun, grinning both at the eight rifles levelled straight at him and at the large crowd of peasants who’d turned up to watch his impending demise.

He knew smiling wasn’t the normal reaction of victims facing a firing squad, but he had the advantage over most condemned men – he actually wanted to be there.

True, he’d have preferred not having to die if there’d been any other way to achieve his desired goal, but it was a small price to pay. You didn’t become a legendary revolutionary by playing safe and keeping out of harm’s way, he told himself. Troubadours didn’t sing rousing and tearful ballads about your deeds if you lived to cash in your annuity and tend your rose garden.

And while he’d have preferred meeting his end anywhere else but this fly-blown, God-forsaken, barren, dust hole of a town, he knew you had to go where the work was. And there currently wasn’t much call for dashing iconic rebel leaders to battle the jackbooted forces of evil in Milton Keynes. Well, not in the part where he hailed from…

No, this was what he wanted – a death that would make him famous, revered, loved; a glorious heroic end that would make men envy his devil-may-care bravery and women swoon at his memory and curse the Gods that they hadn’t thrown themselves at his feet and begged to be swept away to his bed.

This was the end that would finally make people see him for what he was – not how he looked.

Okay, he admitted to himself – as a line of sweat trickled from his forehead down the side of his squat, misshapen nose – ending his days in a gunfight would have been more courageous; and better for the legend of Barry the brazen bandito. But bullets were bullets after all, he reasoned, and they’d kill him just as certainly whether it was here tied up in the town square or free in the cactus covered foothills in an ill-fated ambush on the Federales’ payroll convoy.

At least this way the common people – his beloved people – would see him fall for their cause.

You wish a last cigarette, Senor? the mustachioed Captain asked him, interrupting his reverie.

I don’t smoke, Barry replied, adding with a wonky wink: Besides, they can kill you and I wouldn’t want to take the risk.

If the officer got the joke, he gave no sign of being amused. But he did nod slightly, acknowledging the bravado of a fearless hombre who laughed at death.

Well, maybe some other request… a last wish.

That was a tricky one. Barry frowned, pondering, huge bushy eyebrows meshing into one hairy caterpillar. A fabulous meal would be nice, maybe a glass of a decent chardonnay and an after dinner mint. But considering the rancid beef he’d been served up and the beer that tasted as though it had already been through one pistolero’s body, he knew it was unlikely he’d find anything in this depressing dump that was remotely palatable.

I tell you what, he said, after a few moments deliberation. It would be good for my image if my last request was a long, lingering, sexy embrace from the prettiest girl in the village.

At this the Captain did a double take. You want a girl to kiss you? he said, obviously surprised.

Barry sighed. He’d half expected this comeback. It was the same reaction he got whenever he suggested that he’d like to enjoy the company of a gorgeous woman.

Okay, I know I’m not the most attractive man in the world, he began defensively. In fact, I know I’m downright ugly…

Repulsive is the word I would have used, Senor.

But that’s why I got into this whole South American freedom fighter lark. It didn’t matter that Che Guevara had a face like the back end of a bus or that Fidel Castro was no oil painting. The chicks digged them. Rough-hewn liberators with beards and guns give off this hunky, sexy vibe – they’re babe magnets. That’s what I wanted a slice of.

And did it work? the officer enquired.

Not really, Barry admitted regretfully, with a crooked, buck-teethed grimace. But I thought the poetic firing squad death would at least make some women fancy me after I was gone.

A look of pity touched the Captain’s stern countenance. That is sad, so sad, my friend. I promise I will do my best to get the prettiest girl in the village to kiss you. You deserve at least one moment of happiness.

Barry nodded his thanks to the man. For a vile, swaggering, mad-dog lackey of a corrupt, oppressive, fascist regime hell-bent on trampling the long-suffering peasant population to dust, he seemed quite a decent sort.

So this was it. Only moments to go. Only a few seconds before he would meet his maker. Goodbye hideous Barry – hello the swashbuckling fable of fanciable El Barry.

He watched the Captain approach a ravishing beauty who was dressed in a flowing gypsy gown – an almond-eyed girl with wild raven-black locks, red full lips, and bare sensuous shoulders.

In a silent mime the Captain spoke to the smouldering senorita and jerked his head towards the post where Barry was tied. The girl looked stunned and threw up both hands.

Enticingly, the officer produced a roll of banknotes and began