Friday, February the 11th, 2005

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Tiny Enid Extinguishes a Volcano

One windy September morning, Tiny Enid read in her daily newspaper that a big volcano might be about to erupt. Vulcanology was not her strong point, but some of the comments quoted in the story made her sit up with a start. A number of scientists from organisations with befuddling acronyms said things like: “It looks like it will erupt soon,” and “We have recorded volcanic activity”. Tiny Enid scoured the paper to see if there were any other signs or portents, such as unusual locust-swarm formations, but there were none. Yet.

Her mind was made up. She packed a bag with pitons, hammers, extra socks, and a flask of her secret elixir. She left instructions for the milk delivery person and the topiarist, and called a taxi. The taxi took her from her house to the railway station, where she boarded a train to the port, from where a small boat rounded the coastline to that part of the land where there was an airfield. Tiny Enid had allowed her pilot's licence to expire, so she paid a man with a decisive moustache and a flying cap to take the controls of the little two-seater Pangloss diesel plane, and flew into the wild blue yonder with gritted teeth and blazing eyes. Tiny Enid never wore goggles when flying. She thought them a sign of moral dereliction.

Tiny Enid never let a day pass without reading a few pages of The Imitation Of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. Indeed, she kept a ragged copy of this devotional classic in her bag at all times. It is true that the Augustinian monk has nothing to say on the subject of flying goggles, given that he was writing in the 1420s, and it is hard for us to comprehend how Tiny Enid arrived at her interpretation. It is hard, and also unwise, for no less than a dozen harmless souls have gone crackers trying to correlate the contents of Tiny Enid's brain. They languish now in places of shuddery languishment, although it is to Tiny Enid's credit that she pays for their keep, including porridge for breakfast and a nurse who mops their brows. Thomas à Kempis suggests (Chapter 50) that “the desolate man should place himself in God's hands”, and Tiny Enid agrees, but she has too a sense of her responsibility. Although these twelve men tried to make sense of her cerebral fumes and vapours uninvited, that does not stop her doing what she can for them.

When the Pangloss landed at the foot of the volcano, Tiny Enid clambered out. She put on her extra socks and ascended the volcano using her pitons and hammers. When she reached the summit, she found a pair of perilous vents in which molten magma was bubbling and boiling, ready to erupt, just like the scientists had said. She also saw a great deal of tephra, in the form of rocks and cinders, ashes and dust, as if there had already been a mini-eruption. Pausing only to scan the sky for birds, Tiny Enid extinguished the volcano using a technique she had read about in the Reader's Digest. Then she started on the long journey home, whistling, and only a little muddy.