A WINTER'S TALE

The best thing about popping out to the shed on a bitterly cold winter's afternoon is coming back into the house and settling down in front of a roaring fire. 
Kicking his boots off and dropping a pile of wood next to the fire, the cosy, warm atmosphere was not lost on John. He sighed contentedly to himself as he plonked himself down on the rug.
John reached over to tickle the cat under the chin, but found himself unable to do so. The cat did not have a chin, because John did not have a cat, so to stop himself getting disheartened John grabbed a satsuma from the fruit bowl.
John was just about to peel the satsuma when Gillian walked into the room. John placed the satsuma under a cushion. He would have it later.
"There are Jehovah's Witnesses at the door," Gilliam announced, as she sauntered demurely across to the sofa.
"Oh?"
John got up, went to the window and peered out. The Jehovah's Witnesses spotted him almost immediately. John gave them a cheery wave. They gave him a cheery wave back. 
John turned his back on the window, sidled over to the drinks cabinet and set about pouring himself a scotch. "Would you like a drink?" he asked Gillian as he poured.
"A Snowball, if I may," Gillian replied. 
John started to mix a Snowball.
The fire crackled.
"Are you going to open the door to them?" Gillian asked after a while.
"Who?"
"The Jehovah's Witnesses."
John looked horrified. "Absolutely not. They'd start talking to me! No, I tend normally just to give them a wave. That makes them think I'm on my way to answering the door, and they hang around for a while. Stops them bothering the neighbours down the lane, you see."
John chuckled to himself as he handed Gillian her drink. "They've been on my doorstep for a few weeks now, you know. By the time they realised that I wasn't going to open the door, their boots were frozen to the floor. It's going to be a long winter too, so I imagine they'll be stuck there until March." 
Gillian pointed to a barometer which was hanging on the wall. "You never know, if we get another storm they may turn into snowmen," she suggested, with an evil glint in her eye. 
Just then a thought occurred to John, so he excused himself momentarily and nipped out of the room. Gillian could hear him moving about in the kitchen. Before long he returned, opened the window a crack, lobbed a few bits of stale bread at the Jehovah's Witnesses and then closed the window again.
"We don't want them to starve, do we?" John explained, as he turned back to Gillian and picked up his drink. "I may not like them, but I'm not cruel." He raised his glass. "To your good health, Gillian."
Gillian raised her own glass and smiled. "And to yours. Cheers."
They drank. Then John sat down next to Gillian and they lapsed into silence. They sipped their drinks and stared at the fire for a bit. Finally, John decided the time had come to seek an answer to the question which had been nagging him since Gillian had entered the room.
"I say old girl...what are you doing here, exactly?"
"Mmm?" Gillian seemed surprised by the question. "Ah. Well, you see...I ran out of clean clothes this morning. Not knowing what else to do, I thought I'd pop round here for a bit, say hello and see if I could borrow a few togs from your good lady wife."
John nodded. "That would certainly explain why you're naked," he observed.  
They lapsed into another silence. "Hang on though - I don't have a wife!" John exclaimed suddenly.
Gillian looked taken aback and shifted in her seat. "You don't?"
John shook his head and thought about it for a moment. "No, I don't think so."
"Then who is that woman I see standing at your bedroom window all the time?" the naked lady enquired.
John thought about that too. "You're probably thinking of Agatha, my stuffed bear," he suggested after a time.
"But of course," Gillian responded, patting his knee. "I keep forgetting that you're a taxidermist."
The fire spat and crackled.  
"I should put another log on there," said John, remembering the reason he had gone out to the shed. He got up and set about re-laying the fire.
"So what do you think I should do for clothes?" Gillian asked, when the fire's future had been secured for a while longer.

*

The Jehovah's Witnesses thought their luck was in. They'd only been standing there long enough to grow ten-inch beards when, at last, the door before them opened! 
The jolly looking fellow who had occasionally waved and thrown bits of food at them from the window was finally standing, right there, on the doorstep.
John beamed his biggest smile.
"Well, hello!" said he, cheerfully.
"Um...h-h-hello," the Jehovah's Witnesses stuttered in response. They weren't sure what else to say now that the door had finally opened - not just because they had been standing there for weeks on end and wondering what was going on, but more because the man from inside the house was clipping their beards off with a large pair of scissors.
"Turned out nice again," said John, making conversation.
He hacked away with his scissors.
"Hmmff. Mmmff," said one now rather unkempt Jehovah's Witness. The other just giggled nervously as John and his scissors turned on him and plied their way through his facial hair. 
And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, the man was gone again, back inside his nice warm house, with the door shut firmly behind him.

*

Gillian was warming her gloaming by the fire.  
"How about this?" John declared, waving the straggly hair about triumphantly. "I chopped the beards off the Jehovah's Witnesses - I'm sure I could make some sort of clothing from this!"
Gillian was not so sure. "If those fellows have been outside as long as you say they have, there may be squirrels nesting in those beards," she pointed out.
John's face dropped. As much as he did not want to admit it, he could not fault Gillian's reasoning. Nevertheless, he struggled to keep the disappointment out of his voice. 
"Fair point," he conceded, dropping the beards on the floor and glancing around the room dejectedly. His eyes alighted on some of the animals he had stuffed and which were displayed on a cabinet in the corner.
"Perhaps I could make you a bra out of a couple of hedgehogs," he pondered, half-heartedly. "And there's a ferret over there-"
But Gillian was shaking her head. "Thanks for the offer, darling," she interrupted, not unkindly, "but I'm just not a hedgehog-bra sort of girl, really."
So John made her another drink, while he considered what else could be done. He paced up and down, stroked his chin, looked out of the window - and noticed that the Jehovah's witnesses were wearing clothes.

*

Not for the first time that day, the Jehovah's Witnesses found the door opening in front of them.
The smiling man was there again, greeting them warmly, but still brandishing his scissors. One Jehovah's Witness involuntarily raised his hands to protect what little hair he had on his head, while the other one reacted by moving to protect his groin. 
But they need not have worried, they reflected a little later, when John had disappeared back into his house.  All in all, it had been quite a successful day, in a way. They had made contact with a prospective convert, after all - and been given something to eat too! Even if it had been a little bit mouldy. Yes, all in all, not too bad a day. It might get a bit cold after dark, though, they reflected, as they stood there with nothing but Bibles to stop the frostbite attacking their knackers.

*

Inside the house, John was proudly showing Gillian the many strips of cloth he had cut off the Jehovah's Witnesses. Gillian was grinning from ear to ear. Clearly she did not want to dress like a Jehovah's Witness, but John was a dab hand with a sowing machine, and would be able to knock up some suitable clothes in no time.
"All I need to do now is take some measurements," declared John triumphantly, brandishing a tape measure. 
Gillian began to rise from her seat, when she spotted the beard hair where John had discarded it on the rug. She picked it up. "What shall I do with this?" she asked.
John pointed to a cushion. "Give it to the satsuma under there."
Gillian frowned, but turned back to the sofa anyway, picked up a cushion and found a satsuma beneath it.  
"Well, hello!" she cried, delighted to meet the satsuma.
"Hello," the satsuma replied shyly.
Gillian quickly arranged a nest from the beard hair and, once it was complete, picked up the satsuma, stroked its cheek and then carefully placed it in the centre of the nest.
"Why, thank you," said the satsuma, as it wriggled and made itself comfortable.
"My pleasure," Gillian replied.
"Another drink, before I crack on with these clothes?" suggested John.
"Absolutely," said Gillian.
So John poured some drinks, and as he did so, he chuckled. His chuckling was infectious, and Gillian found herself chuckling too. Before long, the satsuma joined in, and not long after that, they were all laughing heartily. John, Gillian and the satsuma moved over to the window, looked out and laughed as they waved at the Jehovah's Witnesses. The Jehovah's Witnesses cast caution to the wind, waved back, and they laughed too.
It was turning into a perfect winter's day.