Oct 15, 2015

 Extract from Chapter 11 of mystery-comedy novel, 'The Investigations of the Para-Usual':  

‘I have noticed with you, Dr Pratt, an interesting form of body language that accompanies your speech,’ said O’Singh, hesitantly.

‘Well it might interest you that in recent times I have been attending to a little project of my own?’

‘Oh? Do share.’

‘I have been formulating accompanying gestures to speech, rather akin to signing for the hard of hearing… you know, to help certain disadvantaged people.’

‘Oh, and to aid whom in particular?’

‘The hard of understanding.’

O’Singh raised his eyebrows and propped his upper lip with the lower, in a gesture of approval.

‘Here we are – the Memorial to Heroic Self Sacrifice,’ announced Dr Pratt.

The academics shuffled their way along the wall, absorbing the plaque tributes to heroes from Victorian times. Ordinary people who had become extraordinary in their death, perishing in the act of saving the lives of others; jumping into rivers, breaking into burning buildings.

‘I love this place,’ said Dr Pratt, improvising a swimming fish.

‘Place… oh, plaice, yes, I see. You imitate that species of fish for the hard of understanding,’ realised O’Singh. ‘Although… how do you distinguish that signing from “I love this haddock?”’

‘The plaice is a flatfish,’ replied Dr Pratt, assuredly.

O’Singh glanced over the person of Dr Pratt to gauge whether he was breathing in or somehow making himself appear flatter.