No Joke Too Old, No Gag Too Shopworn [FICTOID]

“Listen, I know this is going to sound nuts, but…is this post office haunted?”

“What?  You seen something?”

“…maybe…”

“Guy dressed in 16th century clothes?  Ermine overgown, high collar, throat ripped out, that sorta thing?”

“Yes!”

“That’s the count.  Don’t worry about him, he’s harmless.”

“Who is he?”

“Near as we can figure, he financed Vasco de Gamma’s round the world voyage in 1524.  De Gamma’s crew stopped at the Galapagos islands to restock their food and water.  They slaughter a creep of tortoises -- “

“A what?”

“A creep, that’s the collective noun for tortoises.  Anyway, de Gamma’s crew killed a bunch of them to eat or store for the rest of their voyage.  Only a handful of tortoises survived.”

“How does that tie in to this ghost?”

“Thirty years later another crew went to the Galapagos islands and rounded up a bunch of animals to bring back to Europe to sell to zoos.  One specimen was apparently the mate of a tortoise killed and eaten by de Gamma’s crew.

“When they got back to Portugal, the old count came out to look at them.  Somehow the tortoise knew he was the guy who financed de Gamma and in a burst of energy leapt up as the old count bent over, biting through his jugular vein.”

“Wait…if this happened in Europe -- “

“Portugal.  Lisbon, to be exact.”

“If this happened in Lisbon, how did the count end up here?”

“Like most traumatic deaths associated with vengeance for the deceased’s crimes, the count’s spirit wandered the streets of Lisbon, putting a damper on a normally festive town.  The city finally hired an exorcist to be rid of him.  The exorcist confined the ghost to a parchment and mailed the parchment to the count’s castle.

“Unfortunately, he misspelled the address on the envelope and it bounced around the world, one post office after another passing it on.”

“How did it end up here?”

“Well, we are the dead letter office…”

© Buzz Dixon