By Phill Boas
Elat was steaming! He had lit a fire Tuesday afternoon to burn the ever-increasing piles of un-mulchable leaves on his one-acre block. It was not the fire restriction season. What he did not know, and should have known, was that no fires were permitted Tuesdays or Wednesdays in his area. A Ranger driving a Shire vehicle had pulled up at his gate and spoken to his wife. She had come to tell Elat to put out the fire and she was clearly very distressed. It turned out that the person from the Shire had told her that the fire should not have been lit and that if she did not put it out immediately he could fine them up to $2000. He was, she said, officious, ill mannered, and in fact simply rude and she thought that he had no right to behave that way, wasn’t he a servant of the people, didn’t they call themselves civil servants?
Suddenly Elat realised that this feeling of being a victim must end, by which he meant, now. It was Wednesday and Elat went out and lit a fire. Today the leaves would get burned. The Shire Ranger driving past tried to toot his horn, Elat waved merrily at him although the horn made no sound. He attempted to turn his car in to Elat’s drive; he would put a stop to this illegal behaviour. The car would not turn; it just continued down the road. He wrestled with the steering wheel to no avail. He got out his mobile to ring Elat. The phone would not work. He drove back to the office to replace the phone and serve Elat with a Breach of Regulations notice.
He was unable to get out of his car, every attempt resulted in him banging and shouting more and more loudly. Finally people coming into the car park became disturbed. His supervisor came out and opened the car door. By this time the Ranger was furious, abusive, outraged and incoherent. He tried desperately to tell his Supervisor about Elat and his flaunting the Regulations. Words coming out of his mouth seemed to belong to someone else. The supervisor was not pleased with the Ranger nor with Elat’s wife. He had just had a conversation with her in which she had registered a formal complaint of bullying and harassment against the Ranger. Elat’s wife’s phone call of complaint about uncivil behaviour by the Ranger, his supervisor could now see, was entirely likely to have been correct. He shushed the Ranger and informed him that he was to be sent to a customer-relation’s seminar starting on Monday.
All might have ended there, had he not decided to also send out the Breach of Regulations notice. The office printer simply fed a nice clean new sheet of paper through each time he hit print. He was not a man to give up easily, forgetting that he was there to provide service to residents of the area, he phoned a friend at the local Forest service to ask for his help in dealing with Elat. This, of course, turned out to be a huge mistake. When the Forester arrived at Elat’s place, he could not park his car because of a large cleaning vehicle from the council that was trimming trees. He was told by the driver, in an officious manner to go home. Outraged he tried unsuccessfully to contact his Ranger colleague, finally he gave up and went home.
Elat’s brow smoothed out, his breathing steadied and his wife decided it was time for his wake-up cup of tea.
602 words
Elat #8
phillboas 