Please Stop Sending Wildfowl To My Office

Monday 6th June

Dear Mr Donovan,

Thank you for sending me a copy of your novel ‘The Serpentine Shoes.’

I’m grateful you took the effort to forward me your manuscript but I am unable to publish it.

Regards,

Ted Basley

Monday 13th June

Dear Mr Donovan,

Thank you for your letter, though I was less enamoured with the assorted toenail clippings that accompanied it.

Maybe I wasn’t clear enough in my previous letter. I cannot publish your novel as I neither own nor work for a publishing house.

I am an accountant.

Regards,

Ted Basley

P.S. Are you aware that you can self-publish your novel on Amazon? You don’t even need a traditional publishing house.

Monday 20th June

Dear Mr Donovan,

I know that you are upset that I cannot publish your novel. However, I am a certified accountant specialising in maritime acquisitions. I could not bring your manuscript to print even if I wanted to.

On that note, please could you remove the banner you have erected on the wall opposite my office which states ‘Ted Basley is a neo-Nazi’? It’s not good for business.

Furthermore, I can assure you I have no fascist tendencies – I am a card-carrying Democrat.

I accept this is all a result of an innocent misunderstanding. However, I must insist this nonsense stops now.

Yours,

Ted Basley.

Monday 27th June

Mr Donovan,

A goose? A GOOSE?

Who the fuck puts a goose in a box and sends it to a complete stranger?

A GOOSE?

The fucker bit one of my secretary’s fingers off.

I cannot publish your novel.

I AM AN ACCOUNTANT.

A. C. C. O. U. T. A. N. T.

But, even if I could, even if by some mysterious quirk of fate I did have the power to bring your putrid book into the public domain, I wouldn’t.

Your novel is derivative and appears to have been written by an eight-year-old who is unfamiliar with the English language.

Now, go away, you goose-bestowing freak.

Yours,

Ted Basley

P.S. Amsterdam is in Holland, you prick. Not France. You can’t even get the setting right. Dick.

Monday 4th July

Donovan,

Right.

You crossed a line, buddy.

Crosses?

Burning?

On my lawn?

When I find you —

You are —

Dead.

Regards,

The Man Who Is Going To End You.

Monday 11th July

You!

My mother? You proposed to —

My mother?

Just to get back at —?

Sick, sick fuck.

She’s ninety-seven. It’d be a miracle if she makes it through the wedding ceremony.

Ninety. Seven.

I make this vow: Leave her out of this.

Now.

If you do not, I shall become the living embodiment of vengeance. I shall deliver a Biblical retribution that – by comparison — will make anything in the Old Testament look like ‘Peppa Pig.’

I will smite you and every breathing creature who bears your name. I will wipe the Donovan family name from the annals of history.

You have been warned.

Regards,

Your nemesis.

Monday 1st August

Dear Mr — Dad,

Thank you for inviting me to the wedding. It was a lovely day. Although heavily medicated, Mother seemed happy (-ish).

I am sorry she didn’t survive the honeymoon.

I can assure you I intend to compile with her altered will. I do not need a reminder that, upon my father’s death, the accountancy firm he built up over fifty years passed to my mother. Given that I have kept the company going for the past thirty years, I am obviously upset that she changed her will and the firm will no longer be passed on to me but to you.

I am doubly upset that you have decided to repurpose the company and that it will now be a publishing house.

However, I am grateful that you have kept me on.

I will endeavour to follow the instructions you have given and have already commenced the first print run of ‘The Serpentine Shoes.’

I’m not sure we need a million copies but I am your humble servant.

Regards,

Ted.

P.S. Please could you now stop sending geese in boxes to the office?

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