The Secret Agent From Hong Konk

[MystyrMystyry]

The spy from Hong Konk
Comes over empty handed
He lost all his thinks
While he was on the Boeing!

Wallet
Fake passport
Money and credit cards
All his space age gadgetry
Laserbeam fountain pen
And iphone tazer
Video wristwatch
Radar sunglasses
His mission objective

Everything
Becomes lost property
And it didn't get returned
Because it was lost properly

Somebody stole these thinks!

Also the local embassy
Don't recognize him
Owing to plastic surgery

And without proof
They cannot let him in
So he is homeless in
A foreign country
And cannot call H.Q.
Cannot even catch a bus

He needs a shilling
To use the phone
To contact base

Somethink happens!
While he is in the booth
Investigating the chance
That there may be a call left
Or coin in the reject tray
He is recognized!

By a local spy!

Travelling on the bus
That he could not
Who had only that morning
Reviewed his dossier

Two thinks occur
The booth gets a call
From the other spy!

Our spy answers
But the language barrier
Means that at the final click
He is just left blinking

And he is now very hungry
So hotfoots it over
To the supermarket
Across the street

As he enters
The store manager
Runs out screaming
From the cold room

'The freezer is broken!' he wails
'And it is 35 degrees on the Celsius!'

This is interesting
Because by pure luck
It happens to be the
Shibboleth our man learnt
As part of his directive

However the manager's
Words were literal
No codes about them

And next he grabs
The Secret Agent from Hong Konk
By the shoulders
Demanding to know
If he can fix it

The spy nods eagerly
But has no idea
What is being asked

He is led to the fridge
And shown the tools
On the floor beside
The open cooling apparatus

The manager is talking fast
Waving his hands and
Scratching his head

But can you guess?
The spy comprehends
And sets to repairing
Even with no know-how

And eventually fixes it!

This leaves him hungrier still
But he gets paid for the work
And can now afford to buy
Rather that pilfer
As he had intended

When he leaves he notices
The phonebooth contains
A trenchcoat man
Talking into a blackberry
Shifting around shiftily

Actually scouring for clues

But the shifty man
Doesn't notice our spy
Hailing the cab
Because his attention
Is too preoccupied
And our spy wears
New sunglasses on

[MystyrMystyry]

Might sell the film rights to this - Jackie Chan yeah?

[AuntShecky]

Ok. It's a clever enough spoof, but some of the humor misses the mark, such as the approximated mispronunciation of the "language barrier;" for instance,substituting "k" for "Hong Kong" and "things." I've heard non-native speakers of English with this pronunciation quirk, but it seems to me they mainly hail from Eastern Eur. rather than Asia. Then again, I may be wrong, a fine one to talk with no fluency in any other language save me own (and even with that one, flawed.)

Plot point, re: the desperate search for loose change forgotten in the wells of pay phones, a motif employed in scores of movies dating back to the 1940s. This very morning I was reluctant to give my last quarter (25-centpiece) to my lss, with the reason that I might need it in an emergency in case I lose my mobile phone. He retorted that pay phones are now obsolete.

Finally, this post is presented as light verse, but it seems more like broken lines of prose. So maybe you should convert it into a screenplay!

If so, make sure your contract provides for a percentage of the gross, not the net!

[billl]

I agree, it'd be fine as prose. And it's a nice, snappy little adventure! I like the "thing=think" type stuff, and it would help make a prose version seem poetic/playful all on its own. Maybe a couple other such touches would help seal the deal, if you shifted to prose? Or maybe poem is the best format for other reasons, of course.

But Aunt Shecky is right, if it's meant to signify an Eastern mispronunciation, it wouldn't be at all typical, and would probably be a bad idea in the first place. I imagined the "thinks" coming out of a London lower-class petty thief's mouth, but that probably just betrays my own ignorance of the available accents for that demographic.

[MystyrMystyry]

Thankyou Aunty :)

Damn it itches when people say it's prosey, but a second re-read reveals that you are quite correct. Don't know how I missed it - probably too caught up in the tale...

Did you tell your Iss that one may need a quarter if their mobile phone accidentally runs out of juice? I'm ever forgetting to recharge so I bought two spare batteries to take with me just in case, but I know it's just a matter of time before I end up with three flat ones and no change.

I must remember 'percentage of gross' :)

[MystyrMystyry]

Thanks Billl :)

Perhaps it's a dialectic difference. I've found the more fluent in English the less pronounced the 'k'.

Glad you enjoyed it.

[firefangled]

I won't say it again. I liked this, nevertheless, as much as your piece "head."

Have you ever tried elaborating these into stories of another kind (I said I wouldn't say that word)?

[MystyrMystyry]

Thankyou very much Firefangled :)

I have tried to expand and say more, but I'm strangely impatient these days both with writing and reading. When something takes five times the amount of words than it needs to get to the point I lose interest quickly. There are some samples of my attempts at short stories around here somewhere*, but lately I prefer the idea of hinting at and suggesting a wider weirder world than having to describe it in every detail - which is what poems are perfect for.




*Try The Bloodiopeagolsiverub for a perfect example of verbosity, even though I really tried to make every word count - but read it in Wordpad not direct from the forum; that's how it was written and looks much neater)