REVENGE SERVED FROZEN.

597 words

"My neighbor is a miserable sod. In the fourteen years I've lived here he has never once said hello to either the family or myself," said my friend Frank, as he drained his beer.

"I think you should just ignore him," I said as I passed him another can of beer. "It's Christmas day after all, let's be merry."

"Did Frank tell you about the planning application?" said Frank's wife Mary, as she half turned to us. Her main attention focused on the conversation going on in front of her.

"We applied for permission to turn our spare garage into a games room for the kids," said Frank, "He went to considerable trouble to object to it, on the grounds that a garage should stay as a garage on principal. The result was we were turned down."

Frank took a deep draugh of his beer.

"He complained to me about the noise my children make as they play. And then refused to hand back a ball that had ended up in his garden. He said that it wasn't there. He was lying, I knew he was because I had seen it. He also continued to burn coal on his fire despite the fact that it's a smoke free area. My wife showed him her washing that was covered in soot and he just swore at her," Frank continued.

"Come on Frank let's have a drop of Christmas rum," I said as I poured him a generous measure into a glass."

***

Several drinks later and well into the night. The Christmas songs had been sung, the cake eaten and everyone was merry. About a dozen of us men had gathered in the heated conservatory. Laid about on comfortable chinz in a lazy fashion, our energy concentrated on having a laugh. The fog from our cigars hung over us.

Suddenly Frank started to laugh to himself. Sat in the corner he lowered his voice as he leaned towards me so only I could hear him.

"Do you remember that incident with an aircraft next door to me."

"Yes of course, that was strange and just a few weeks ago," I said.

"That was me," he said as he stifled a laugh.

"How do you mean."

"This was what I did. I put a one liter plastic jug filled with water in the deep freezer. The next evening I removed the very solid piece of ice using hot water. Next I trimmed it with a sharp knife to remove the edges and smoothed it under the water tap," he took a puff at his cigar in a slightly inebriated way.

"As you know my neighbor's house is single story with a flat roof. At about ten o'clock when they were in bed I threw the ice lump. It made quite a bang as it bounced onto his roof."
Frank has to take a breather as he chuckled to himself.

I couldn't contain myself as I remembered the picture in the local paper of the next door neighbor holding the lump of ice. By this time I had to laugh along with Frank.

"The picture was headed 'Lump Of Ice Fell From Aircraft. Lucky Escape By Jersey Man,' said Frank.

"That was not the end of the story. A few nights later I froze another one, but this time I placed a piece of plastic inside with IDIOT written on it with a permanent marker. My neighbor was observed walking about his property talking to himself the next day."

"Don't mention anything to Mary, because I haven't told her yet," said Frank...