“Are you the doctor?” she asked the man who wore the white coat. He also wore a scruffy beard and a demented smile, so there was more than a hint of a doubt in her voice.
“Hee hee hee,” said the man, nodding vigorously.
“Yes, he what?” she said.
“Hee hee hee,” said the man again.
She tried a different tack. “Can you tell me the joke? It’s not good to laugh alone.”
“Which one?” said the man. “I know four.”
“Start with the first one,” she said.
“But that’s a little off colour, you know. Not with ladies present.”
“It’s ok, I’m not prudish.”
“Who are you, then?”
“I’m looking for the doctor.”
“That’s a looong name.”
“What’s yours?”
“Well, this coat. And that table. And this…but really, we own nothing. Can we take our possessions with us when we pop it? No.”
“Mummy.”
“Mummy what?”
“You know, the treasures with the mummies in the pyramids.”
“My mummy. She made laddus.”
She smiled. “Too late,” she said.