The Balendup Tributary

Article taken from the Balendup Tributary, dated March 10th, 1986.

Avian Falls Foul of New Hospital Wing

“Salt the earth and may you water the daisies that sprout below my headstone.”

Were the final words of Mayor Barlow Avian as he attended the opening of the newly renovated Balendup hospital today, becoming not only the emergency wing’s first patient but later holding the dubious honour of being its first cremation.

Barlow, an ornery and fastidious cartographer, was elected to the mayoral office in 1978 during what was a particularly heated bar-fight. The election process in Balendup has historically been hosted by the town beer garden–as the town hall hosts a bridge night on election days–and the event is usually described as an ‘eventful afternoon with much cajoling and fervent political pugilism.’

A man of natural baritone, Barlow was able to call upon his years of limited anger management in such a that the HB pencils of Balendup did agree with; this would go on to be his main method of debate in all confrontations going forward.

‘This hospital will usher Balendup into a new age of health and communal assuredness,’ Mr. Avian incorrectly announced during his opening address of the renovated hospital–Balendup has had a functioning hospital since 1834 and was the first medical institution in Australia to stop using leeches, ‘I for one hope that each person here today gets to experience the medical facilities in their full extent.’

Going on to vaguely suggest his intention in seeing that his detractors were taken to the hospital by his own hand, Mr Avian would further thank the doctors and most of the nurses for helping in renovating the hospital as the rolling construction strikes were still ongoing, finally ending his speech with the announcement of an impromptu medical staff public holiday in celebration.

Traditionally any public gathering or event notable enough to be not considered a picnic, has been officially brought to a close by the ceremonial braking of a bottle of wine. The ‘Doctor’s strength’ port/champagne blend procured from local vineyard, the fretful duck, had been chosen to and Mr. Avian commented on how the fortified glass was always a bugger to smash.

‘Fetch me a cold chisel, this one feels like a pig iron,’ said Barlow as he took a cautionary swing at the wall of the hospital, knocking a brick away from the fortification and failing to be surprised at his own strength.
‘All right, you lump. Get ready to be smashed, broken, and then pulverised into a sand unseeable by microscope or telesspectrometer.’

The barrage of poetic brutality that was to follow has been since described by witnesses as ‘determined beyond that of reasonable sanity’ and Barlow Avian’s unfailing stamina had led to the eventual destruction of a brick wall.

Winding back for a last-ditch effort of strength and desperation, Mr Avian did hurl the bottle of wine so desperately at the wall that the cork hand managed to become dislodged and impacted Mr. Avian in its crossfire. The viciously shaken port/champagne was estimated to have reached a fearsome PSI and had proven to propel the cork in such a way that would later prove lethal.

Onlookers were delighted to have seen their new hospital open but were predominantly concerned that all of the doctors were currently down at the pub.

A public celebration of Mr Barlow Avian’s life will be held in the tavern next Wednesday at 4 O’clock.