Photo: © A Mixed bag 2014

After 40 years in the Business, Joe King of King’s Tyres felt he’d almost hit the big time. A photo of one of his tyres had appeared on the front page of all the national tabloids. Word had spread through the village, and the bell on his Reception door had been tinkling a little more often than usual.

“Welcome, Young Man! Welcome to King’s Tyres, at Little Chuffing. I’m Joe King, but my prices are serious!” His visitor was the local copper, PC Johnny Plebworth just doing his rounds. Johnny had heard this line a thousand times, but it still made him smile.

Joe continued, hardly taking a breath. “Johnny, one of our specialist tyres made the papers this week. Here, have a look at the photo. Beautiful! No such thing as bad publicity, eh.” Johnny chuckled to himself and glanced at the enlarged picture.

“It was on the Cornish Rally, final stages. You know our driver, tyre-fitter Dave Pennywhistle, lost his traction on a clifftop and took the plunge. The car and four King’s tyres – lost to the Atlantic ocean. But Dave, the lucky lad, clung to the spare – a King’s Water Resistant Special.

“Dave survived, and the tyre is still good for another 20,000 miles. What’s not to like. No need to worry about rising sea levels if you’re driving with these little beauties!”

Dave was in the back office autographing postcard-sized photos, and labelling complementary bottles of home-made mulled wine. ‘Free with every full set of Specials.’

Joe handed two bottles to Johnny. “Here you are Pal, take a couple of bottles for you and the Missus.” Johnny looked at the label “Mull of King’s Tyres”, and with a laugh tucked them under his jacket, before walking out into the cold late afternoon. It was starting to rain. Maybe it was time to think about getting those specials…

This story is inspired by the photo supplied by Al Forbes of Sunday Photo Fiction, November 29th 2015.  For more details click the logo.

To view other stories written for this challenge, please click here.