Fear of cameras…

 

Matron said I could be the official photographer for the annual egg and frog race.  Opportunities like this don’t come my way very often, and usually fall to that ninkumpoop over in cell 94B.  So what if he’s managed to charm Matron with his perfect physique, Swiss bank accounts full of weak lemon drink and his uncanny impersonations of George Clooney.  It won’t last for long.  Once Matron knows about what he does in the corner of his cell every Thursday, I’ll regain her attentions and once again become her favourite inmate. 

So anyway, something must have twitched in the institution’s space time continuum since I found myself responsible for this most prestigious event.  Matron said I could keep any of the eggs or frogs that failed to make it to the finish line, just so long as I picked them up carefully and returned them to their rightful owners as quickly as possible.  You can’t say fairer than that.

On the big day, I prepared thoroughly.  I discharged my camera’s battery to ensure I couldn’t get electrocuted, used a kitchen scourer to clean the lens of anything that could ruin a perfect shot and dunked the whole thing in disinfectant for 30 minutes to make sure I didn’t contaminate anyone I photographed.  Nobody was going to accuse me of not having health and safety as my top-most priority.

I was at the starting line.  The llamas were prancing around confidently with their eggs carefully balanced atop their frogs;  the Felicity Kendalls were stretching every conceivable limb in preparation for the grueling course that lay ahead; George Bush was giving a truly splendifulous funeral speech to mark the occasion; I was doing finger press-ups to make sure my finger would be in tip-top condition for when the time came to take a photo.  I took a swig of some weak lemon drink to calm my nerves.

And then, with but the shortest of notice, the little girl from section 9 was detonated into a fine red mist and the race was underway.  Ok… so I missed taking a photo of the start… I was waiting for the right moment, but it just didn’t come.  And now all I could see was a crowd of blood coated shapes disappearing off into the distance accompanied by the occasional croak from an encumbered frog and a squeal of delight from Bob Carolgees, I think.

Matron wouldn’t be happy.

So I ran.

I chased and chased, but couldn’t keep up… this race was fiercely competitive, and such was the training that the competitors had put in, not a single egg or frog was dropped.  As I crossed the finishing line panting furiously, I was met with a swift but perfectly effective blow to the head with a defrosted chicken.  I was out knocked out cold for 15 minutes plus 20 minutes per lb.

I awoke to see a very angry looking Matron.  The guy from cell 94b was behind her looking all smug and insidious.  I briefly remember, before the waves of noxious broccoli vapour made my head hurt, the sound of a key being thrown into a very deep well.

And this is how I came to have my fear of cameras.

😦

The dread of the shred that leaves you dead

 

Matron said I should shred some confidential stuff, lest it fall into the wrong hands. That would be… er… problematic and embarrassing – and not just for the llamas.

Now normally I’m good at shredding, but today I forgot to heed the warning of “Shred with a tie and you’re dead”.  There were warnings on the shredder and everything.

It was going great, but just as I reached for the latest stack of llama sex orgy paperwork, my tie flopped into the diamond cut steel grinding gears of the shredder of death.

This is moments before my grizzly end.

Splendid.

A grave mistake…

Matron’s a fanatical murderer.  Last week, for example, just to keep up with her insatiable bloodlust, she managed to work her way through an entire agency’s worth of secretary temps.  I needed some creative thinking to persuade the agency to send some more after the 37th failed to hand in her timesheet.  I don’t think my story of there being a giant secretary magnet hovering over the country plucking secretarys from the streets (and that they were at their safest at the institution where we have a strict no giant magnet flight zone in force), was totally convincing.  The promise to Boris of a night with Brad Pitt was a useful bribe that kept the rouse going longer than ordinarrily possible, though.

Still…with murder comes body disposal. 

Luckily for Matron I’m adept with shovels, acid, hungry pigs, DNA alteration and hacking into Police networks to modify their so called “evidence”.  It took me a while to get good at this stuff, so some of my early attempts, circa November 1938, were somewhat shambolic.  Take this for example.  I left a huge clue to all the authorities that I’d buried the fruits of Matron’s foolish behaviour.  At least, that’s what I think I buried there.  It’s been a while.

So I decided to take a peek.  There’s no harm in peeking right?

At first it was all pretty normal.  I excavated through the usual bones, teeth, spoons and amulets of ancient and ungodly power.  Then I found something really intriguing.  It had an eery mysterious glow and it smelt of wasps.  The light danced across its surface and it was dispensing weak lemon drink into a small cup that never seemed to overflow or run dry.  Then it began singing a melody of such enchanting beauty that I was powerless but to lick it furiously. 

A few hours later I was aware that my tongue had swollen to the size of my left foot – which was just as well as my left foot appeared to have gone.  As had my right elbow, though strangely my right hand was right where it should be.

It was ace.

But when I lost awareness of my eyebrows I knew I was sinking into trouble.  But I couldn’t stop licking.  The melody was washing over me in waves of surrealness that compelled me to lick.  I could feel my life ebbing away from me.

 

A pain.

 

A stinging pain at the back of my head.

 

Then nothing.

 

Nothing at all.

 

 

I awoke in my cell.  Matron was there.  And so was all of my body.  In fact, my body had been augmented by a large shovel shaped bump on the back of my head.  Matron explained.  I should never had tried to regain my foolishness by unearthing what I had stowed years before.  Matron, it would seem, had taken appropriate action to free me from my folly and save my life.

But damn.

I had found an eternal source of weak lemon drink and it was cruelly taken from me. 

 

I guess my quest continues…

He had to die…

Mr. Snuggles had to die. 

 

To the outsider, Mr. Snuggles might look like an innocent cuddly stuffed toy of almost unbearable cuteness, but he had a dark secret.  Now that he appears to have finally stopped twitching I shall unleash the aforementioned dark secret upon the world. 

…well, if not the world, then at least the first 14 cells of ward B19.

As harsh as the punishment might seem, Mr. Snuggles had it comin’.  Hell yeah.  Whoah.

Crushy neck.

Swingy wingy.

Deathy weathy

Ha ha.

 

Ha.

 

I should explain.

 

I was eating my daily allowance of marzipan when there was a knock against the Kevlar-reinforced security glass window of my cell.  It was Mr. Snuggles.  He was grinning like a maniacal fool.  I saw blood on his delicately woven paws.

It looked like my blood. 

Really.

It was red.  It was a bit gloopy.  Surely that’s no coincidence?

So how did he get my blood on him?

I did a quick search for cuts or critical wounds.

None.

That had to be my blood though.

 

He must have wounded me at some point and then delicately tended me back to full health with my blood kept fresh upon his paws with an ice pack.

Nothing else for it.  I moved like a badger on steroids and he was noosed within 34 minutes of polite debate.

Death to bunny blood spillers!

 

ra.

Recharging…

You know when you have one of those near death experiences and you see a big floating parsnip strangling a poodle?  …well, last month I went one better and actually died.

I was playing around with my lawnmower, trying to turn it into a powered toothbrush when one of the brushes I’d attached to the blades fell off heading directly towards my foot at the speed of gravity.  In fear of lightly bruising my foot I recoiled in abject terror and hit my head hard on a piece of Imperial Leather soap.  Death was inevitable and mercifully quick.  Maybe not the best way to go, but at least it wasn’t one of those namby pamby “scented with the organic blossom of baby elderberries” bars.

So anyway.

My soapy injuries were naturally horrific and not helped by Matron not discovering me for five and three quarter weeks.  Apparently it was only after she’d got through 17 cans of Febreeze that she thought it might be prudent to investigate the source of the rancid odour. 

I digress.

Not wishing to lose her license to Matron the institution, she set about reconstructing my failed body with some domestic strength wood glue.  Apparently it took her quite a while, and she tells me she only had a few bits left over. 

I think she did a pretty good job, although I’ve yet to try out all bodily functions.

Anyway.  After a quick jump-start I was left with the arduous task of recharging my brain back up to 30 percent.  Any more than that and things can go horribly wrong.  You wouldn’t like to see me when I’m 31 percent, let alone 32.

Splendid.

And so it dawned on me that I was not for this life…

I was scared.  I was unsure.  Matron had always been so supportive; so understanding… but here I was thinking that she had somehow fooled me into a life of servitude – the recipient of a feeder… 

 

So I ran.

 

Not very far.

 

It took 83 minutes to nibble through the door of my cell.   But once that was done I was kind of on a roll.

 

Until I encountered the next door 3 feet away.  That only took 37 minutes to lick through though.

 

And then I was free…

 

The wind was in my hair, there was only a mild smell of sewage, my lungs were full with the air of freedom…

I was heady.

I won’t listen to her gorgeous stories anymore.

She lies.

She deceives.

 

She’s….

 

That was the moment, running chaotically as I was, that I realised I was no longer paying attention to basic life skills.  Things like don’t try to eat live crocodiles, don’t lick electricity and don’t fall off high bridges.  I did well on the former two life skills, but failed miserably at the bridge thingy one.

I knew I shouldn’t have gone out by myself.  Matron warned me of such perils.  How foolish of me to not heed her advice.

Silly me.  Silly me.  Silly me.  Silly me.  Silly me.  Silly me. 

Matron knows best.

Once I get myself out of this predicament I’ll never leave my Matron.

Never.

 

Juggling judgement error…

Matron suggested that as part of my new rehabilitated life on the outside, I’d need a few life skills.  Now initially I’d thought I should do something worthy, like design software or something – but that’s just altogether too sensible.

In my mind I should aspire to something truly splendid, like mime, clowning or gurning.  Sadly my initial attempts at the afore mentioned skills were marred by controversy.  In my earlier life I once hosted a children’s party where I was performing a death row execution of Biffo the clown.  The children failed to see the artistry and beauty of my excrucitiating death by electricity.

After several law suits I decide to change track… 

Juggling. 

Everybody loves a juggler.

But er… practice makes perfect.