Wednesday 4 August 2010

Elderly men in baths. There, that got your attention

The shackles were beginning to hurt my arms. Shackles should be tight, I suppose, but these were a little too tight, pulling my arms out at the sockets. Then again, I was suspended off the ground by chains, so I don't know what I was expecting. Opposite me, a demonstration of the fate that awaited me, a fate worse than death. Old age.
 Max, seated in a large bath - the sort you can imagine wealthy Victorians preparing in front of a large fire - watched me with an expression of wrinkled confusion. The tortures of this place achieved one aim, the premature aging of the innocent. While Max had been a sprightly youth not one week ago, he now resembled an elderly raisin. His shriveled countenance watched me, possibly hoping I was secretly a game of Countdown or episode of Diagnosis: Murder. But I was neither of these things. In fact, I was a man, about to be subjected to the horrors of old age while I was still in my prime. I was not a Judge Dredd Villain, I was a mostly innocent man!
 In front of me, the sinister man who had lead my capture earlier. Something about his attitude, the authority he commanded, and the colossal badge on his jacket suggested to me that he was in charge of this facility. But for now, he was content - having gloated at me a while - to leave me with Max while he prepared the aging machine.
The wrong sort of Bath
 "Max!" I cried out, hoping to stir him from his incontinence confusion. "MAX!"
 "What? Are you on my lawn? Oh, wait... I remember you... So long ago. We were... young women together?"
 "Close enough! What happened to you?"
 "Not so bad..." He replied sleepily, "Regular pills, TV, and the sponge bathes are nice. Look - I scraped the dry skin off my chest, and with some hairs, I've made a caterpillar."
 Max was right. Moulded from bluey-grey dead skin like a child would mould play-do was a small caterpillar shape. Inserted in the head were two grey head-hairs, resembling some sort of antenna. I pondered whether caterpillars actually had such antenna, but decided to ignore the subject. Dismissing what might have been Max's most disturbing creation, I continued:
 "Very nice. But how can we get out of here?"

Ominously, the door began to open.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Paul, Did you ever think of putting Max's story into book form? It's really fun and entertaining and so, so dark.

Paul Blanchard said...

String them together, expand on them, and add more pictures of moths, that sort of thing?
I've considered it, but I have no idea how to go about it.

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