Akira Diaries - Part One

Day One


I've been told to write this diary by my doctors. They say
that the memories of my intepid travels are all in my head. I think
they're all mad.
Strangely, no sooner had the meeting with my doctors finished than I
got a call from the Royal Geographical Society to tell me the funding
was finally available and my expedition could leave that very
day.
I immediately packed and was all ready to go, I just needed to get this
odd jacket unstrapped?.


Day Two


Day two of the expedition and already the supplies were
running low?Only one more case of Chablis before I needed to go on to
water.


Gad but it was hot. Damn these mosquitoes! I'd been bitten to
a frazzle. The native bearers had already left us and run off to their
villages. Scared of the killer lions, I expect. At least the elephants
hadn't been bothering us - yet?


I never thought climbing to the top of Everest would be like
this?.


Oates had been a long time?It was time to go looking for him.



Day Three


I finally found Oates. He was down the pub causing a
nuisance. By the time I got there he was on his sixth pint of Nepalese
Old Peculiar and he's never been able to hold his drink. I was
beginning to wonder why I'd brought him on this trip in the first
place. I mean, how many Everest expeditions have a member of its party
that gets a nosebleed going up a flight of stairs?


Then there's the Chinese supplies officer. Every hour or so
he would disappear off on his own, only to jump out from behind a rock
right in front of us shouting "Supplies! Supplies!"


But I digress?I dragged Oates out of The Ragged Sherpa pub
and tried desperately to sober him up before the rest of the team saw
him. This was a serious expedition; if they found him like this they
would insist that he be sent home. I don't think he could stand this -
not with things the way they were?.Maybe I should tell you more about
Oates and his tragic life?..


Edwin Charles Henry Oates (known, of course, from a very
early age as Little Sir Echo) had a sad and lonely childhood. He didn't
speak for the first six years of his life so his mother tried to sell
him to a mime artist to at least make a profit out of
him.


His school days were no better. He was mocked incessantly by
his school mates, possibly for wearing plus-fours, a ball gown and a
top hat, his parents having been told that he should be dressed
smartly. The poor lad didn't stand a chance.


Surprisingly, considering his appaling school record and
having failed the eleven plus a record fourteen times, he told me he
had been to Oxford after leaving the George Michael Memorial
Comprehensive and to prove it he showed me his Oxford
tie.


"What were you doing at Oxford?" I asked him.


"Buying a tie." he replied


Even then I should have known that he might not be the best
person to take on our dangerous and possibly unfunny expedition to the
Himalayas?..


Day Four


As you can probably tell, I'd known Oates for quite a while
and had for this reason promised him a place on the team and it was
only after much discussion and ridicule from the rest of the expedition
that he was allowed to come with us in the first place. I told everyone
he was going to be our interpreter.


"Strange,"said Browning, our armaments man, "He seems to have
trouble even speaking English. Are you sure he can tell us what the
Sherpas are constantly whispering and giggling about?"


"Of course," I scoffed. "He loosens up after a few drinks and
becomes much more intelligible. You know, like George
Bush."


So Oates was accepted, though somewhat grudgingly, into our
team.


That was nearly a week earlier. Now here we were at Camp
Five. The wind was howling, the snow was a blanket of swirling white
around our tent, the temperature had dropped to minus 45 degrees and we
only had one tin of peach slices left. And there were only four of our
original thirteen party left.


What had happened to the other eight - er -
nine?


Day Seven


Here's a good tip for all you budding mountaineers?..Never
leave the tent alone at night in the middle of a snow storm with no
lights. I know it sounds like an obvious thing but you'd be amazed how
often it can happen.


I was panicking slightly on Friday evening as you know
because about 74.2 per cent of my so solid crew were nowhere to be
seen. It was six o'clock and they never miss The Simpsons, so I knew
something was seriously wrong.


I decided to have a vote to see who should go outside and
investigate.


"Look lads," I started, "I need a volunteer for a very
dangerous mission. Someone needs to go out into the freezing, howling
wind and snow to try and find - "


"You can go," they chorused, unzipping the tent and booting
me out before I even had a chance to zip up my parka. I swear I heard
laughter from behind me as I struggled off into the biting
gale.


- But then I returned having found no sign of my
compatriots?.And what did I find as I crawled back into our deluxe
mountain tent? It was empty.


I was all alone?.


Day Eight


?.But there was a note left pinned to my inflatable bed. (or
"plastic sheet" as I shall be calling it from now on)


"If you wish to see your friends again, come to "The
Screaming Yak" at seven tomorrow night. Bring all your
chocolate"


This may at first sound like a piece of nonsense or a joke
left behind by the rest of the team, but I recognised it immediately as
the work of those notorious criminals, "The Sweetie Gang". But what
were they doing here, halfway up Everest? And how did they know about
our secret mission to be the first ever expedition to take a fifteen
cases of Mars Bars, Snickers and Yorkie Bars to the
summit?


I spent an anxious day collecting together all the cases and
hiding them in a small cave that had been discovered by a few days ago
by Greene, our navigator (lost, as usual). It seemed like a safe hiding
place. I spent the rest of the day looking for any clues to how
everyone was kidnapped. Any tracks? Anything dropped by their
absconders? Any sweet wrappers about? Any apples, oranges,
pears?


Nothing?.


So, after a fruitless day, I went back to check on the
chockie cases and, guess what? - They'd gone??


Day Nine


I spent another sleepless night in Seattle (as we named our
tent) worrying about the way things were developing. I'd lost all the
members of the party (so it had become more of a wake than a party);
I'd lost all of our chockie supplies; I had to go to The Screaming Yak
and I knew they only served tequila and lemonade and I'm allergic to
Mexican spirits. It was all going wrong.


So I had a mere 11 hours to formulate a cunning plan to get
me out of the tricky situation. I had a few ideas?..


1. Run away
2. Hide
3. Pretend to be someone else
4. Run away
5. Disguise myself as a sherpa
6. Run away


I think I knew what to do?.


Day Ten


The note about the chocolate supplies was just a diversion,
of course. When I got to "The Screaming Yak" it was closed for the
summer season. It had a sign outside saying "Closed For The Summer
Season." That's how I knew?


I wandered around for a while at a loss. What to do next? The
snow was swirling around me and night was falling again. I needed to
find shelter - and fast! Suddenly a beam of light cut through the
darkness.


"Hello Akira,"said a voice I recognised.


"Oates! Thank goodness! I thought I'd never see you again!"
(It was Oates. I was pleased to see him)


"This way, old chap. You'll never guess what's been going
on"


I should have been more careful. I realise that now. The fact
that his voice seemed to be coming from a seven foot yeti should have
warned me?.


Suddenly I was whisked off my feet and everything went black.
I woke up god knows how much later and found myself strapped to a table
in a brightly-lit room full of metallic, shiney equipment and
machinery. The room was vast. I could hardly see the distant far wall.
Somehow I knew I wasn't back in my tent.


The yeti creature was leaning over me.


"Sorry to be so melodramatic, but this sort of thing is
expected during alien abductions" I couldn't argue with
that.


The Jupitan (for that is what it was) then went on to explain
what had happened?..


Day Eleven


Apparently the Jupitans had come to the Alps in search of
male humans with a streak of the old devil-may-care attitude who,
showing no fear of danger and insurmountable odds, would see the
unfeasably large and frosty female Jupitans as just another challenge.
You see, the male Jupitans are terrified of their better halves and
have finally given up trying to please them. They had been searching
the universe for many many years trying to find a sexual partner to
replace them and had, by chance, discovered on Earth a certain type of
person would laugh in the face of danger and chuckle at the knees of
fear. But as there was only one David Blaine, they had come to
Everest?.


Now the sad part?..


The Jupitan (who told me his name was Hwiiduuullaaargh, but
who I shall call Colin) had discovered and taken a fancy to my party
and would now be taking all of them back to Jupitus with them?.except
me. Apparently I was just too good looking and intelligent for them.
(Look, this is my story and I'll tell it whatever way I like,
okay?)


So this was goodbye. Only, in the interests of dramatic
excitement, Colin decided to give me a chance to escape while being
chased by slavering, heavily armed hoardes of screaming seven foot
Yeti-like Jupitans - rather than just put me down where ever I
wanted.


So Colin hid his eyes and started counting to a hundred as I
ran off. I finally found a hatch that led to a corridor that led to
another hatch that led to cupboard that had a false bottom that dropped
me?..into the middle of Hyde Park.


I immediately knew something was wrong. No cars, no
roller-bladers, no planes overhead. But instead gentlemen in top hats
escorting ladies wearing dresses with bustles and carrying parasols, as
soldiers galloped passed them, exercising their chargers up and down
Rotten Row.


Oh bugger?.


Day Twelve


I was immediately surrounded by a curious crowd who started
asking, nay demanding, who I was and how I had got here. I think my
outfit must have given them a clue that I wasn't from around these
parts.


I was wearing an amalgam of whatever I could find over my
last few adventures?.On my feet were climbing boots; on my legsa natty
pair of water-proof Bart Simpson socks; covering my unnecessaries was a
nice light-weight silvery-looking sort of kilt that I had been given on
the spaceship. On my torso was a Metallica t-shirt (I can't remember
where that came from) and on my head was balaclava.


I can't understand why they thought I looked out of
place??


Before I knew it, I had been grabbed by the rozzers (not as
painful as it sounds) and marched of to the nearest police station,
where I am currently pleading my innocence to whatever they think I may
have done, and suffering the privations of a nineteenth century London
jailhouse.


Still it could be worse?..I could be in 21st century
Slough?.