I Once Went To Prison

IT WAS a December. I distinctly remember it being cold, which given the month, was not a surprise. What was a surprise was that I was naked, with blood on my chest. It was not my blood. It was the blood of an ape, whose body I had just effortlessly cast through the window of a jewellery store.

I had no love for jewellery, merely a hatred for apes. With a glance into the carnage, I scuttled from the scene, like a lobster from a madman, but it was no good. I had been betrayed, by my own clumsy fingers. The army was on to me, so I tried to hide, in the only way I knew - by not being found.

I first hid inside a bin, but I quickly found to my displeasure that I was not the only guest - this bin was home to a pack of fearsome wolves, and they were about to turn me in. I ran from there, flapping wildly, like a big pink coward. I stumbled upon an abandoned fridge. I hid in there, and felt pretty good for a while. Then, after a few moments, it became quite small, and I could not move my arms. A tiny fridge is no place for a naked fugitive. I fell from that place into an ever deeper misery.

A pigeon moved, it jumped, it flew up into the night. I was afraid! I was lonely. I dove into some discarded rags, a scattered arrangement some might call a pile. It was warm, like a wardrobe soaked in urine, probably someone else's urine, but it felt free. I slept for an hour, fitfully, thinking of my probable demise at the hands of the fascist government that sought me out. Then a tramp arrived, and pissed in my eyes. I pounded him in the cheek, repeatedly, until he too was lonely, and filled with sorrow. My stay was over, and I ventured on. I turned one corner, then another, and nearly another, but I decided to go straight on.

--

I had been on the run for minutes, but long minutes, that were a lot like years. This is the kind of difficulty I faced on the road - was time tricking me? Were the seconds really months, and the clouds in the sky dangerous heads with thousands of eyes? I did not know. I ran from that thought, like an unemployed clown whose bicycle has broken and he is late for a job interview. I ran and ran, leaping over fences and barrels as if I were pursued by a leopard. I grew tired, and sought solace in a new place. This place was welcoming, with friendly men in uniforms looking after it. I invited myself in.

It can be surprisingly difficult to invite yourself in. The men kept asking me what I had done. I told them about the sad ape moment. I embellished my story a little, for dramatic effect. I said I had killed sixteen thousand men, lopping off their heads without a care, and wearing their skins as a hat. They were impressed, and bundled me inside.

It was an odd place. The servants were all bald, and frowny. I thought perhaps that this was on account of the food. The food was not very nice, like an explosion in a rat factory. I did not care - I was safe, in my little room with the bars to keep out the hooligans. I enjoyed this new home, and decided that I would stay. There were no apes there, not as far as I could see, and I had managed to avoid the long and alarmingly flexible arm of the law. As long as I was inside this exciting temple of opportunity, I would be able to do as I pleased - immune from prosecution.

--

To my gradual and particularly slow horror, my imagined paradise began to disintegrate. It had now dawned on me that this was not Butlins, but a palace of rogues, and also, varmints. Room service was poor, and the towels smelt faintly of sick. Despite my fugitivity posing a problem, I had to find a new home. Unfortunately, when I suggested I might check out earlier, the locals had other ideas, and mocked me from their cagerooms.

In the absence of a popular group of Los Angeles-based mercenaries to free me, I would have to go it alone, and worse, on my own. I began to dig a tunnel, but the spoon I had once trusted was now to fail me, and my efforts were thwarted. I tried to pick the locks, but I no longer had my AMEX, and couldn't remember the intricacies of that particular episode of Diagnosis Murder.

The only option I could see now was bribery, and I had only the head of a dead fish as a bargaining chip. It could talk the talk, but not walk the walk, for it were a fish, and my offers were cruelly rejected. Yet still, I looked into its motionless eyes, and I found hope; a stinky, rotting hope, devoid of any real merit, a futile waste of thought, a crushing cul-de-sac of human despair. I pulled the pin from its mouth, and tossed it into the laundry room.

There was a huge bang, a bang like an IRA disco in the hold of a trawler, a cloud of foul smoke, a shower of pulpy guts. The Mexican grenadefish was a truly rare fish, and even I had not fully realised its magical properties. Still, it was this exploding pilchardy friend that was to rescue me in my hour of need. I leapt like a man, lost in the desert, who had stumbled upon a giant pineapple, a pineapple of redemption. I leapt up and down, then forwards, forwards, through the big hole in the wall.

--

I WAS FREE AGAIN, free but unwanted, like a pint of Candia UHT milk in a recent Sainsbury's promotion. This was my defining moment, my Escape to Victory, like Pele, and Steven Seagull. I skipped around my past like a lizard would a small set of reptilian roadworks, off to the east, into the sunset, and over the edge of the world.

FIN.