“Why were you brought here?” I can understand why the Rook-No.58 was brought to the Village. He’d had treasonable thoughts, he had invented an electronic defence system and he thought that all nations should have it, that way it would have ensured peace. So what to do with such a man? Put him in the Village of course! I can understand why the Prisoner-No.6 was brought to the Village. A secret agent {for arguments sake} who thinks he can simply resign his job, is someone who has certain information, certain knowledge who cannot be left to roam free for simply anyone to pick up. So what do you do with such a man? You could keep him on a long leash. Keep him under the closest possible surveillance. Or you could save yourself all that time, money and effort by putting him in the Village!
Then there’s No.14, a chess champion and ex-Count by all accounts. Now how does a Count, whose family goes back several generations {they are supposed to have played chess using their retainers, there heads removed as they were wiped off the board} how or why did he become an ex-Count? Was he stripped of the title, or did he resign? I cannot for the life of me see why an ex-Count should wake up one day amongst the citizens of the Village. There has to be more to it than that, unless he’s paying for the past crimes of his ancestors! Which would be both an extreme and pointless exercise.
Then there’s Roland Walter Dutton, he was brought to the Village because of the information in his possession. The doctor No.40 was experimenting on Dutton, and because he didn’t believe that Dutton had told him everything he knew, Dutton not being privy to the vital information, and having been given 72 hours so that he could reconsider in the quiet atmosphere of the Village, the doctor then went too far with Dutton!
Cobb he’s another one, but he didn’t hold out too long before they turned him. I shouldn’t think it took too much persuasion to turn Cobb. It struck me that he was a bit on the spineless side!
Oh yes, and then there’s No.2 of ‘The Chimes of Big Ben,’ ‘Once Upon A Time,’ and ‘Fall Out.’ He was abducted to the Village, but then you would expect no less for a man of his calibre. In his time he as wielded a not inconsiderable power. Has had the ears of statesmen, Kings and Princes of many lands. Governments have been swayed, policies defined, and revolutions have been nipped in the bud at word from him in the right place and at a propitious time. So it is no wonder then that one day he would wake up in the Village.
But what is so deplorable about him is, that he resisted for so short a time. But this No.2 was expendable. It was certain that it had to be either one of them, one of them being either No.2 or No.6, and it was certain that it wasn’t going to be No.6 who died in that Embryo Room. So it had to be No.2, it stands to reason! But even than they couldn’t let No.2 rest in peace, so they resuscitated him. That is resuscitate, the President used that word, and not resurrection, so No.2 wasn’t really dead. Or if he was dead, then the medical team had only so long to act in order to resuscitate No.2 in order to prevent brain damage, the lack of oxygen to the brain. No.2 was put on trial, he was accused of biting the hand that feeds. Only he hadn’t, not at that point. In fact No.2 had been most loyal, he put his own life on the line for the cause of the Village. If anything, this No.2 was proud of the Village, he saw it as a blueprint for world order. But of course he was just as much a prisoner as No.6, and yet still loyal to the cause, right up until the very moment he spat in the electronic eye of No.1! There was the revolt. No.2 if he was going to die, then he would die with his own mind. He wasn’t going to be beguiled by No.1 any longer!
No.8, she was hypnotised into believing that she was in love with No.6, and that he was in love with her. She was used in an experiment conducted by No.22, who gave every impression of being the female counterpart of the doctor No.40. She adapts an experiment conducted on Dolphins in conjunction with submarine detection. Which is only mildly better than adapting Pavlov’s experiments with his experiments with dogs, to be used on No.58. And yet this is not the first time No.8 has been used against those, who when their spirit is broken, and they try to escape. No.8 has often helped others with their plans, the way she volunteered to do with No.6. But like No.6’s plan, none of them ever succeeded. I think we can guess why. But not why No.8 is in the Village in the first place!
But you do not have to be abducted to wake up to find yourself amongst the citizens of the Village. You can be like the Professor and his wife, and come to the Village voluntarily. According to Madam Professor they are perfectly happy living in the Village. But one can see that that is a lie. So what kind of life could madam Professor expect to live now that her husband is dead? Certainly the privileges she and her husband had enjoyed would go, along with the elegantly furnished house. And as the Professor’s widow, she would hold no further importance for No.2. Certainly as the Professor’s widow she would never be allowed to leave the Village. So it follows that she would be looked after in Village for as long as she lived. Possibly to be allowed to carry on with her art seminars, well she would need to do something. I’m quite certain that having been used to being the wife of an academic, and an artist, Madam Professor was not used to ordinary manual work, like waitressing!
So who is anyone in the Village? Why are they here? I could go on describing almost anyone in the Village, but time and space does not permit. However, I do wish to make mention of one further individual, who is perhaps the most enigmatic character living in the Village, the butler! Enigmatic because we know less about him than we do the Prisoner! How did the butler come to the Village? Of his own free will, or abduction? But then why?
However citizens came to be living in the Village, through recruitment, of people’s free will, or by abduction. One thing is for certain, there is no escape. No.14 the chess champion and ex-Count, as well as those living in the Old People’s Home are testament to that fact. So perhaps the best thing to do is to live the best one can in the Village. After all there are people in history who have had to come to terms with worse than living a life in the Village. And besides, it is a proven fact that one can get used to any given circumstance, given enough time. Am I advocating life in the Village? Well not really, unless of course one sees living in the Village as some kind of Utopia, or Shangri-la. But for that to happen, it would depend upon a persons life circumstance outside of the Village.
I’ll be seeing you
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