Don’t You Like It Here?

    “Well I can think of better places to be. That Number Two, she wants the impossible!”
    “Don’t we all?”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Escape. You want to escape just like any of us.”
    “Escape from where?”
    “From here.”
    “To where?”
    “Ah that’s the crux of the matter, no-one knows where here is.”
    “The Village?”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s somewhere.”
    “Yes.”
    “Has no-one tried to find out?”
    “One man did, little good it did him.”
    “Why?”
    “Its like the taxi ride.”
    “Taxi ride?”
    “Didn’t you try to take a taxi ride to the nearest town on the day of your arrival?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you found out that it’s only a local service. A taxi will take you anywhere you want, just as long as you end up back here in the end.”
    “So?”
   “You began your journey in The Village.
    “Yes.”
    “And you arrived in The Village.”
   “Yes.”
    “Well don’t you see, you got in the taxi in The Village, and then you got out of the taxi in The Village.”
    “I had arrived.”
    “And so it was with Number Six. They do say he left The Village aboard a raft, that he sailed far far away. And yet he ended back here in The Village in the end.”
    “So you are saying what’s the point?”
    “If you know of a way out, forget it. They will only bring you back here in the end. Even those who are eventually allowed to leave are brought back, not always with their consent. Number Eight, he thought he had found a way out. I remember there wasn‘t a funeral.”
    “Why not?”
    “Its not always possible. You need a body!”
    “They didn’t bring his body back?”
    “I don’t think they could find it. Washed away on the tide most likely.”
    “So what does Number Two want?”
    “My confession!”
    “Don’t tell me you’re disharmonious!”
    “No.”
    “Look where are you? I can’t see you at all!”
    “I’m over here by the bookcase.”
    “I don’t believe it, you’re invisible”
    “No just camouflaged. I’ve invented a liquid that when something, or someone, is immersed in this liquid the subject takes on the colours and textures that surround it.”
    “That’s incredible!”
    “If I sit in a chair you see the chair and not I who have taken up the form of the chair. Or to stand here by the wall I take on the appearance of the wall paper.”
    “And this is what Number Two wants, the formula. Where are you?”
    The door of the cottage suddenly slammed shut. Number 2 had The Village put in lockdown, The Village and the entire area of the woods and beach searched. But to no avail. It would seem that number 242 had simply disappeared. Oh number 2 had number 243’s statement of what had taken place. The bath stripped out of his cottage and taken to a laboratory, and the laboratory searched thoroughly, and Number 243 questioned about his colleague’s recent activities. But he knew nothing, save that 242 had been secretly working on a new chemical formula while studying a chameleon reptile…………

BCNU