Thought For The Day

    It’s always Number 6 we concern ourselves with mostly. Who is he, why did he resign, what kind of work did he do, was he a scientist, tinker tailor soldier spy? I mean what’s so special about Number 6? Oh yes heaps of praise is piled on him in ‘Fall Out about resisting, holding fast, fighting, overcoming coercion. That he vindicated the right of the individual to be just that. But before that, what made Number 6 so special? Was he chosen from the beginning for those hidden qualities? Number 6 had it easy because he had a guardian angel…Number 1. Sometimes I like to think of others, such a number of Number 2’s for which things did not go according to plan. In ‘A B and C’ and ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ for example. I hate to think what happened to those Number 2’s. Yes one did get a second chance with ‘The General,’ but look how that ended for him. And at the end of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ Number 2 was left a broken man. I’m not even sure he was a professional sadist as suggested by Number 6. Yes he was an interrogator, but he didn’t lay a hand on Number 73, all he did was question her, but then he did appear to put the frighteners on. What caused her to slash her writs previous to her actual suicide, could probably be put down to her having been abducted to The Village, and the fact that she could not settle down to Village life. I wonder if when Number 73 woke up one day in The Village, she did so in a replica of her own home? One thing is for sure there was no way 73 was ever to leave The Village. But who was she? Married to a man whose work took him abroad, a diplomat perhaps, working for the British Foreign Office. Or most likely a spy. But 73, she was ordinary, perhaps even an ordinary housewife abducted from her home to one day wake up in The Village. To be questioned day after day about the whereabouts of her husband, not that she knew where he was. Somewhere over there, possibly behind the Iron Curtain, it’s no wonder she tried to commit suicide, eventually succeeding. And then there is Madam Professor, at least she had her husband with her. The sad thing being that after the Professor’s death, Madam Professor would look to live out the rest of her days alone in The Village. But perhaps in her case they would leave her alone, to carry on holding her art seminars.

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