Breaking Curfew!

    Why was Number 34 on the beach just after curfew? Well perhaps not just after curfew, it must have been before, because we don’t know when he was killed. But he had been on the beach, it was Number 6 who found the body in the water. And the body was Number 34. One, because he’s wearing Village attire, and two, the Supervisor-Number 22 had told the Observer-Number 240 that Number 34 was dead. Perhaps she thought 240 should know, seeing as she was his observer. So why didn’t she know 34 was dead if she was his observer? To be fair to her 240 had just come on shift, so she couldn’t possibly have known 34 was dead. And in turn that must mean 240 couldn’t have been 34’s permanent observer, otherwise she would have been watching him! 
    So what was Number 34 doing on the beach? Perhaps he was going to meet someone, but instead encountered the membranic Village Guardian. Well how else would 34 have met his death? And yet why leave his body on the beach for so long? And where did he get that transistor radio? As far as we know there was no radio he could borrowed, so it must have been his own. That then leads to the question how was Number 34 able to smuggle the radio with him into The Village, and why? The why is an easy one to answer, to listen out for the message Number 6 picked up and listened to, the one about the moon turning to silver, and that the appointment could not be fulfilled because other things had to be done. And then it went on about grasping the nettle even though it makes our hands bleed. But smuggling the radio into The Village with him, surely something like that would be found? And in that regard one could ask Number 2 of ‘Hammer Into Anvil’ how he managed to smuggle that sword shooting stick into The Village with him? In 34’s case, perhaps it was a case of misdirection. Meaning he had two such radios when he was brought to The Village, and he let one of them be found when he was searched. If they do that sort of thing with new arrivals, if Number 34 was conscious when he arrived! One thing though, to my mind Number 34 might well have been a plant, and the voice reading out the message on the radio, not the one about typing speeds, was that of a former Number 2, Eric Portman!

Be seeing you