The Tally Ho

 

The Tally Ho

The Village Is Taught A Lesson!
       by our own reporter

    The Professor and his wife came to the village, apparently of their own free will, it can be assumed that they would soon have realized their mistake, but only when it was far too late. The Professor the face of Speed Learn produced a number of lectures, which were, as this reporter understands it, projected through a sublimator device and student’s television sets at a speed thousands of times faster than eye can record and imposed directly onto the cortex of the brain and was, with occasional boosts virtually indelible. A university degree could be learned in three minutes, but what value that here in the village? No value whatsoever, especially when students spout the same answer when asked a question word for word! No wonder the Professor saw Speed Learn to be an abomination, that it was slavery! As it turned out, No.12 of administration was a dissident. Its is unknown how he and the Professor hooked up together, but after the Professor had managed to record that message of his about the fact that if citizens wanted to be free there is only one way, learn this and learn it well the General must be destroyed. How the Professor managed to record his message to the citizens when under the closest medical supervision of the doctor and nurse is unclear. However the fact of the matter is, he did, and having managed to escape the confines of the Manor House he made his way to the beach where I expect his intention was to meet up with No.12 in order to give him the tape recorder. And yet there was no time, because having realized that the Professor had escaped the house No.2 set the students on his trail, and were soon close on his heels down on the beach. The Professor did the only thing he could do, he buried the tape recorder in the sand dunes which No.6 came across accidentally, No.12 observed this,and saw No. 6 rebury the recorder, because that evening No.12 returned to the beach in order to retrieve the tape recorder. There is something quite unique about the Professor and his wife its not that they didn’t wear numbered badges, they didn’t need to, seeing as they were effectively permanently under house arrest and never allowed to go out into the village. It’s the fact that they came to the village of their own volition which earned them certain privileges, the fact that they were permitted to wear their own clothes and given the Manor House to live in. So why did the Professor and his wife come to the village of their own volition? What was it they expected from the village that they couldn’t achieve in the outside World? While the Professor busied himself either writing his lectures in the General’s office, or resting and undergoing therapy, his wife Madam Professor busied herself in giving art seminars in the garden of the Manor House. She was an artist and had created a number of busts, one of which was that of a former No.2 as well as the present No.2. Curiously there was even a bust of No.6 which I imagine she modelled from photographs of the subject. And so it was that she sculpted a wax model of her husband’s head which gave the impression that the Professor was asleep in bed. But it didn’t fool No.6, who brought down a walking stick smashing the wax head. Madam Professor let out a scream, possibly at the thought of her masterpiece being smashed to pieces! But why? Why create that wax model of the Professor’s head in the first place? Simply to fool No.6, what was there to gain in that? To fool the doctor, but he knew about the wax head, he told No.6 that the Professor had been sedated, that he was not to be disturbed knowing the Professor wasn’t lying in that bed, but was perhaps in the hospital undergoing some form of therapy treatment. And yet even so might we not be on the track of it with the doctor? The Professor had to escape the house in order to keep the arranged meeting with No.12 on the beach. What better way to fool the doctor by having Madam Professor make a wax bust of her husband’s head to give the impression he was asleep in bed, when actually the Professor was on his way to the beach. But then the plan was foiled, probably by the doctor himself, who in turn alerted No.2 to the fact the Professor had managed to escape from the house. No.2 then instigated a search for the Professor using his students to hunt him down with the helicopter providing aerial surveillance instead issuing an Orange Alert and activating the Guardian. After all No.2 didn’t want the Guardian catching up with the Professor and suffocating him to death! And yet the Professor did die in the end, in the attempt to save the General from being destroyed. Perhaps he did love the General more than he hated it! As for Madam Professor she was moved out of the Manor House into smaller accommodation, living a quiet life, so no more art seminars. As for the Students, with the General destroyed the experiment came to an end. And without the occasional boosts the students eventually forgot all they had learned through Speed Learn! And yet Speed Learn was never intended for the benefit of the citizens in the village who were merely used as guinea pigs in an educational experiment which if a success would mean Speed Learn would have been implemented to a much wider range of students the World over!