Exhibition Of Arts And Crafts

                           “The General”

BSEENU

Village Life!

   You’ve got that look on your face again, as though you’re formulating another plan. Is that music irritating you again? Can’t switch it off can you, there being no on/of switch on the loudspeaker. Just a minute, you’re not going to trample it to pieces underfoot again? You know what that means, it means the destruction of official property, you could be fined for that, or worse, be put in prison. But then you’re there already aren’t you. In any case after you trampled the last loudspeaker to pieces all they did was to send an electrician along with a replacement. So what would be the point in repeating that action, no point at all as far as I can see. You need a more subtle plan in order to deal with that loudspeaker. You could always open the window and throw it outside, but some nosey parker might pick it up and bring it back. So what are you going to do with it? Oh that’s clever, I bet no-one has thought of that before. I expect Number 2 would find that fascinating, putting the speaker in the refrigerator like that. Nice and quiet now isn’t it. Now if only they would leave you alone, which they won’t. Because you haven’t given them what they want to know yet. And there’s no chance of you telling them is there? Number 2 is under the impression that if you will answer one simple question, why did you resign? But that was tried before wasn’t it, on the day of your arrival in The Village. Oh you did give away one piece of information, the date of your birth, but they knew that anyway, so where was the harm eh? You know if you don’t bend, you’ll break, and what would a man of fragments be to Number 2? Oh well I expect you know best.

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Number 2

    Was it so wise for Number 1 to instigate so many different Number 2’s? Because it does seem to always put Number 2 at a disadvantage, seeing that each of them would require a “settling in” period, if only to come to terms with The Village and the workings of its administration. But perhaps any such Number 2 would have been briefed on both The Village, and the duties of Number 2 to be carried out, and Number 6, so was expected to hit the ground running so to speak. And between each new Number 2, there would be a cooling off period for Number 6, affording him a break in his ordeals with Number 2. It might be the case that Number 1 thought that any successive Number 2 would be an improvement on his or her predecessor. Unfortunately for him, and lucky for Number 6, that didn’t always prove to be the case!
   As it is with the THEPRIS6NER 2009 series, there is but one Two, which means Two is permanently nasty, and affords Six no such break in his ordeal!

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Pit And The Pendulum

   I was listening to Edgar Allan Poe's 'Pit And The Pendulum' read by Christopher Lee a while ago, suddenly my ears pricked up to the following piece of text taken from the story.
    "The figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened."
   Does that brief passage put you in mind of anything? I have not read 'The Pit And The Pendulum' for many years, but when I heard this brief passage spoken, I was instantly reminded of a scene in 'A Change of Mind, when sat before the members of the Committee, suddenly the lights go out in the chamber, leaving Number 6 in total darkness. And when the lights come back on again, it is as though the members of the Committee had vanished, as if magically!

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Caught On Camera!

                                  “Run that plan of yours by me again!”

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The Colonel

    Having undergone the mind transference with Number 6, the man has all unpleasant memories of The Village wiped from his memory, and is taken back to London to wake up in his home of No.1. Buckingham Place. He tries to convince Sir Charles Portland of his identity, but has little luck. However he does have better luck with Janet Portland, by giving her a message only he can give. He then sets out to find Professor Seltzman, which he eventually does, in a Barber’s shop in the Austrian town of Kandersfeld.

   Both the Colonel/Number 6 and Professor Seltzman are taken back to The Village in order to put both the Colonel and Number 6 through the mind transference once more. However Professor Seltzman had progressed further than anyone could have imagined. He did change the minds of three men at the same time. The mind of Professor Seltzman now occupies a body, perhaps not to his liking, the Colonel’s.
   So what then? Seltzman leaves The Village in the guise of the Colonel, and is taken to the landing stage by helicopter. But beyond that, where can Seltzman go? After all he doesn’t have a passport in the Colonel’s name with the appropriate face in it. But perhaps we are not supposed to think too deeply about that, if at all!
   When Number 6’s mind was housed in the Colonel’s body it is Number 6’s mind, we as the television viewer hear thinking. But it’s the Colonel’s voice we hear when the Colonel speaks. Probably due to the Colonel’s voice box. So Seltzman might well retain his own handwriting, as Number 6 had, but he would have lost his Austrian accent.
    So having changed the minds of three people at the one and same time, Professor Seltzman was then free to continue his experiments in peace, but where? How? He has no passport for travel, he appears to have no apparent sign of funds. And even if he has funds in a bank, how can he go to his bank in order to withdraw money? Yes his handwriting would remain the same written on the withdrawal slip, but the face over the counter would be different. And as the Prisoner once suggested to himself, Seltzman would be arrested for forgery! But again I suppose we’re not supposed to think too much about that, but to simply
accept that Professor Seltzman is the one who got away!

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The Girl Would Love A Man To Death!

    "Alright darling you win. I've just realised something. I don't want to kill you anymore. You are the best. If I kill you, what will be left for me? Life would be a bore. Why don't you join us, my father and me? We could have a wonderful life together. You would be a constant challenge to me."
                       {The girl - The Girl Who was Death}

    Yes, that would be lovely living with The Girl Who Was Death, perhaps to be married to her, because from the moment Mr. X woke up on his honeymoon his life would be in danger. Not while he was asleep of course, oh I realise that death can come when you’re asleep, well you’re off your guard then. But to kill a man when he’s sleeping, that would be unsporting even for The Girl Who Was Death. There would be no pleasure in it for her, killing Mr. X while he was awake would be a sexual pleasure for her. So perhaps when he was shaving in the bathroom he might have to fend the Girl off with his safety razor, having seen her coming at him in the mirror. Or while having breakfast…would Mr. X trust eating a breakfast? The Girl might have cooked it, or if not, she might have been able to put poison in his food, tea, or coffee. Death might come to him at any moment of the day. He would be constantly on his guard against the Girl in order to ensure his continued survival. He would never know when an attack on his person would come. He might go out for the morning newspaper, and upon his return go to hang his coat up and agggghhhhh! The Girl leaps out at him with a big knife, having been hiding in the wardrobe since he went out that morning patiently awaiting his return. And during the day the Girl might lay any number of death traps for Mr. X to fall into, each one more deadly than the last. She might think of any number of different ways to love Mr. X to death, such would be her constant challenge, until one day when his luck run out.

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