The Dance of the Voodoo Handbag

What are you in for?' asked Dan.

'˜Multiple murder, cannibalism and necrophilia,' I said, as this often proved an efficient method of subtly discouraging further conversation. '˜Do you have a problem with that?'

'˜Absolutely not.' Dan tucked further into his porridge. '˜That's what I'm in here for.'

'˜Let's eat up and piss off, shall we, chief?'

'˜Absolutely.'

'˜Absolutely,' said Dan.

A little later Dan said, '˜Actually I'm not in for multiple murder. Well, I am, a bit. But it's not the real reason I'm in here. I'm in here because I know things they don't want the outside world to know.'

'˜They?'

'˜They, them. The powers that be.'

'˜Always the same old they,' I said. '˜Been having trouble with them myself.'

'˜I uncovered this terrible secret,' said Dan. '˜You see, every man, woman and child in the entire world has an invisible alien sitting on their shoulders manipulating their thoughts.'

'˜Bummer.'

'˜Yes, isn't it? And no-one will believe me. Because the aliens manipulate their thoughts and tell them not to.'

'˜Tricky situation.'

'˜And I know about the Jesus conspiracy.'

'˜Is that like the JFK conspiracy?'

'˜Only in that it's a conspiracy.'

'˜So it's not like Jesus wasn't really crucified, he was shot with an arrow from the grassy knoll, or anything like that?'

'˜No, it's about the second coming.'

'˜Oh yeah? What, you know the date or something?'

'˜July the twenty-seventh.'

'˜This year?'

'˜No, not this year, don't be stupid.'

'˜Sorry.'

'˜July the twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-seven.'

'˜How about a stroll around the exercise yard, chief?'

'˜In a minute, Barry, I don't want to miss this one.'

'˜Barry?' said Dan.

'˜Never mind about Barry. July the twenty-seventh, nineteen sixty-seven, you say? I wonder how that slipped by me.'

'˜Perhaps you were doing the Hippy Trail, or at Woodstock, or reading a Johnny Quinn novel, or something.'

'˜That must have been it.'

'˜Of course it wasn't it.' Dan banged his spoon on the table. '˜It was never in the newspapers. It's a conspiracy. Didn't you ever wonder about the Summer of Love? Why nineteen sixty-seven was different from any other year? It's because it was the year Jesus was reborn. He was reborn in San Francisco. The CIA knew it was going to happen, they had copies of the missing pages from the Bible that were suppressed by the Pope prior to the English translation being done for King James. The date of the second coming was in there. The CIA took Jesus into protective custody, he's being brought up on a farm in Wisconsin. He was born in nineteen sixty-seven, so he will be thirty-three, his age at his former death, when the millennium comes around.'

'˜Something for us all to look forward to there, then.'

'˜Twat,' said Dan.

'˜And I thought we were getting along so well.'

'˜Take the piss if you want. But when Jesus comes down in glory from the clouds, in a helicopter would be my guess, you and all the other unbelievers are going to look pretty silly.'

'˜Don't get me wrong,' I said. '˜I'm no unbeliever. But let me put this to you. The Bible Belt of America called the Summer of Love an abomination unto the Lord. They said that all free love was the Devil's doing. You don't suppose your CIA friends have got the wrong fellow by any chance? Perhaps it isn't Jesus at all. Perhaps it's the Anti-Christ.'

Dan had a bit of a think '˜Let me get back to you on that,' he said. '˜So, do you want to tell me what you're really in here for?'

'˜Propagation of conspiracy theory, same as you. This is the Conspiracy Theorists' Correctional Facility, isn't it? We're all in here for the same reason: 'њOral dissemination of rumour and hearsay, liable to elicit independent thought and cause a breach of the status quo'ќ - Clause 23 of the new Suppression of Misinformation Act. I'm a tall-storyteller by profession. All I was doing was plying my trade, chatting to a bloke in a bar. Trouble was, the bloke in the bar turned out to be an off-duty clerk from the Ministry of Serendipity. Six o'clock the next morning, bang goes my front door, in storm the men in grey, and I'm dragged off here for a spell of corrective therapy.'

'˜And are the tablets helping?'

'˜Tablets always help. That's what tablets are for, isn't it?'

'˜Have you thought about planning an escape?'

'˜Novel idea.'

'˜Oh, are you writing a novel?'

'˜Certainly not! How dare you!'

'˜Sorry. But I'm planning to escape.' Dan drew me closer, but I wasn't keen. Not with the BO and the bad breath and everything. '˜I'm building wings,' whispered Dan. '˜From pillow feathers. I'm going to fly out of here.'

'˜Well, give my regards to Jesus when you see him.' I rose to take some exercise in the yard.

'˜Or I might just go out through the tunnel tonight with everyone else.'

I sat back down again. What did you say?' I asked.

'˜Chief,' said Barry, as I jogged around the exercise yard. '˜Chief, I really don't think you should put too much faith in young Danny boy.'

'˜Oh really, Barry, and why not?'

'˜Because he's two eggs short of an omelette, chief. He's cooking without the gas on.'

'˜He said the tablets were helping.'

'˜Tablets always help, chief. But he's still a wacko. You can't trust him. It will end in tears.'

'˜No it won't, Barry. Because I have no intention of following Dan down any tunnel.'

You don't, chief?'

'˜I don't, Barry. But the idea set me thinking. I've been going about all this in entirely the wrong way. Tunnels and feathered wings and squeezing through bars. Those are all obvious ways of escaping. What I should be doing is applying Rune's Law of Obviosity. I should be thinking of the least most obvious way of getting out of here.'

'˜Shouldn't that be the least most obvious, least most obvious way, chief, because the least most obvious way would be the most obvious way to choose, which would make it the most obvious way and-'

'˜Shut up, Barry.'

'˜Sorry, chief.'

'˜The least most obvious way of escaping would be simply to walk out of here in broad daylight.'

'˜I do foresee a problem or two there, chief.'

'˜Good.'

'˜Good, chief?'

'˜Good, Barry. Because the more problems there are, the more impossible the task becomes. And the more impossible it becomes, the more it proves itself to be the least most obvious way of getting out.'

'˜It's all so simple, once you explain it, chief.'

'˜Isn't it always?'

I walked back to my room. This I considered a very good start, as normally I would have been marched back to my room. But male nurse Cecil was busily engaged striking Dan with a truncheon and shouting something about a tunnel. So he didn't notice me as I strolled past.

I packed my suitcase, put on my street clothes, and stepped from my room into the corridor. An orderly wandered by, tripped, fell, struggled to his feet and continued his wanderings. I picked up the keys he'd dropped and unlocked the door that divided the Conspiracy Theorists' Correctional Facility from the rest of the hospital beyond.

Here I met a nurse who mistook me for a visitor. '˜Would you like me to call you a cab?' she asked. '˜Yes, please,' I told her.

'˜Well I'm not going to, because it's a really crap old joke.'

'˜Fair enough.'

'˜But I'll give you a lift if you want. I'm just going off my shift.'

I looked the nurse up and down. She was a very pretty nurse. Gorgeous blond hair, really sexy brown eyes, fabulous mouth, marvellous tits- '˜Do you mind?' asked the nurse.

'˜Sorry,' I said. '˜I was just thinking out loud.'