Thursday 4th August

Conversation date 20661121

-[So my friend we meet again.  Hello Janek.]-

Yes, as you can see I am using the biro and pad.  So, hello William.

-[We managed to get some of your old yellow pads you used to use crunching numbers for us. We always wondered why you relied on them; they are such antiquated tech.  But it seems to work, your writing is still pretty neat, and completely legible.]-

This seems easier, quicker at least than using any form of keyboard.  And natural, I can’t tell you why.  Amazingly, even though I am still trying to re-learn voice-speech, it seems as if my hand can still remember how to write.  Hardly anyone bothers to write now, but I can still ‘remember’ how to.  How strange is that?

-[Remarkable.  But in every way you have proved to be remarkable.  I cannot begin to tell you how valuable your contribution has been.]-

Contribution?  Funny, it doesn’t seem that way to me.  If you remember, dear William, there really was no choice.  I was hardly a volunteer.

-[Well, I am not proud of the thinly veiled threat I made.  The truth is that we were never going to euthenase you.  There were those who wanted you ‘clagged’, for a while at least, to teach you some sort of lesson.  But I think you had suffered enough, besides you were far too valuable to us.  Your whole running away, your failed attempt at freedom, was the very vehicle we needed to co-erce you into the ‘select’ programme.  Your skills, your remarkable ability had long ago been noticed.  We had you on our radar already.  But we also knew that you weren’t ready.  You were simply not the sort of chap to volunteer without at least some persuasion.  But after your little escapades we, I, felt you may be ready.]-

Ready?  That’s a strange way of putting it, isn’t it? I was only ready because I was totally defeated.  At the very end of any resistance I might once have put up.  Fucked, is the word for it.  And literally fucked too, by the way.  Has anything been done about that bastard Skinner and his super-priviliged chums, or are they still buggering any poor idiot who wanders into their compound?

-[There are some decisions taken by the government, the powers that be, that are not always completely understandable.  I share your horror, your indignation; your sense of betrayal.  I would like to say that I share your pain, but that might sound fatuous.]-

Yeah, well.  I suppose at the moment that episode pales into insignificance compared to my present state.  Who would have thought I would ever be so helpless.  I think I am making some sort of progress, but it is slow.  Painfully slow.  I can, as you can see control my right hand, though I still fall flat on my face when I try to walk.  Or is that a metaphor for my whole life?  Also can I beg you to try some other form of pain-killer for this bloody headache?  It is so constant, that I cannot think over it.  It is like a block, a huge lump of rock, a slab of concrete right in the middle of my brain, and it is stopping me from thinking straight. 

-[Of course, we too are concerned that you are suffering.  You said you thought you could detect some progress.  Can you possibly elucidate?  Apart from using your hand how are you feeling?  In yourself, you know.]-

Elucidate?  That’s an old-fashioned word William.  If only.  Elucidation seems a long way away.  The progress is that I do not feel quite so tired.  I still like to sleep, to drift off recalling scenes from my babyhood.  But I am not so tired, not so weary.  In many ways the world I inhabit now is similar to babyhood, that most delightful and most forgotten of states.  I have people to feed me, to clean me, to wake me, to adjust the temperature when I am cold, to change my nappy even (diaper the Yanks call it, but actually guys it is a nappy. I assume that we are still in England, so please use the language we bothered to invent).  Strangely I don’t feel ashamed of this at all; being pretty helpless I mean – though I do have to turn my face away when one of the female assistants lifts my flaccid cock by the foreskin, and with rubber gloves over her pretty little fingers wipes the shit off my balls.  After all my condition is hardly my own fault.  And I do sort of know when I am going to pee or shit, I just cannot get myself to the toilet on my own.  You couldn’t just give me some buzzer, I suppose.

  -[Of course, how thoughtless of us.  A buzzer, why on earth didn’t we think of that?  Relying may be too much on the Hypercom’s analysis of your condition to notice the obvious.  It will be sorted straight away.  How about all this sleep, Janek?  This is worrying us.  It was never anticipated.  Can you tell me something about why you think you need so much sleep?}-

I just do William.  I am only happy when I am asleep.  Waves of contentment flood over me as I drift off.  At times I feel as if I am on a Lilo, basking in the sun and I just want the current to carry me away.  Far from shore, in fact so far out that there is no way back; that’s what I want.