Chapter 1: Implements of justice
Dashing local government clerk Gavin “Ace” Roberts was already half way through another day of doing very little at the tax payer’s expense. He completed his fifth sudoku puzzle of the day with a flourish of his mechanical pencil, before getting back to work on his semi-autobiographical horror novel “The Salamander Effect”. In which a sudden increase in the world population of Salamanders causes a global crisis and the eventual collapse of civilisation as we know it. The good thing about “The Salamander Effect” was that at first it appeared that the overproduction of Salamanders was the threat but the real threat was mans inability to tame his own destructive nature. The other good thing about “The Salamander Effect” was that it featured very graphic descriptions of people having their eyes eaten by packs of roving Salamanders.
“Tania opened her mouth to scream in horror but the sound was blocked by a particularly angry salamander crawling down her throat and biting down hard on her tonsils. Ordinarily this would have upset Tania quite a lot but she was too busy worrying about the Salamanders slowly pulling her eyes out to notice that her lungs were filling with blood. The last thing Tania saw was the inside of a Salamander’s gullet although she didn’t actually see it because it’s quite dark inside a Salamander’s gullet. Anyway the point is that it really hurt and there was blood, entrails and lizard jelly all over the place.”
Today Gavin was working on a chapter in which his hero, charismatic payroll administrator Alvin Robson, tries to stave off the boredom of post salamander-apocalypse society by writing a period romance novel entitled “The feelings of Lombard”. He was finding it quite hard going because he had never actually read any period romance novels and was trying to write passages based solely on a visit to Bronte country where he had eaten a very disappointing sandwich.
Even though he was typing Gavin chewed the end of the biro in order to aid his concentration and so as to look especially busy to his co-workers. It also satiated his oral fixation but he preferred not to think about that. While composing a particularly thrilling paragraph about the birth of a Salamander/Human hybrid Gavin managed to chew right through the top of the pen. The shock of having several delicious shards of plastic now exploring his mouth caused him to drop the pen and commence emergency choking procedures. i.e. inserting figures into mouth in order to remove the unwelcome “pen guests”. One particularly stubborn piece had lodged itself into the gap between his front teeth taking several minutes to work loose. Gavin made a mental note to write a scene in which a giant Salamander uses a man as a toothpick to dislodge the remains of his own children. Even if he couldn’t fit it into “The Salamander Effect” he would probably be able to use it in his planned sequel “2alamander : Requiem” in which two sentient salamanders make a perilous journey across a wasteland perused by brutish humans who have long since lost all reason.
For now thought Gavin set Salamander based matters aside. In order to maintain his illusion of efficiency he would have to secure himself a new biro. He attempted to mentally prepare himself for the arduous journey to the stationary cupboard by imagining all the fun times he would have with his new pen. Perhaps he would take down a phone message, use it to indicate particularly provocative words in a letter of complaint or even to doodle an amusing image of a man with small eyes and a very large mouth.
Taking one last lingering look at his desk Gavin rose up with a sigh and ambled up the office hoping that he would not be accosted by renowned office bore Melody Gargas and her tales of being swindled by foreigners. Thankfully she was taking a half day in order to spend time with her ugly children so Gavin made the journey relatively unscathed. There had been a tense few moments when a colleague tried to make eye contact with him but he was able to avoid becoming embroiled in a difficult situation by appearing to closely scrutinise the labels of some nearby folders.
Gavin flung open the cupboard doors with gay abandon and spent several minutes selecting a sufficiently juicy pen. Discarding the no name brands and attention seeking red and green biros Gavin settled on a handsome orange Bic. “A classic piece of design work.” He thought to himself as he claimed his prize. All in all Gavin was rather pleased with himself as he went to swing the cupboard door shut. It was only when he had closed the door nearly all the way that he noticed the folder marked “Cow files”….
Chapter 2: Wavering resistance
“Don’t you go near my private files!” shouted big boss Dan Clements as he flew across the office and put his hand over the file Gavin had just picked up. “But sir” Gavin protested “I just wondered what cow files are doing in this cupboard?” Dan bristled visibly at the mention of cow files. “Listen here you, these aren’t cow files. What would an office of government want with cow files!? This says car files UNDERSTAND?!”
Gavin was confused as the label had clearly said cow files and there had been a picture of a cow on the label which seemed an unusual thing to put on a car file. However he felt it best not to argue with the boss so he just nodded. Dan relaxed slightly “So let’s hear no more of this cow nonsense ok?” again Gavin nodded. Thinking that Gavin had forgotten all about cow files Dan began to make small talk asking Gavin how he was coping with his work and whether he had seen some sports events. Gavin tried to pay attention but he soon found himself wondering about the contents of the cow files.
Gavin spent the rest of the day waiting for Dan to leave the office so he could approach the intriguing file but as 4:00 rolled around it looked like Dan wasn’t going to leave his desk and curious though he was Gavin was not going to hang around the office after hours, after all he wasn’t some sort of simpleton. Never the less the issue of the cow files played on his mind all evening and he even had a strange dream in which a giant cow was trying to crack him on the side of a bowl like an egg. The worse thing about the dream was that apart from that the cow was quite polite sand kept apologizing saying things like “Sorry old chap it has to be done.” and “You know what they say cow today, gone tomorrow.” The cow’s name was Harry Papillion.
In the morning Gavin resolved to see the contents of those files, if their was cow business he wanted to know and he even had a plan…
Chapter 3: The milk void
“Hello Dan Clements here, what do you mean my house has burnt down!? I’ll be on my way even though it means I will be out of the office for at least half an hour!”
Smiling to himself Gavin hung up the phone. His plan to impersonate a fireman had worked perfectly and now all he had to do was saunter from the phone box across the street into the office and feast his eyes on the coveted cowformation. As he approached the cupboard Gavin began to have second thoughts. Perhaps Dan was right and there were things about cows that men were just not meant to know. “Dan always does look a little on edge” thought Gavin “Maybe these cow files are just too much for a person to bear. As the saying goes ‘let’s sleeping cows alone’” But curiosity is a powerful master and in spite of himself Gavin began to open the cow files, what they contained was so unbelievable he could barely make sense of it. Picture after picture of cows….and they were all wearing hats! What did this have to do with local governance? Gavin resolved to confront Dan head on as it seemed that instead of managing the section he was involved in some sort of bovine novelty headgear scandal. He thought it would probably be best to give it a week or two though because his impression of a fireman hadn’t been that good and he had set a load of fireworks off in Dan’s shed to try and make the story convincing.
Before returning the cow files he took some photo’s of the data with his generic brand smartphone just in case he had to bring this information to employment tribunal. He imagined he might start such a procedure by shouting “Where’s the beef!” at the tribunal panel and then throwing the cow images into their stunned faces. Would this be a good move? Only time would tell.
That night Gavin had a dream where he was trying to mow a lawn but the lawn was actually the face of a giant cow. The cow had insisted he mow the lawn but then kept shouting demoralising slogans such as “Hurry up pegleg” and “Milk off!” The cow’s name was Luke Sinclair.
to be continued...
