Short Story for December 2002

AIN'T IT NICE

By
Ali Pig

I can't believe this is happening. I mean, I thought I was going to make things so much better. For everyone. In the world. The great invention, the breakthrough they'd all been waiting for. I suppose I should have known better. One minute I'm going to be the most famous man in the world, the next thing I know I'm sitting here in this chair, tied to it, a gag on my mouth and waiting for the next beating. I've been here for what?, it seems like days but it could be hours. I'm losing track of time. They took me on Wednesday, I know that much because I was watching Coronation Street. I didn't hear them get in, I only knew they were there when it was too late. But I should have been expecting it.

They'd been watching me for weeks. But, in fairness to myself, I've only realised that since they caught me. When it was going on at the time I just thought it was coincidence. I mean, I even thought I was getting a bit paranoid. I suppose I just refused to accept that I was on very dodgy ground. The first time I noticed them was when I was coming home from the Uni. I'd finished up in the research lab at 10 o'clock, same as I always do and was about to get into the car when something caught my eye. It was only there for a moment and then it was gone. A movement in the bushes. Definitely not the wind because there was no wind that night. It was one of those humid, clammy, so close you could almost touch it kind of nights so it wasn't the wind. And anyway, the way the bushes moved I knew there was someone in there. But, like the fool I am, what did I put it down to? The wind, of course. Then, the next day, when I was getting ready for work I opened the bedroom curtains and one of them was there. Right there in the street. Looking up at me. No sooner had I made eye contact than he was off. Walking down the street until he disappeared round the corner. And even then I just put it down to chance - My opening the curtains caught the eye of a passer-by who couldn't help but stop to look and then carry on. Then there was the day when the phone kept ringing in the lab and every time I answered there was no-one there. I put that down to the phone system playing up. Then the Emails started to arrive. Telling me to drop it if I cared about my legs and stop the research if you want to see twenty-five, that kind if thing. All anonymous of course. But I just put that down to the guys being silly. I should have realised then that it was for real because only Prof Henry and myself were working on this. No-one else knew about it. Or so we thought! Things took a turn for the worst when the Prof failed to show up for work one day.

The police said it was a tragic accident. A terrible combination of unlikely circumstance and extreme bad luck. The Prof just happened to be on his hands and knees trying to retrieve his car keys from the drain he'd apparently dropped them down just at the moment when the man carrying the sports bag filled with those iron balls that shot-putters throw came walking across the road, which was just at the moment when the young kid on the motor scooter came flying round the corner causing the man with the bag to jump out of the way and crack the Prof on the head with the bag which knocked the Prof into the middle of the road just as the steamroller came by. What a shame, he was such a nice man! Still it never occurred to me that I might be in any danger so I carried on with the project. It was so close to completion. A couple of tweaks here and there and it would be ready. The greatest leap forward in technology since the discovery of electricity. I worked for six solid days in the lab, ordering pizzas and sleeping on the floor, so determined was I to get the job done. Even when the pizza boy turned out to be a man in sunglasses and a dark suit who insisted on delivering the pizza to the table where my computer sat and then pretended to be adjusting his tie pin when, as I know now, he was taking photos on a secret camera - I never got wise. I suppose I was just too engrossed in my work.

Then it happened. The work was complete. I'd fine tuned it and refined it and ironed out all the niggly little glitches and it was done. And it worked. And it was perfect. So I poured a large brandy to congratulate myself. It went down well so I had another and soon I was drinking out of the bottle and leaping round the lab like a lunatic, punching the air and trying to give myself high fives. Unfortunately I slipped on a pizza box and dropped the bottle of brandy which smashed onto the floor. In my drunken attempt to clean it up I fell into the bloody computer which, as it hit the floor caused a tiny spark which lit the brandy which caught fire and set light to the computer which blew up destroying the designs which, if followed, would build you the greatest invention the world has ever seen. Still, I had it all in my head. All I had to do was write it all down again and everything would be alright.

So I went home to rest my bruised arse and head and was sitting watching Coronation Street when suddenly all the lights went out, my head received a mighty thump and I woke up sitting here in this chair, tied to it, a gag on my mouth and waiting for the next beating. They've been beating me on and off for quite a while now but I'll never tell them what they want to know. Not because I'm brave or anything like that. Oh no. You see, when they knocked me out it must have done something to my brain. Given me some mild form of amnesia or something. I know I've invented the first ever engine that runs on water and performs like a Ferrari but for the life of me I can't remember how. They keep telling me to tell them the truth, but the truth is, I just can't remember. They say they can't possibly allow such an engine to be made, because they're oil men and there's too much money at stake. They say that if I tell them how it works they'll build it themselves and get all the patents and so protect their livelihoods and they'll even cut me into the deal, make me a multi-millionaire but I just can't remember how I did it.
Ain't it nice!