The debate was totally baffling me. I had barely regained conciousness after a mid-evening snooze and all that filled my ears were the shrill, cutting voices of The Treasurer and Belgian, gibbering inanely about the nature of ‘4′. 4 has always struck me as being a pretty shit number, and I was more than a little upset that I had fouled myself during my trip to Nap-town. I was later to tell the police that this was, probably, what pushed me over the edge that evil night. My only concern was to shut up the Treasurer, whose ‘4′ is like aggregates analogy was utterly gratuitous, beyond the point at which his personal liberty could retain intact. “The irreconcilability of the differend is a salient feature of post-modern discourse” I told him, while pushing an un-opened sack of Monster Munch into the Belgian’s mouth, thereby temporarily damming the inevitable torrent of invective that would issue forth like a sneaky GOD-DAMN BADGER poncing its way out of its fetid den under the cover of darkness.
I was angry and getting angrier. Why had these two irresponsible buffoons been avidly encouraging nocturnal behaviour in animals for the last 13 years? Who the hell were they to be appalled at the stains on my trousers given their own culpability for city-foxes?
I entered a Karate stance and quickly weighed up my options. Sure, I could fight, but what guarantee was there that I’d not be waking up tomorrow at 8pm, planning some kind of night-time trip through suburban trash-cans? These jackals were capable of anything, and my brain was throbbing, quite possibly due to my proximity to their telepathic communications as they keenly debated the status of my kidneys: which one they would sell to the black market and which one they would beat the goodness out of. “I will never become nocturnal” I yelled at them. Their faces immediately changed from the look of smug confusion with which they usually greet me to a disgusting mixture of shock and horror. God only knew what part of my brain they were planning to excavate.
Fearing that I was about to become as crap as an owl, I pulled out my Westphalian passport and supplicated myself beneath a passing glass collector. “For god's sake get the ambassador” I begged. “This is a matter of national security and personal integrity.” The Belgian rolled over like an overbearing and unwelcome Ferris Wheel and cunningly made the chap a counter offer of “should we take him home”. I knew at this point that ‘home’ for the Belgian was the stroke of midnight, and his sylvanian abode would be full of all of the animals he had managed to fuck up with his night-loving routine. As a member of the Westphalian commonwealth it was utterly beneath me to be eaten by carrion in the early hours.
For perhaps the only time in my life, I could see the intrinsic human dignity in The President’s gift of the shallow grave for his victims. God knows how the whole thing worked out. I lost conciousness again at this point and woke up the next day in an underpass. My spine was as black as a rotten banana with bruising and I had puncture marks on my kneecaps, but at least it was morning. Sensing that I had probably won, I sat up and waited for a commuter to pass by, that I might begin to tell him my wonderful tale.