The Story So Far...

I love the idea of being tagged for memes – it appeases the high-school child inside me who will forever be hypersensitive to rejection and neglect – but when it comes time to list the last eight meals I’ve eaten or the literary character I identify most closely with or ten life forms I was in previous lives, I always realise how uninteresting I am and my enthusiasm for meme-ing becomes only slightly greater than that aroused by the prospect of a colonoscopy administered by a drunken Eastern Bloc ‘doktor’.

It was therefore with some delight that I found myself asked to participate in a meme with a difference, a story virus. A story virus is like the game we used to play on school camps where everyone takes turns making up part of a story, except that where the school camp story would continue along one line until the teachers sighed with relief and told us that the story was over and it was time for bed, a story virus mutates after contact with each different person, until after just a few transmissions each strain bears little resemblance to the others. In other words, the originator (Splotchy) tagged several people to continue his story. They then tagged other people to continue their diverging story lines, and so on. For a complete explanation by Splotchy, click here.

Of the Splotchy-p0nk-Lonie Polony strain of the virus, here is the story so far:

I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words. [by Splotchy]

"Interesting," I thought to myself, "I don't know anybody named Ted Kaczynski. Unless it's going to clear this damn sinus infection in my head, I'll have to open it later.” I set it on the kitchen table, and prepared my tincture of herbal tea remedies. [by p0nk]

“You know,” said Jasper, as I eased gratefully into a chair, “it would probably help if you put your glasses on. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

I grimaced, both at the bitterness of the tea and the tactless reminder of my decrepitude.

“What ever would I do without you, Jasper?” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm as I donned my half-moon spectacles and pulled the envelope to me. “Dance naked and whoop for joy, probably.”

Jasper rolled his eyes but said nothing.

The blood drained from my face as I felt the last tenuous thread of what had hitherto been my reality, snap. I had woken that morning with the body of an 80 year-old man. My black Labrador Jasper was speaking in human tongue. And the envelope read:

Fred’s Emergency kit. To be opened in cases of strange, abnormal or infernal events. Guard the contents with your life!

This was something even last night’s absinthe party couldn’t explain.

Anyone who would like to contract the story virus is welcome, but I’m specifically tagging Mutley, Angela, Littlesnoring and Hungry Hungry Hypocrite.

Please humour me, people – think of my inner high-school child!