A System Like Clockwork

by JamesNewton

12 year old Alex DeLarge is just an average, abused boy in a dystopian future, until one day, fate intervenes. Hilarity ensues as a man, claiming to be Sweeney Todd, offers Alex a haircut and meat pie, but Alex has seen too many plays to let this would be blood barber butcher him! Fun for the whole family (note: this is not fun for any member of the family)

One day, a young Alex's father was drunk or something and child abuse happened. It's just incessantly boring to write backstory, you see. Anyway, crying, Alex ran to the local theater, and snuck in, as he had done so many times before, hoping to let himself escape in some simulated ultraviolence. There was a performance of his favorite play, at his favorite time (the time where he wasn't getting abused, to be exact). His favorite play was "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" as you probably were able to tell as it shares the namesake with this very story. He absolutely knew every bit of the play and would love to see every bit again and again. He relished the violence and he visualized the rape with such vigor, and directed the former but certainly not the latter at his father; however such a latter would be thought of again and again upon various persons of attraction to one such AlexDeLarge. However, after his viewing of the play, he felt an insurmountable urge to breakdance. Breakdancing, you see, here was considered a criminal act punishable by manslaughter, which would then be punished by another manslaughter and so on and so forth. It was strange for such an act to take place publicly, yet one self-proclaimed barber who he himself used the term loosely set his eyes upon the lad. Alex tensed, but only for a second, as he saw the eyes appeared to be kind, no kind wasn't the word, but familiar eyes of the man who owned the eyes.

"Aye, boy, what are you doing over near the square? The loud of whom is doing the break dancing raises my hair! Whose break dancing?"

"There was me, that is Alex."

"Ah, a wise little boy? What about a wise little pie for a wise little boy?"

"A pie? What has thou offered me, a pie? What kind of pie? A meat pie?"

"Sure as rain! You may say it again! You have all but a meat pie of mine to gain!"

"Aww hell naw! I bet cha will offer me a haircut too, you jive-ass turkey?"

"What is with your tone? The taste of my pies are well known! And the legitimacy of my haircuts will soon be shown!"

"And what might be your name be, cracka?"

"What is with the jive? My name is Sweeney Todd, who would like to inform you th-"

"Ahh, ok. No, you're going to murder me."