Chapter 1, It's all a bit hazy
I am currently trying to contemplate the finer points of just how one escapes from a dungeon like cell armed with only a wooden spoon, a fur covered lump of (what I can only assume to be) bread and a tin cup of murky brown water. I can confirm that the guard has definite limitations within his mental capacity. The clouded water could fact be a very special soup. Upon tasting it however I can only conclude that he feels sorry for me and has ground some dirt into the water in hopes of adding to its nutritional value or . . . to. . . help appease hunger. Perhaps I am meant to soak the bread in the water the result being the bread becomes moist and does not absorb the earth. In any case it still leaves me in my present situation with a wooden spoon and no way of getting out.
If I were James Bond this would not be an issue. Without a doubt I would have bedded a young beauty by now, who was somehow associated to the evil master mind that had captured me. Other such fictional heroes of a similar stature like Superman or Spiderman would not have had this problem either. Even if they had been incapacitated their powers would have returned sooner or later. It is so unfair. I realise that I should be very afraid being completely unaware of where I am and how I got here but to be honest I find myself enraged that no one in this positively medieval place understands English, a universally spoken language my arse! I do not even know what time zone I have the pleasure of being in, due to my phone having gone haywire as soon as I tumbled out of the pub, the Elizabethan – but everyone calls it the Liz.
It is a cosy country pub with good beer at a really great price, probably the best pub in the village despite its bizarre reputation for shall we say unscrupulous characters and its tendency to welcome and allow slightly scary patrons to enter its doors. I suspect this may be due to the themed parties they host once a month. These themes range from the wild yet wonderful (which may have featured a wet T-Shirt contest or two, with the appearance of foam) to the just plain weird (as the name of the pub suggests, Elizabethan, where everyone had to speak in old English, which becomes seriously confusing when your drunk).
So the last time that I was in a familiar country it was 'Lord of the Rings' themed, but having no idea what that was I just dressed understated sexy, with a dash of rock chic and an overall effect of elegance. This naturally meant my petrol blue body form knee length dress with spaghetti straps, accompanied by my worn black leather jacket and black leather biker boots to match, little did I know the shock that lay waiting for my entering the Liz.
It was phenomenal the variety of deformed creatures I was then presented with, I could only assume my friends had morphed into them. It was later explained to me that The Lord of the Rings was in fact a trilogy of fantasy books, featuring each of these questionable characters. I grasped the concept of elves and wizards, after all what fantasy book does not include wizards and elves, but then there were `hobbets` and really ugly greyish creatures called `orekes`, why anyone would dress that way I have no idea. Subsequently I was introduced to even more monsters whose species names I could not recall even if I wanted to, owing to possible intoxication, both mine and others.
Over to one corner there were also a group of nine or ten blokes each dressed in black cloaks, I kept wondering if they were going to start lopping people's heads off with long curved blades. . . . . .they didn't. However they did turn out to be the most amazing dance troop, of sorts. Let's just say nine blokes doing the Macarena is not something you easily forget, let alone the fact that it soon became the Full Monty.
As the night began to wind down someone had the courtesy to light up a cigarette and having just quit, a week and a half ago, if I am within a mile radius of one I quite naturally want to smoke a pack or five, so I decided to take my leave. I moved towards the door in hopes of avoiding the more than friendly looks I was receiving from the brigade of blokes in black cloaks. Just as I thought I was home free I found myself surrounded by at least four of the brigade. It must have been their sudden proximity that caused me to trip or stumble, all I remember is becoming aware of being air born and moving head first towards the exit. At the exact moment that my head was due to collide with the door it was pulled open and I was thrown into blazing sunlight.
In complete astonishment of blinding brightness I attempted to stand up as my eyes tried to recover from the shock of such fresh air, rather than the smoky, drink and possibly sick infested waft that engulfs the Liz. I fumbled around in my blindness and steadied myself on what thought was a table leg; I soon found out that this particular table had arms and broad shoulders to boot. He was quite the vision of a Greek God, kitted out in full armour excluding - the helmet. All the while he had that `been in the wars` look down! It was incredible the amount of detail people put into their costumes, I began to ponder whether this was some sort of convention or something. I mean what straight guy pays that much attention to detail for a themed party.
He had shoulder length, slightly tatty hair but he still managed to pull off the rugged look with a stubble ridden well defined jaw. I had no doubt his eyes would feature that smouldering, sexy intensity to match that jaw. If only it did not already display utter shock and dismay at my clearly bizarre behaviour; not only using him as some kind of disabled persons support bar but also gripping his arms while starring him down and attempting to assess whether or not he really was wearing a wig. As you can tell I really am good at making new friends. After that little epiphany I released my death grip on him and began apologising profusely, to which I received an even more bewildered expression. It was not that surprising, considering I twittered on so much I just so happened to briefly include the ever so interesting subject of how one deals with the need to fart in public - especially when knowing it is not going to be exactly quiet. Again I was only strengthening my new friendship in a way only I knew how.
Grimacing I withdrew from the intensity of his gaze and stumbled back only to be faced with the reality of just how much effort the Liz had put into this particular theme. Taking in the full extent of the building it looked completely different, I was left befuddled. I was sure the Liz was plain red brick the night before, I had to put this down to my dizziness, they must have had a paint job and I just had not noticed. It had to have been the wildest party to date, even the sign was absent, I must have drunk more than I thought because I could not remember it being all that raucous. At the time I had thought it was clear I was suffering from sleep deprivation, I could hear my bed call to me. In order to fulfil that command I spun around only to be faced with a blockade of people. Every individual was decked out in medieval attire and armed with wild flowers, there was a palpable atmosphere of eagerness and expectation. Was this some kind of national holiday that everyone had somehow neglected to inform me about, believe me it had happened before - but this time there had not even been any flyers or pamphlets, I was sure.
All at once everyone began to cheer and throw their bouquets down. One guy was so enthusiastic in his cheering he began to froth at the mouth and proceeded to fall on the ground, stand up and repeat the process twice before calming down.
As the crowds had formed on either side of the lane it created a wide channel in the middle, in which a parade of horses and their riders slowly moved up through the herds of enthusiasts. Oh joy, a pony parade, worshipping horses in such a manner was just wrong! - of course if it is done in any other fashion it is fine?
Those in the procession were so graceful in their movements they almost seemed to glide. I did not understand it, was the whole village going insane even these riders were dressed up for this `Lords of the Rings` day. Each of them were wearing flowing gowns, even the blokes though I suppose they are called `robes` in that case, a bunch of girls in my opinion. They all appeared to be somewhat ethereal, such good looking people did not exist in our town nor such tall people, I had to conclude that they were hired for the parade. In fact, looking about myself I did not recognise a single face, even within the throng of people, which was a tad bit worrying and somewhat surprising. Our village was not that big, roughly about 1500 - 2500 people in all.
The mass of people was so thick and impossible to get past I began wondering if I would ever reach my bed, my beautiful bed with clean sheets and a shower, obviously not in my bed that would be ridiculous because I would soon get cold, unless there was some way to keep the water warm at all times? I pulled out my phone to check the time and instead of showing the time, date and Network Company it featured some really odd scrawling. I knew I should not have taken a contract out with Tesco mobile. I really did not think about it, their coverage is appalling, although right now I had five bars going strong. Now this was unusual, ever since getting this phone had I ever had such great quality coverage, it was normally three bars at a push. It finally sunk in, I was not in Keymer anymore, either that or I was going insane.