Lions and a Living Lie

Quote:

"Above all, we must abolish hope in the heart of man. A calm despair, without angry convulsions, without reproaches to Heaven, is the essence of wisdom."

"Hold-ermph-STILL, Turner!"

The Eliminator was losing patience. Actually, the bloke seemed to have Patience already run off somewhere else.

Timmy fidgeted, scowling as the robot began the process of unwrapping his ankle. Watching him, Timmy felt the painful panging of his rapidly beating heart begin to increase haste.

His right ankle bone and become so badly fractured, there had been a bit of bone and sinew sticking out of the flesh.

The boy shuddered. He'd never seen it himself, and the Eliminator gave him daily doses of morphine to shield against pain-which the boy couldn't say he liked.

After all, a truckload of sugars, sucrose, lactose, saccharine and fructose, brimming with artificial coloring, hopefully added with some caffeine, did help the medicine go down.

In the most delightful way.

But the tastiest thing he'd had here as of late was fruit.

The stupid robot had brought truckloads of books alongside him after bringing Timmy to this wretched tower, and he took their advice.

When Timmy was actually hungry (Which did not happen much anymore, but the bot forced him to eat SOMETHING) there was gruel in the mornings.

Which Timmy figured, upon first meeting, looked rather like that of chewed up newspaper.

It tasted like pulpy newspaper too.

But it still tasted much better then Mom's sherbet surprise.

Mainly because, the surprise in the Sherbet could be found ONLY if you were still alive to marvel that you were so after eating it.

The boy's insides convulted.

Mom.

It hurt to think about her. Timmy bit his lip, praying the tears that only met his pillow at night wouldn't pop up now.

Back to his diet-lunch was usually an arrangement of grapes, cantaloupe, and watermelon.

Which would not be bad at all if you didn't have it for lunch past….how many times?

Timmy glanced at the small slashes that rested on the wall he had made on some of his more restless moments.

Dunno. He sort of lost track after eight.

Had long had he been here?

Hours?

Days?

Weeks?

Time had no meaning in this white chamber-when all there was to do was to usually end up staring at the white walls or ceiling until you got a terrible headache and you were forced into slumber, either to be rid of the restlessness or the fact that you usually received a morphine injection by the stupid robot.

That, or he decided to "Entertain" you with a story.

Here was last night's epic tale:

"Once upon a time, in a fictional land, in a fictional kingdom, there lived a fictional queen, in a story that was made up.

The kingdom had fictional chocolate trees growing everywhere, singing mice that handled all the chores, and there were fierce and fictional lions guarding against fictional enemies.

The Queen-whose name was Debbie-had a boyfriend in the neighboring province of Fictional. Because she was all high and mighty and fictional, they couldn't really see much of each other, but they did go out to movies, go out for dinner, and do other fictional things together.

Tony's birthday arrived, and Debbie had some fictional royal business to take care of, so she couldn't travel to see him.

So, she sent him a nice card with a myna bird in a shiny cage. Tony received his present, and called Debbie to complain.

"Debbie, this is Tony. I got the present you sent me and I don't like it at all."

"I'm sorry to hear that," commented Debbie, munching on a piece of chocolate she plucked from a nearby tree. "I picked it out especially for you. What would you like instead?"

"I think you should send me a bunch of really valuable diamonds," piped up Tony, who was as greedy as he was fictional.

"Diamonds? But they're so valuable-"

"I want Diamonds."

"-and if I send them to you in the mail, someone may steal them. Then-you'll have no gift at all."

"I want Diamonds," Tony whined.

The Queen sighed.

"I know what I'll do. I'll send over my lions with a few diamonds in their mouths. No one's going to dare attacking vicious lions."

"Hurry up," griped Tony. "It's supposed to be my special day."

The singing mice that did all the chores wrapped the diamonds in tofu-so the lions would agree to eat them. Then, they were directed across the kingdom to deliver the gift.

Tony spent the day meandering outside the house, eating all the ice cream and cake and teasing his poor bird. Then, he spotted the lions approaching on the horizon. Tony ran up to them.

"Give me those diamonds, you stupid lions!" Tony cried-and there is no need for me to finish this story because it has a rather obvious moral: Never look a gift lion in the mouth."

Even after the morphine injection, Timmy couldn't say he slept well. The painkiller always worked until the robot slipped him something else-he wasn't sure what-before sliding into sleep.