It’s a dark night. You’re walking home from the pub on your own. There’s that quiet part of the city you’ve got to get through before it’s nothing but rape-deterring busy, well-lit roads the rest of the way. Just six minutes of potential danger. That’s it. Be on guard and you’ll be fine. Heavy footsteps some distance behind. Shit. You accelerate. Is that music you can hear too? Footsteps and music. Specifically crappy, soulless, insipid music. Don’t panic. But you’re already at maximum leg-speed. Now you can hear two pairs of feet backed by an embarrassing Enrique Iglasias soundtrack. There’s nobody else anywhere. They can’t be more than ten metres behind now. You’d better start running. NO! Calm it down. Stop being irrational. Pretend to tie your shoe and let them pass. They’re about to be on top of you so you look back. They’ve got fucking balaclavas on, and it’s actually Chico blaring out of their shoulder-mounted, 80‘s-style boombox. Possibly the worst soundtrack to any sexual assault ever. They shove you against the wall and put a knife to your throat. Suddenly it’s me in this situation, so all references to you are gone forever. In hushed tones they argue, presumably over whose going first and whether I‘m worth suiting up over or not. Oddly their voices are familiar, but in an early ’90’s TV kind of way. Anyway, just get on with it you bastards. “Do what you gotta do. I need to get home in time for Louis Theroux. This week he’s meeting sex offending criminals.”
“Can’t you just BBC IPlayer it later?” Clearly the irony was lost on them.
“Actually yeah. Thanks. Any chance you could turn that music off, ‘cos as much as it might attract the attention of a passing good Samaritan, I‘d rather not be getting defiled to the lyrics ‘You can‘t do nothing wrong, In front of the mirror like there‘s a party going on.’ Seriously.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Hmmm interesting, he’s got an Aussie accent. Should I ask him what part he’s from?
“You know, I lived in Melbourne for six months.”
“Charming. Now pull your goddamn pants down.” The other one’s got a pronounced lisp. He’s definitely the lipstick. Wow, if they don’t kill me I‘ll be awesome in the police interview. Chico fades out to be replaced by Luther Vandross in a xylophonically-heavy number. It’ll all be over soon.
“What’s your name, boy?” Really? Rapists wanting to know the names of their victims? That’s dark. Give them a fake one. That’ll teach ‘em.
“Errrr, And.. Andrea.” Real smooth. [internal argument] Yeah, because I’m very concerned about how cool I sound in front of guys who want to non-consensually nudge my fudge.
“Well Andrea, guess what?” This guy’s starting to sound more DJ than night-buggerer.
“What?” Where’s this possibly going?
“You’ve just won a copy of every single we’ve played this evening on HEART FM!”
“That’s right, you’ve been pursued by Jason Donovan and me Toby Anstis on your way home tonight for The Midnight Lurking here, live on Heart 102.4 FM! You really gave it some Heart, congratulations!” They pull off their balaclavas to reveal their tired, once-popular-but-now-strictly-radio-only faces.
“Was the knife and the pants-down, and the heavy sexual overtones really necessary?”
“Of course! Or it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as thrilling for you, our listeners and most importantly - us, would it?”
I guess he had a point.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment