After this point, we need the story to move along
fairly swiftly from point A to point B and so forth. Or rather it needs to
travel from point C to point A, taking in the scenery at point B in both
directions, whilst also having a brief diversion to point F and all points in
between, but that kind of complication is precisely what we need some kind of
exposition to explain.
It’s also necessary because, in a manner almost
entirely unlike what the modern day version of Mr Snatch is about to
experience, I’ve had a rather lousy night’s sleep and I really couldn’t think
of anything else to focus on at this point. However, we are on a schedule, and tempus is doing what it
usually does, which is fugit-ing, and so, rather than greeting you with a blank
page instead of some blank prose this morning, this is what you’re going to
get.
To be fair, I’ve had this image in my mind for a while
now, so it’s just a good a point as any to explain it to you, my loyal and
long-suffering reader, even though I’m already troubled now that by building up
that “idea” (which isn’t really much of an idea) your disappointment is now
bound to exceed any excitement that it might have brought along with it.
Be warned. Innovative it is not. Derivative it might
very well be. An image, however, has formed in my mind and, at this juncture,
it’s as good an image as any to help drag our story along, and so, after as
much procrastination as I can muster with my limited reserves of energy, I
guess that we’ve simply got to get on and do this bit.
The advertisement didn’t pull any punches.
Mr Snatch had stormed into his private office after
all the guests had left and had been feeling very peculiar. He decided that the
churning in his stomach was the result of him having been rather agitated, but
the strange sounds and noises that he thought he saw and heard did make him
seriously wonder whether he was hallucinating.
He made a mental note to get on to the catering firm
the next morning and refuse to pay them for their salmonella-infested budget
buffet, before smiling a grim smile of satisfaction that at least some of his
guests would be feeling just as dodgy as he was about now and, with any luck,
they’d all be suffering right through to the new year and beyond.
Some of those sanctimonious old reprobates deserved a
lousy Christmas after their antics this evening, he decided, and he wasn’t
prepared to waste any sympathy upon them. After all, if he himself always had a
pretty dreadful time around this so-called “festive” season of the year, he
didn’t see why anyone else shouldn’t.
Clutching his stomach tentatively, he decided not to
risk getting caught short on the journey home and decided that he’d best sleep
in the office tonight, and a brief look out of the window at the thick fog
outside confirmed to him that he’d rather stay put than venture abroad that
night.
Just because he was feeling in a rather mean state of
mind, he made a swift call to his chauffeur telling him to remain on stand-by
for the remainder of the night, and then made a quick visit to his private
bathroom before setting his eye upon the relative comfort of one of the huge
leather sofas that bordered his office.
They were like familiar old friends to him as he’d
spent a considerable number of nights upon them whilst his solicitors and those
of the latest Mrs Snatch had waged their many battles for their share of his
fortune, and he’d kind of got used to sleeping there.
He went over to his desk to pull the spare sleeping
bag out of the bottom drawer where he kept it when he had spotted the
advertising flyer sitting right in the middle of the desk surface which he
usually kept immaculately clear.
His initial reaction was to remind himself to admonish
his personal assistant first thing for allowing such trash to get through to
him instead of being filed in the bin where it ought to have belonged, but then
he looked at it again, and he was sure that the images upon it were changing
and blurring and re-forming into something else, something that seemed to be
addressed to him personally.
He flipped it over to the reverse side and read the
message, which told him to turn it over and read the other side.
He flipped it back and yet another message appeared
which told him to turn it over again.
“That can’t be right!” thought Mr Snatch, but then he
recalled the holograms they’d used for the office Christmas party invitations
and once again marvelled at the diabolical ingenuity of all those engineers and
felt a slight pang when he realised what trite and pointless uses companies
like his all tended to put such work into.
Then he threw the card into the bin, switched out the
lights, and went to bed.
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