A Million Versions of Right (8 page)

Bernice was an apologetic romantic. She was always proclaiming the virtues of love, yet had never experienced it herself. The possibility of courtship was rendered impotent on account of two vaginally lodged irons, inserted as part of a failed government initiative. So, although the feeling of love was possible, the impossibility of sexual relations ensured that Bernice stymied the notion well before it had a chance to flower into something painful. The sad truth was that the closest thing to love she’d ever allowed herself to feel involved her tongue probing the depths of Mr Wilkens’ arse. Although she wouldn’t admit it out loud, the thought of Mr Wilkens not having his testicles instilled within her a vague hope that a relationship with him was possible, even if it
was
based on mutual genital mutilation. Because of this, Bernice supported the demonstration one-hundred percent. As an appendage, she bore no ill will toward the scrotum but as a romantic she believed that if there was a possibility of reciprocated love, it should be embraced by all means necessary. Anything for love.

She continued to prowl the corridors of Yandish Muff, confronting teacher after teacher, student after student but to no avail. The demonstration was mere hours away and Mr Wilkens was nowhere to be found.

* * * * *

Mr Wilkens’ bony fists pounded against the door for what felt like hours before it opened. Alice stood before him in a state of confusion, trying to retrieve his face from within her memory banks. Out of breath and bloody knuckled, Mr Wilkens fell to his knees and clutched at Alice’s leg, pleading to speak to Allen and Chip.

“They’re both resting,” she said with a suspicious glare.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand. They have something very important of mine. I must retrieve it as a matter of urgency”.

There was an unsual lilt contained within the intonation of his wretched sobbing that triggered something within Alice and, although she’d never met the man, she instantly knew it was Mr Wilkens. Furthermore, she knew exactly why he was here. She always knew her international directory of idiosyncratic intonation would come in handy.

“You’re here for your balls aren’t you?”

Mr Wilkens nodded desperately, letting go of Alice’s leg and pulling the front of his pants down with one pathetic hand, exposing his orphaned shaft.

“Just look at me!” he cried, “I’m an incomplete monster!”

This ignited a wave of anger in Alice, who couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that both her sons were now disfigured as a result of this stupid man.

“Who do you think you are, coming to
my
house and begging
my
sons for your balls back? Do you have any idea of the hell you’ve put my beautiful boys through?”

“What do you mean?” he asked with trepidation.

“They’re not very intelligent boys and you lump them with the responsibility of minding your sack? I’m sorry, Mr Wilkens, but you won’t be getting it back. Your scrotum is currently in use and I don’t foresee that use expiring anytime soon.”

Alice
’s arms were crossed tight as Mr Wilkens eyes widened in fright. He stammered for over an hour before the words began to swirl into sense.

“What do you mean they’re in use? What possible use could there be for such a thing? What have you done with my boys?”

“What have I done with
your
boys? What did you do to
mine
? Both my sons lost their scrotums, thanks to your fucking demonstration! As a result, the only fucking ballbag they have between them is yours! My husband and I did the only thing anyone who cares for their children would do. We split yours up and gave them half each.”

It was too much to bear. Tears leapt out of Mr Wilkens in thick, salty jets, triggering accelerated salinity throughout Alice’s prize-winning garden.

“You venomous bitch! You had no right!” he yelled through the increasing torrent of tears.

Throughout this encounter, Chip stood at his bedroom window, watching it all unfold like a poorly made origami crane. He ran his fingers over the new half-scrotum, wondering if it was all worth it. He glanced toward the bookcase, where the bricolage scrotum he’d created for Allen now sat. There was no way Mr Wilkens was getting Chip’s half of his balls back but if he was willing to accept it, he’d gladly gift the fake one. From the window it was apparent that Alice was winning the argument because Mr Wilkens was dusting himself off and readying to leave. Chip felt compelled to open the window and yell, “Mr Wilkens, take this!”

The bricolage scrotum flew through the air, relinquishing several grapes from within. Mr Wilkens made an effort to catch it but grossly over estimated the force of the throw and wound up backing through a window across the road. The bricolage scrotum landed several hundred feet short of this mark, right next to Alice, who picked it up and moved toward Mr Wilkens. He was quite badly cut up. She thrust the scrotum toward him.

“Just take this and leave.” Mr Wilkens struggled up and clutched at the bricolage scrotum.

“What do you expect me to do with this?” With a weary hand he brushed glass from his heavily punctured face. “It’s not even real.”

“It’s real enough for you, Mr Wilkens. Now I’d like to ask you to leave my family alone,” said Alice solemnly, not giving an inch of ground.

He massaged his temples, coughed up a few more dead moths and gave in. He feebly stuffed the bricolage scrotum down his slacks and began to limp home.
This thing doesn’t even look slightly real
, he thought to himself, utterly dejected and spent.

* * * * *

The children of Yandish Muff poured into the auditorium, taking their seats and chewing on strips of carpet. The resultant hubbub was understandable. Few children in the room knew what they were about to see. They’d only been told it was
important.
The weight of expectation, mixed with the rush of missing class, filled them with bowel releasing levels of nervous excitement. Several dozen children had already broken their feet after an impromptu game of ‘kick the wall’ broke out. It took the school nurse a good half hour to reinflate the pulped toes. When the children had grown weary of the carpet, they began chewing on each other in an impressive display of childhood savagery. Ears were torn off, skin stripped and in general, a right old mess was made. The school nurse rolled her eyes, hitched up her sleeves and began the thankless task of bodily reattachment.

Throughout the gory display, members of the tangential education board mingled with teachers in a V.I.P. area of sorts. They were all gloriously oblivious to the violent acts committed by their students. They snacked on crackers dipped in mashed gibbon and sipped from jam lids full of diluted bleach. All in all they possessed a general merriment bolstered by a sense of anticipation. The demonstration excited them like little else in recent memory.

“This Wilkens fellow better put on one hell of a display,” quipped a member of the board. “There’s a demonstration occurring at Bleeding Gash Primary today wherein students shall be taught the dangers of idle hands.”

“Oh yes, I read about that in Educational Esoterics  last week. They’ll be ripping into some delinquents, forcing the cads to repent or lose their hands in a bear trap. I’d wager quite strongly that repentance or not, these chaps will be losing their dirty masturbators.”

Teachers and members of the board swelled with dry, self-satisfied laughter, instinctively patting each other on the back without even noticing.

“Well if old Wilkens pulls this off, I dare say it will go down as an end of year highlight. He’ll be nosing a hefty bonus afterward, you just watch.”

The laughter continued for quite some time before a teacher raised a rather valid question.

“Speaking of Wilkens, where in the devil is he?”

They all looked about before shrugging their shoulders in ignorance.

“I dare say he’s backstage giving a last minute pep talk to the sorry nimrods who agreed to do this. I imagine he’ll be popping his head in to say hello afterward.”

They all nodded in robotic agreement before averting their attention to the empty stage, making sure to avoid looking at the students, nine of whom had already died from blood loss. The school nurse was now huddled in a far corner, nervously chain smoking. She was already contemplating the word ‘truck’.

A hush descended upon the auditorium, an unknown prompt signalling a beginning to the proceedings. All eyes were fixed upon the stage, where a lonely microphone stand resided. A slight movement of the stage curtain, unknowingly caused by a breeze, set the crowd off into a delirious applause in which many already wounded students broke their hands.

* * * * *

The sound of the rapturous applause sent the five Scroats at the back entrance into action. They flung themselves through the door and made their way toward the sound, firearms at the ready. Several immediate wrong turns resulted but were quickly forgotten when the light from the main hall came into view.

The Scroat leading the approach signalled toward the others in a series of unrehearsed hand gestures that were ignored after mass confusion set in. Their heavy footsteps caught the attention of the audience and several dove for safety underneath their chairs when the firearms were noticed. Without a second thought, all five Scroats began firing haphazardly in the direction of the lights, tearing them apart in a cacophony of bullets and broken glass. As the lights were struck, the glass showered upon the cowering students, shredding many apart in red flashes. The Scroats continued to pump round after round into the ceiling, weakening its structure significantly, before destroying it altogether. Large portions of ceiling fell to the ground, crushing the vast majority of the surviving students to death. The school nurse stood up abruptly in an instinctual display of concern but quickly decided on a hasty exit when she began to understand the extent of the damage.

The teachers and members of the board looked on in bemusement. They were cordoned off from the bedlam thanks to the position of their V.I.P area.
If this is part of Wilkens’ demonstration I’m quite impressed
, thought one,
It’s just a shame about the evident loss of life.

In a sudden burst of confusion, two large, Scroat-manned spotlights were wheeled in from the front entrance and directed toward the ravaged audience in blinding columns. This was followed by two Scroats on ropes falling from the stage ceiling. They fumbled about until they managed to secure a large white cloth made from several dozen sheets. It formed an impressively stark backdrop. Data projectors were immediately placed into position, filling the white backdrop with a strange presentation. There was a series of images, some containing prominent scrotums and some not. Each image containing a scrotum was branded with a large, green tick. Any image not containing a scrotum bore a red cross. These images were interspersed with blocks of bold text, which spoke of the propensity toward homosexuality experienced by eunuchs. Accompanying the text was a spurious statistic claiming that ninety percent of females desire a scrotum of their own. The remaining ten perecent were deemed Neo Nazi lesbians. The final love heart framed slide displayed a crudely drawn Esperanto flag shaking hands with  a scrotum. This was punctuated with an orchestra hit that signalled the arrival of Hedging from stage left.

Clutching at the microphone, sensing the importance of what he and his men were achieving, Hedging allowed himself a moment of reflection before diving headlong into his prepared diatribe.

“Children of Yandish Muff’s grade four class, I stand before you today in deliverance of a message. A message that flies sharply in the face of what you were brought here to hear. Each of you are at a stage in your life where you’ve probably been mercifully removed from the debate surrounding the scrotal sanctity. Can I have a show of hands in order for me to gauge those of you who have been afflicted with damaging parental prose?”

Hedging looked upon the gory slush of dead students, waiting for a response that showed no sign of arriving. Somewhat agitated, he continued.

“I choose to take your silence as a positive sign. My assumption is that you have never been taught to hate your scrotum. I am here to tell you that you were within a hair’s breath of having this grisly message hammered into your poor, little skulls. I represent a group affectionately known as the ‘Scroats’. It is our goal to ensure that the negative attitudes toward the scrotum are abolished. You were brought here today in order to be infected with these attitudes. The Scroats will not let this happen. We implore you to look upon your scrotum for what it is: a god given appendage that is instrumental in the role of procreation. Without the scrotum, none of you would be here. Your dastardly Mr Wilkens wouldn’t be here. Distinguished members of the tangential board wouldn’t be here. NOTHING would be here! If he is man enough, I call for Mr Wilkens to meet me on stage and accept his penance.”