It has been a spring of discontent as more of my loyal
kinsmen succumb to scrutiny at the scalpels of the vile media. My power has never been as solidified as it
is now, my profile never higher, and yet paradoxically I have never felt so ill
at ease. Already within the party there
are veiled references, jokes tinged with just a shade too much sarcasm, and
those sideways glances over the rims of pint glasses that are meant to go
unnoticed yet are anything but. (Or
maybe they aren’t meant to go unnoticed...) I have fought long and hard but still I know my
kingdom of UKIP may soon be about to crumble back into obscurity after being
hoisted up and teased by the mainstream.
I am running away, I’ve had to flee my family, I am being
pursued by a disgraceful carnival of delinquents. I am the wily yet quickly tiring fox being
run to ground by a pack of hounds dressed as flamboyant homosexuals,
breastfeeding mothers and migrant workers.
No matter how hard I run, still they remain in pursuit, tooting their
horns, waving their placards, shouting their obscene slogans. Where are my cohorts, I begin to ask
myself? Why have they deserted me in my
time of desperate need? Where is Paul
Nuttall?! Where is Godfrey Bloom?! Where are the others that I cannot for the
life of me remember the names of, just a menagerie of braying and burping manikins
with purple-and-yellow rosettes for faces.
(Maybe none of them ever existed in the first place.)
At last, when I feel like the lactic liquor will intoxicate
me at last, I spy a generic gastropub The King’s Horse and stagger up to the
front door. Inside, the aroma of stale
beer and hot food is so revitalising that I am able to compose myself rather
quickly, straighten my dishevelled tweed jacket, fix a pneumatic smile and
approach the bar. Already the sounds of
the braying masses begin to fade under the sounds of a fruit machine and
general banter.
“A pint! A pint! My kingdom for a pint!” I declare.
“Sorry Nige”, says the barkeep, “just called last
orders. Licensing laws and all that, bloody
red tape from Brussels.”
“Damn and blast!”, I profane, storming towards the exit and
into the beer garden, where smokers suck in their cheeks and wedge empty crisp
packets into the cracks of wooden tables.
I am at my wits end, the sound of the revelling scum is mounting, and I
stagger into the car park gazing frantically around for any sign of a reprieve.
Suddenly, a man in period costume approaches me from a
nearby car. At first I think he is
taking the opportunity to grab a selfie and I get ready to politely decline,
but then I see the gleaming dagger held in his firm grip. He reaches me and announces that he is a
member of the Romanian Shakespeare Theatre Company, before puncturing my guts
with the blade. And so I sink to my
knees, the hard concrete of the pub car park greeting me like a warm bed of
endless sleep.
And then I wake up....
(Author note: This was inspired in part by the strange and fascinating parallel between Shakespeare's 'Richard III' and President Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was a huge admirer of the Bard's work, and was compared to his eponymous anti-hero during his administration. The bittersweet irony is exemplified by the fact that Lincoln was assassinated in a theatre by John Wilkes Booth - a Shakespearean actor.)
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