The Ill-mannered Door (humorous sci-fi)

14: Just Hanging 'Round

The dungeon, as it turned out, wasn't quite as bad as I had expected. Our cell wasn't rat-infested, and though it was a little dark given only one small window, a brightly colored coat of paint would have spruced the place up nicely. We were chained to the wall, however, which was a bit unpleasant, I had to admit.

"What are we going to do now, do you think?" I asked Derek, who hung a bit listlessly in his chains on the wall across from me.

"Do? Rot, mostly. Though, who knows, maybe we'll get a little taller once they put us on the rack, eh?"

"Surely they don't have a rack," I told him smugly, "this isn't medieval Europe, you know."

"Surely they do. I saw it when they were bringing us down here," he said with a sigh.

"Oh! I suppose we have Barry's wonderful choice of literacy materials to thank for that?" I asked.

"Oh, nooooo... I'm sure Barry would've thought things through very thoroughly before giving them books on torture devices. He couldn't possibly be as dumb as all that, eh? Nuclear theory sure, but certainly not the fine art of torture."

"Well, he can't just leave us in here, can he?" I said.

"Please... I doubt Barry even has a clue that we're in here. Probably taking a nap, clutching his rubber ducky right about now."

I didn't have the heart to admit that that was, most likely, exactly what the king was still doing at that moment.

"Oh, sweet Fanny Adams," I groaned.

"What?"

"I need to spend a penny."

"What? Got some change burning a hole in your pocket all of a sudden?" Derek asked, looking confused.

"No, I need to have a Jimmy!"

He looked even more confused, so I tried again, "Have a slash?"

"Look," he said with a look of revulsion on his face, "I don't know what kind of sick--"

"Alright, urinate?!" I shouted.

"Ohh, that, well go ahead then," he said, losing interest.

"I don't know if you've noticed," I said, rattling my chains for effect, "but my hands are currently chained above my head!"

"Oh, so what, just go, man. It's not like it really matters anymore. We're in a dungeon, and based on the smell," he said with a sniff and a furtive glance at one of the darker corners, "I doubt seriously it'll be the first time that's ever happened in here..."

"I most certainly will not, that's completely uncivilized!"

"Not like it matters much now," he said, "we'll all be fried like nice, crispy bacon tomorrow."

My stomach then began to gurgle, followed by a loud, squirting burble that moved slowly from one side of my belly to the other. Then the rumbling began. My stomach had been quiet for some time, despite missing lunch, but the mention of bacon had definitely captured its attention. It absolutely adored bacon, you see, and as I think I mentioned before, my stomach wasn't to be trifled with.

It was then that I began to shout desperately for the jailer.

"What are you doing?!" Derek cried incredulously, giving me a stare that implied I had completely lost my marbles.

"What does it look like?" I said, "I'm going to get out of here, find a loo, eat bacon until my stomach goes back to minding its own business, and then try to get back to a nice beach to spend my last moments, which is where I would still be if it wasn't for you and your numpty friends!"

"Numpty?! Look, you little, tea-swilling hoser," said Derek, "if I actually knew what numpty meant, and I wasn't currently chained to a wall, I'd come over there and--"

Bang!

The door to the cell had flown open and struck the wall to admit the snaggle-toothed grin of our stocky jailer. Well, and the rest of him too, which was presently rubbing its pudgy, little hands together in a rather maniacal fashion.

Now, you'd think he wouldn't have been smiling but, on our way into the dungeon earlier, I had quickly pegged him for a man who thoroughly enjoyed his work. As I looked at him, I then had the sudden, and thoroughly unsettling, realization that perhaps they only let him work the rack when prisoners were foolish enough to get out of line.

"Orait, which one a ya's first?" the jailer asked looking back and forth between us and slowly cracking his knuckles one by one.

Derek just stared a bit wide-eyed, and I was busy trying to quietly convince my tummy, rather unsuccessfully, to pipe down.

"Ah, fat lotta help y'are!" the jailer finally said, "Never was good at decidin'. I'll take both a ya then."