The Devil's in the Retail

All it takes is one slip.

Gaps are to be avoided. Gaps are where important things fall. That’s why Mind The Gap resonates like a cattle prod to the temple. There are gaps everywhere and the devil uses details to his advantage and what is to his advantage is to our disadvantage. He’s pretty tricksy like that.

It was a buggered detail that led to Thruk struggling his way across a dessert. There was something utterly wrong about this from the get-go, but Thruk was not a thinker, he was a doer and so he trudged and splotched across the pink expanse of dessert knowing that this was what he must do. Why he must do it was beyond his pay grade. His one simple thought was that he’d probably know why he had had to traverse the dessert once he’d gotten to the other side.

“Good job it’s blancmange,” Thruk muttered to himself.

As desserts went, blancmange was one of the better ones when it came to walking on sweet foodstuff. This particular blancmange had set well and so Thruk wasn’t wading through it, he was walking atop it, albeit his legs were aching from the give in that surface and he was concerned that he may puncture the outer layer with a clumsy footfall and that would not end well.

A good way into Thruk’s nonsensical culinary journey he espied an object that was partially submerged in the blancmange. Thruk was thankful for this distraction as an unending expanse of blancmange soon enough loses its allure and becomes utterly depressing. What had not been helping Thruk’s mood was that although he liked the structural integrity of this dessert, blancmange was one of the few desserts he avoided. It was a consistency thing. Blancmange was claggy and claggy wasn’t something Thruk wanted going on in his mouth. He couldn’t understand anyone putting themselves through a claggy sensation no matter what tastes were being delivered to the palate during that traumatic episode.

The other problem with an infinite panorama of strawberry blancmange was that it was pink. Scientific studies have been performed on the colour pink. This is because pink is a naughty turncoat. A smiling assassin of a colour. Spend twenty minutes with pink and it soothes and lulls you and promises you more of the same. However, in the twenty first minute it whips off its mask and socks you a googly one to the back of the napper. 

Scientists were brought in to study this phenomena by insurance companies. The insurance companies insured buildings where pink had been deployed in supposed Calming Rooms. Everything started out well in these rooms. People with what was called anger management issues, which was to say angry people, were put in these rooms and the anger ebbed away in such a breezy and delightful way. Then the angry person seemed to remember that they were angry and in one fell swoop, they remembered all of the things they had ever been angry about. They got so angry that they had to take their anger out on the nearest thing and that just so happened to be the pink wall of the Calming Room. It turned out that the Calming Room wall was harder than an angry person’s head. There was a body of empirical evidence to bear this out, so the scientists didn’t have to study that.

Through the mist of his building anger, an anger that was seeking to blindside Thruk, but was unlikely to do much of anything other than annoy him, what with blancmange not being anywhere near as hard as the wall in a Calming Room, Thruk saw a large red object.

Thruk was glad of the red object. It gave him something to focus upon and walk towards and in so doing he largely ignored the dangerous and annoying pinkness of the blancmange. It did not escape Thruk that approaching the red object held other dangers. After all, it had breached the surface of the blancmange and so Thruk would have to take care around the surrounding areas of the object. He would do a thumbnail risk assessment as he closed in on the object and he would do his best not to think about what next. Despite that, what next began tapping on his shoulder and whispering sweet nothings in his ear. Beyond the object was an inescapably huge expanse of pinkness. Nothing but pink blancmange for as far as the eye could see.

“Bugger off!” Thruk said to the whispering what next. 

Talking to intangible manifestations of anxiety is very common in those who find themselves in a desert, let alone an unending dessert, so Thruk was in good company.

“I’ll walk backwards! So stuff that in yer pipe and smoke it!” added Thruk.

This was quite a good idea. In fact, it was an inspired and very good idea for Thruk. He didn’t have many ideas and most of the ideas he’d had in the past he’d rescued from the recycling centre in his mind. New ideas were too expensive for the likes of Thruk. But he wasn’t going to look this gift horse in the mouth, for that mouth was probably pink and he’d had his fill of pink.

From afar, Thruk had assumed the red object to be the very obvious object to be found in the midst not only of a blancmange, but upon a great many dessert dishes. The universal appeal of the red cherry was legend. Everyone expected red cherries to top their dessert. Red cherries were the crown of choice. Red cherries were so important that the lack of a red cherry could crush a soul in a thrice. Even the use of a half red cherry was a terrible disappointment, but to see the circular lipstick mark of a red cherry’s kiss on your dessert was to stumble upon the most horrendous of crime scenes. Only the worst of people would steal the cherry from atop a dessert. 

And so it was that Thruk experienced horrendous disappointment as his expectations of a red cherry in the midst of the blancmange were dashed upon the sharp grey rocks of despair. Closing in on his objective, the object revealed more and more of its true nature. At first, the circular element of the nature began to take shape and Thruk say that it was more of an oblong. Nearer still, he saw that it was flat and as he ascertained this flatness he began to think of it as a base. And if it were a base then the object had been upended in this dessert. 

Now Thruk could see that the colour of the object was more matt than a glace cherry would have been. Somehow this hurt a little more. That colour spoke of the material of the object and in speaking it uttered a language foreign to Thruk’s ears.

“That shouldn’t be there,” he stated simply.

This was an understatement. For starters, Thruk should not have been strolling through this pink dessert, but due to an administrative error deep in the bowels of the universe, here he was. Again. Yes, it wasn’t for the first time that Thruk had been placed in a sugary predicament. He didn’t like talking about the last time. The flashbacks were so gruesome that he was doubly incontinent. He had had to adapt to those flashbacks. No longer did he make ad hoc visits to the shops. He was a convert to online shopping for the most practical of reasons. Oddly, he had no concerns with regard to a flashback occurring whilst he was perambulating this expanse of blancmange, and if he were a thinker, Thruk would have wondered at that. There were many questions arising from the entirety of this situation, but those questions were for others. Thruk was content with doing what he must and moving on, hopefully as swiftly as was possible.

Thruk was right though, the object was out of place. This object brought more aspects of wrong to the situation and although Thruk was no deep thinker he was still curious and so he had to know more of the object. 

Despite its size, the object was not heavy. Thruk could tell this just by looking at it. He surveyed the blancmange ground around himself and then around the object and adjudged it safe to attempt the extraction and subsequent identification of the object. That way, he could cease thinking of it as the object and give it a more appropriate name. There was something desolate and soulless about the word object and Thruk was beginning to object to the use of that word.

Thruk grasped the plastic base, braced himself and with a glance toward his feet. He tugged for all he was worth. This he did several times, but to no avail. There was give and then the blancmange tugged back. 

“Bugger,” said Thruk.

Thruk liked the word bugger. Bugger was a word that had soul. Bugger was a versatile form of expression. Bugger was Thruk’s friend. The blancmange was not Thruk’s friend. The blancmange was a stubborn git of a dessert.

He circled his foe and considered the problem of extraction. Thruk was strong and he was sentient. His desired result was a foregone conclusion, all he had to do was apply himself to the task in hand.

Having circled, given forth of much stroking of his chin and then kicked the object for good measure, he returned to his original position, spat on his palms and then grasped the base as though he were going to strangle it into submission. 

Then he really put his back into it and pulled. None of the former tugging lark that led to frustrating yo-yoing. Thruk went at it with deadly intent and this time there was give. The trick, he knew, was not to stop even if it felt like he was winning. The blancmange would yield no ground. If Thruk were to do half a job the blancmange would suck the object right back down. So Thruk pulled and pulled with all his might. He pulled until the breath in him had given everything it had and was not asphyxiating him. He kept going even as his face went from its usual pale pink through every shade of red to an alarming hue of purple that would have been the envy of the best of blackcurrants.

PLOP!

Thruk lay there on the dessert floor and for a moment he was not there. He’d given everything and there was nothing left. Then he began to come back to himself and as he did he understood that he was laying on a vast expanse of blancmange and that he had managed to retrieve the object that had made his existence just a little more interesting than blancmange alone could have.

“Oh…” Thruk groaned.

His plaintive cry sounded dull in this dessert environment. Blancmange is the best sugary sound dampener in the known universe. And the unknown universe for that matter. His cry arose because as he lay there and recalled his venture he had a terrible sinking feeling and his sinking feeling was in direct response to the potential sinking feeling the object would have been subjected to as it was hurled into the air, cartwheeled end over end and then landed back into the blancmange.

Thruk wasn’t ready for that level of disappointment, so instead, he arose unsteadily on his feet, his muscles still trembling from his exertions and he kept his back firmly to the trajectory of the object. First he was going to peer into the ragged and unexpected hole in the blancmange. Thruk was no expert in blancmange, but he’d half expected the hole to close up. Like mud. Claggy mud that flopped and plopped any hole firmly shut. But that hadn’t happened and so there was a hole to peer down into and in that hole was a small chunk of Thruk’s hope, for Thruk had a mindful expectation that was in accord to the order of the universe as he knew it. After all, desserts such as this always had a sweet red glace cherry on top and so in that hole could well be the frivolous object of Thruk’s desire.

Thruk held his breath as he leant over the hole. His muscles did not thank him for this and the largest of the bunch decided it was time to take action on this point. 

“Ah!” cried Thruk as waves of pain assailed him. 

The cramp the muscle had garnered was impressive and was not for turning even as Thruk strutted like Jagger, hopped like kangaroo with a scalded foot and made noises like a very surprised and intrigued orangutan. He blindly went around and around in an ever increasing circle whilst the cramp gripped his butt and squeezed it in a vice. 

Let’s take a moment to pan back from Thruk’s song and dance. The dance is unlike anything witnessed throughout the history of this universe. That Thruk’s song of pain matches it is remarkable. But he is performing on a lake of pink. This is a dessert for the eyes, ears and the mind.

Bravo Thruk!

As one, the judges raise their scores and it’s 6.0, 6.0, 6.0, 6.0…

…is he going to achieve a clean sweep? A perfect score in his first ever outing in Dancing on Blancmange?

Come on!

It’s got to happen!

5.9.

Now that’s deflating. But there’s always one isn’t there?

As the agonising pain of the worst cramp pain ever subsided, the glut muscle having made its point very will indeed, Thruk ceased his amazing staccato dance and sang his last. In the daunting silence time itself held its breath and watched.

Thruk stood at the end of his arc of pain and he looked down. In the thrall of the cramp he had seen nothing. He had been transported to another world and that was the world of pain. Now he was back and he found that he was stood before the sprawled object. 

Thruk’s fears had been unfounded. The object had not re-entered the dessert surface. Fear is a fickle and often stupid fellow though, for Thruk’s fears had taken a left turn instead of a right and where they should have been was right here in the face of the object, which was to say Thruk’s face.

In this moment, the prospect of buried cherry treasure was all but gone, vanished in the strawberry tinted air. It was all Thruk could do to stare into the plastic version of his own face.

“That shouldn’t be there,” Thruk stated simply.

And it shouldn’t. A life sized version of Thruk, cast in red plastic in the midst of a planet sized desert of blancmange dessert. 

Thruk would have stood there like that. A living version of the plastic statue that he gazed down upon had it not been for the intervention of the finger of fate. Or in this case, the finger of a little boy in search of his red toy soldier. The bestest of all his toy soldiers because he was red and red was the very best of all the colours.

“There he is!” cried Billy. 

He plucked Thruk roughly from his bowl of blancmange and brought him level with his eyes so he could reacquaint himself with his favouritist of toys.

“Err!” said the boy, “you’re not Kurt the Killer!” And with that he lobbed poor Thruk over his shoulder.

“There he is!” the boy was giggling as he retrieved Kurt the Killer from his blancmange and licked him clean.

Thruk lay winded and forgotten on the kitchen floor. 

“What the…” he began to say as his senses came back to him, but then a gigantic paw landed on his chest pinning him and winding him all over again.

Oh not again, thought Thruk as he heard the blare of an animal’s voice above him.

MEOW!