Monday, August the 2nd, 2004

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Suzanne Takes You Down

To her place near the river. She feeds you tea and oranges. It would be more accurate to say that she force-feeds you the oranges, given that you have only just eaten and have already told her that you have stomach cramps. Suzanne is feeding you oranges when what you asked her for was Dr Boswell's Elixir, promoted in television adverts as the most effective indigestion remedy of the 21st century. Although you suspect strongly that Dr Boswell is a fictional character rather than a real doctor, his white-coated, bespectacled, avuncular figure with that reassuring blend of piercing intelligence and a kindly bedside manner a little too good to be true, you still want to take a draught of his elixir, and all you get is a mug of tea and a bowl of oranges, which Suzanne starts ramming into your mouth without even peeling them first. Clearly she is trying to choke you. What can you do? Her place near the river is far away from any other buildings, and no one is going to come and help you, even if you manage to spit out the oranges and scream your head off. Before you lose consciousness, you reflect ruefully—if it is possible to be rueful while panic-stricken—that you had absolutely no idea Suzanne was a homicidal maniac on the loose, whose modus operandi is the infliction of death by fruit. You can hear the boats go by, but that is not much solace now, for in about five minutes time your body will end up in the cellar of Suzanne's place near the river, lying alongside the corpse of a man who was beaten to death with a kumquat.