The Drone’s Lament (Stuck in the Middle).

So finally, after all these decades, the WHO have noticed that breathing massive amounts of diesel fumes might not be good for us. Naturally they spent a lot of our money to find out what the rest of us already knew.

Is that why they forced smokers outside? To kill us off faster? If you visit Aberdeen, seek out Ma Cameron’s pub. Their smoking area is on the roof and it’s very nice too. Away from the main roads, not far away but far enough that the noise and stench of traffic are both muted. Pity it’s too far for frequent visits and the buses stop before the pub closes, or I’d make it my regular haunt. Then again it does involve stairs which can get a bit dodgy later on. Good stout handrail though.

Now it seems that Studies have Shown that the closer you stand to the source of the fumes, the more concentrated the fumes are. Cost a lot of money to find that out. I can hear real-scientist heads hitting desks at a rate that could register on the Richter scale.

So if you stand beside the road you inhale more bus-poo than if you stand away from the road… but that’s where the smokers are! Because that is where the Health Loonies put us. We are not stupid, as the antis claim. We do not stand next to the belching trucks while smoking. That stuff is bad for you. We stand well away from the roadside and out of the sun, because sunlight gives you cancer. It also burns my eyes. Always has. I have good night vision, the downside is that in bright sunlight I can hardly see anything at all.

So the drones have a quandary. Do they stand beside the road and breathe traffic fumes or stand away from the road and breathe that second hand smoke that will kill them even if they cannot detect it at all? And what if someone drives past smoking? Instant death!

Oh, if only that were true. We could be rid of the moaning morons in less than a week. Despite claiming that we are killing them they steadfastly refuse to actually die. Put your money where your (overused) mouths are and just snuff it, will you? Then the rest of us can get back to real life.

Well, anyway. Today I have been getting back into writing mood and working on ‘Inside Outside’ as well as trying to get into a drone mindset for Panoptica. I think I have said before that I don’t want a Winston Smith character. I want a real honest to goodness drone who really does accept all the crap and who will gradually come to realise what a total sucker he has been all his life. Then he will screw it all up at the end. I might or might not kill him at the end, it depends if letting him live would be worse.

Thanks to the Mail for a bit of inspiration in that story. Getting into that absolute drone mindset is very difficult. I think I have managed a little further in tonight by corrupting a song. One I used to have on 7-inch vinyl and might still be in my parents’ attic. It was a Stealer’s Wheel song called ‘Stuck in the Middle’.

And so, with no further ado and a remarkable lack of digression (I am drinking Teachers, the educational whisky) here is the very first driunken draft of ‘The Drone’s Lament’. It’ll need work but I think it’s not too bad for a first try.

The Drone’s Lament (Stuck in the middle).

Well I don’t know why I came into town
All the streets are really getting me down
I’m so scared in case I breathe in the air
Poison gases floating everywhere
Cars to the left of me, smokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with poo

Yes I’m stuck in the middle with poo
All the pavements mined with doggy do-do
It’s real hard to try avoiding the floor
And I just can’t hold my breath any more
Cars to the left of me, smokers to the right
Here I am, stuck in the middle with poo

Well we used to fear nothing back when really there was nothing banned
Now the nannies all come crawling, snatch our freedom back and say
No
No

Trying to make some sense of it all
It can’t be that it makes no sense at all
All the Experts Said and Studies have Shown
Maybe thinking too hard, my mind is blown
Cars to the left of me, smokers to the right
Here I am, my brain as mixed as a stew.

Well we used to fear nothing back when really there was nothing banned
Now the nannies all come crawling, snatch our freedom back and say
No
No

Well I don’t know why I came into town
All the horror every time I look down
Why can’t life be nice and comfy and bland?
Death is waiting, and it comes second hand
Cars to the left of me, smokers to the right
Here I am, with nothing safe left to do.

________

For the hatchlings who don’t remember the song (it was used to great effect in ‘Reservoir Dogs’), here is the music so you can sing along –

They don’t make songs like that any more.