Safety

Safety was important to me. It was a cold and misty afternoon. I was in the Lake District on a walk to inspect the drinking water reservoir. It was just something I liked to do in my spare time. I was halfway up on my climb and stopped for a wayside snack. I sat down and gazed down the sprawling mountain slope. A ring ouzel fluttered past. It reminded me of a similar situation I had been in the previous year. When it comes to personal safety I knew safety equipment was vital. I was fully aware of these matters. Unfortunately two young ramblers I had met in this situation the previous year were not.

I shouldered my pack and continued slowly upward. My pace was steady. If I was going to do this climb I was going to do it safely! I couldn’t help my mind wandering back to that fateful afternoon that I had been reminded of at my stop. I replayed the events in my mind. It was bitterly cold and we were in the Yorkshire dales. I noticed the two ramblers immediately because they stood out in particular. They were poorly dressed for the conditions and I felt that they might have been plain stupid. I trailed them from a distance, making sure that they didn’t notice me. Every time they looked back I made a movement like a seagull so that I surely would not be seen.

How I loved to duck and dodge. I remember laughing out loud at the safe behaviour I was undergoing. I kept my cool and sure enough the couple had become lost. I had to keep a sharp check on my position just to stay alive. Then the snow came. So thick and fast that I nearly lost the ramblers. Needless to say, I was forced to stop them and ask if they needed my assistance. I took out a thermos of hot drink and gave it to them. Then I put them in my emergency bothy bag and told them to stay calm. I actually noticed the early signs of hypothermia slowly kicking in. When I asked them where they thought they were the answers were shocking. One of them was convinced he was a shark. He kept puffing his cheeks out as if they were gills.

Now, here on the mountainside the reservoir wasn’t far off. I stood at the head of the reservoir. Night was coming on fast. It reminded me of a time a year ago. I was skidding and sliding my way down a large crag when I realized I had gone bananas. I then knew I had to act. I had left a kit bag full of emergency safety gear at a location in the cliff some weeks before, in anticipation of an emergence such as the then present one. Unfortunately I had buried the kit bag deep under a patch of soft ground and did not have a shovel.

I then remembered I had tied a small stash of money to the crags and looked to see if I could find that. I couldn’t locate that either. I was stuffed. As I harkened back I made a note that this emergency was all down to a lack of planning. Next time I’d take a trolley full of gear. I saw a Raven. Presently, the drinking water systems surrounded me. They all seemed to be in order. Then I remembered that I wasn’t at the reservoir after all! I had fallen in the lake and, flailing on the bank half choking on lake water, I had almost drowned. Shocking! I was lucky to be alive! That was it. I had had enough. I vowed never to go near the mountains again.

excessive emission

I was essentially a bad arse. I got out of my car and pressed my gun against a man’s head and told him to eat the floor. From the corner of my eye I saw an armoured car and blew it up with my grenade launcher. I was essentially a narrative writer, and this caused me to pay close attention to every detail. But not today. Today I was going to be casual about everything.

Tom came careering around the corner in a Warrior pickup truck and froze someone with his industrial nitrogen gun. Cool off he said. Hi there. Don’t blow a fuse he said. We decided to bus through a campus in Oxford. Suddenly seven girls burst from wheelie bins and we despatched them with Light Machine guns. Then we hit the tank. Mike Trew was cycling on his bike but I got pissed with his arse and terminated him like a bitch.

We had already reduced some of the emissions of the city and we took shelter at The Pastilles near where the road to London used to be. Sadly I slipped on some dog muck and ended up getting pretty much ventilated. Tom picked up his shit and took out three workmen in vans with vicious Uzi fire. Don’t make me environ-MENTAL next time cackled Tom as he began digging a hole in the lawn. He liked to keep his ground skills up.

I split. Things weren’t going well. But I thought I could salvage something out of this all. So I went urban walking. No more guns I said to myself. I drop kicked a small dog over a railing. It helped me to think. Weirdly the dog’s owner came to a sticky end on the point of a bonobo’s jack knife. I chuckled until realising that I was looking at a house with fourteen bmws. I grenaded it. I can’t take the emissions anymore. They are microscopic. And everything was essentially capitalism. What will I do? I stared into a flock of birds high above. Tom had started driving a few boats from the Thames to the countryside. I walked boldly into my new environmental career. Emissions were history.