This flash fiction story by Joseph Robert was first published in July 2016. You can read it over at The Flash Fiction Press, where it’s still archived online.
This story is catharsis now more than ever in the aftermath of Article 50, with the £ crashing. Let’s not forget who triggered the massive mess in the first place. A slow clap for our former PM…👏
…
Life Inside David Cameron’s Head
Joseph Robert © 2016
This is not a political polemic, nor an allegorical satire. No, friends, this is a true story, the like of which aren’t being written down enough these days, for you see, this is a fairy tale. That is, this is Life Inside David Cameron’s Head. So briefed, let us proceed with the public relation of the exportable narrative product. . .
One upon an election cycle, let’s call it The Year of Our Lord, two thousand and ten, there was a happy, legally married couple who lived in a council flat. They had names of course, but that’s hardly relevant here, although, if desired, the electoral rolls might be consulted, for they did possess a credit score, low but un-broken. However, what is of real import here is that they were makers and doers: a taxed native-born maker of construction equipment deliveries and an untaxed Commonwealth immigrant doer of massages, respectively. These two lived in a magical age of minority government under the pleasant-enough protection of the moderately godly, gaily green family man Prime Minister, David Cameron. He was a handsome Conservative young thing, Eton-educated, Bullingdon-baptized, Radiohead-enamored etc. And, well, the man of the council flat was rather taken with this David Cameron’s rhetoric about benefit cheats and the need for austerity and a sensible immigrant cap etc. and therefore they voted the Tory ticket, with some reservations.
Now, a few years later, something rather remarkable occurred, something that is not representative of the population as a whole and bugger-all to do with your life, mate, you see, they won a medium-sized jackpot in the Health Lottery. A measly £250 that they drank up in the local boozer with their friends in a single, surprisingly warm and dry winter’s day. How extraordinary! Nevertheless, this is no fairy tale, despite being extremely unlikely, so, perforce, something truly insane had to happen. Therefore, the very next day, the doer found a proper lottery ticket in one of her client’s pocket trousers. This gilded ticket won them literally millions of pounds in taxes to try to avoid paying. Finally! Now they we’re cooking the books with REAL small-fry nouveau riche money, on the scale of tens of millions of pounds.
With their winnings to spend, the maker and doer became subject to unhealthy whims: quitting their jobs (and thus leaving employment); travelling to fragile ecosystems for their own amusement; eating chicken livers at The Fat Duck restaurant; getting plastic surgery; entering into a consultation regarding the possibilities of undergoing private IVF fertility treatment. Oh, these were bad enough, but true decadent indulgence struck when they won laughs from their sycophants over a magnum of champagne and an ironic plate of caviar about a fevered joke that their idle riches would idly make real.
First, they bought a second townhouse, a cute and trendy, top market rate home in a mews in Notting Hill. Second, they talked to a Spanish designer and erstwhile artist, for they were going to do something truly worthwhile to celebrate their fortunate life. Third, they awaited the delivery of the sculpted fiberglass sections which had to be made in Germany and then painted in France. Fourth, they lounged on an exclusive Jamaican beach whilst Polish workmen installed the fiberglass sculpture over the front of their second London home. Fifth, they returned to live for a lark for a week inside David Cameron’s head, the erection of which they had not bothered to seek planning permission for.
The neighboring absentee landlords were aghast when their agents sent them photos of a giant, realistic-looking fiberglass bust of the Prime Minister which had so suddenly sprouted on their street, and which would certainly imperil their properties’ values. It was quite clever though, in its vulgar way; two windows served as the pupils of his eyes while the dryer’s exhaust had been rerouted to billow from his overhanding nostrils. One had to watch their step over the garden-gnome-sized teeth of the lower jar as they entered the gaping mouth to finally gain access to front door after wiping their feet on a tacky, tongue-shaped doormat. But what was so amazing was the incredible way they had captured David Cameron’s hair. That knighted hairdresser’s work was faithfully recreated over the roof of the house in three dimensions with what looked up close to be a forest of thin plastic tubing.
And so the days passed and the former maker and ex-doer responded to a phone call question of an Evening Standard reporter by affirming that ‘It’s nice and cozy here, living inside David Cameron’s head.’
However, within the fiscal quarter, the former maker and ex-doer ran into severe personal and financial difficulties which all their accountants, solicitors and surgeons combined could not save them from. So FUCK them. I mean, we’re alright. Right, Jack? Look, they got their ring-fenced NHS, they should be grateful, the mugs.
As for the meaningful material matters regarding David Cameron’s head, well, the day the first payment was missed, the bailiffs came and seized everything of value inside. Then they nailed ugly signs like open sores over his cheeks about how you shouldn’t even think of robbing the place. Before long the council came to rip his face off, but it was too late. A pack of squatters had moved in and really trashed the places hiding behind David Cameron’s shuttered eyes. The Metropolitan Police were called. The Council, at last, was free to do its duty.
And so the property developer who refurbished that house on the mews and sold it lived happily ever after until the housing market bubble burst.
The fiberglass sections were disposed of in a manner in accordance with environmental legislation.
Leilanie Stewart 