What’s ’All This Then?

Editor’s Note: In Aotearoan Newspeak, Kindness is Cruelty, and Wellbeing is Destitution and Starvation.

Today our intrepid eye-witness reports on an unexpected and needless to say, unwanted, encounter with Justinda’s Kindness and Wellbeing Police.

I thought that readers may be interested in an encounter I had the misfortune to experience recently. I had been at a meeting with a fellow technical type, to brainstorm ideas to combat the recent problem I had experienced with my Fly on the Wall spy fly device. I had succeeded in reducing the size of the spy fly to that of a large blowfly, but at a crucial moment on Grunt Robbingson’s wall, the CPU had overheated and burnt out, leaving a black patch and an apparently dead blowfly on the wall.

I had succeeded in having the evidence removed by a cleaner who just happens to share my philosophical outlook, but there remained the problem of the overheating CPU, which I need to solve for the sake of reliability and further miniaturisation in the future. It was this problem that my friend and I had been addressing on the night in question.

The meeting had gone longer than expected and had given me much food for thought. It was about 11.30pm as I wended my thoughtful way home. Therefore I was remiss in not being as vigilant as an Aotearoan-New Whakaarian citizen needs to be in these days of Kindness and Wellbeing. 

I was jolted out of my deep contemplation by the squeal of tyres alongside me, as a vehicle pulled up sharply. There was, of course, no engine noise to alert me to the approach of the vehicle as the new woke police fleet of Bushmobiles is entirely electric. The thought crossed my mind briefly that it was very bad luck that had caught me outside during the 2 hours per day that this police car had been off its charger.

The doors burst open and two Kindness and Wellbeing police exited at high speed and in a very belligerent manner. Both were well-armed with objects that looked very much as though they had been designed for killing people.

“What’s all this, then?” shouted Officer A, “skulking about at this hour. You’re up to no good, I can tell.”

I, of course, protested my innocence, pointing out that I had not been skulking, but merely walking thoughtfully home, as is my wont from time to time. 

“Aha,” sneered the officer, “so we’re a thinker, are we? And what exactly were the thoughts that we were thinking? Are we questioning my ability to recognise skulking when I see it?”

Naturally I protested that surely my thoughts were private and that the matter that needed to be resolved was the question of unlawful skulking. To do this, the definition of skulking needed to be clarified.

“What’s this?” asked Officer B. “Thoughts are private? Well, we’ll see about that.”  He waved his Clementmaster rifle menacingly. “Skulking is what we say is skulking. Skulking is like hate speech, we know it when we see it.”

“I think we have a case of hate-skulking here,” broke in Officer A. “And I’m pretty sure there’s also hate-thought involved.”

“One way to check,” said Officer B, retrieving from the car a black box with what seemed to be headphones attached. “The Thoughtmaster. Put these thought-detector headphones on. We’ll soon find out what Mister Thoughtful here has floating around in that ugly head of his.”

I could have pointed out that Officer B would have made a gorilla look like Miss Universe, and Officer A wasn’t any better, but instead allowed the headphones to be roughly plonked on my head. A slight buzzing noise came from the headphones, as Officer B flicked a few switches and pressed some buttons. 

“Hmmm.  I’m getting a vague image of bees on the screen. Wait, there’s something else. Looks like a gorilla wearing a swimsuit.” He sneered at me malevolently. “You’re one sick puppy, Mister Thoughtful.”

Officer A joined in the sneering session. “We’ll see what happens when we mention her whose name lesser mortals such as we, are not worthy to speak. Here goes, Justinda Ardeau, police be upon her. What do you see, Hagar?”

“Looks like a picture of Hagar the Horrible,” responded Officer B, apparently aka Hagar. “But wait, I can just make out teeth and hooves. Not clear enough to convict him, I’m afraid, but definitely negative thoughts towards our Glorious Leader. Let’s try another one, Let me think… Ahh, Winshton Petersh.” He peered intently at the screen. “Looks like a dwarf holding an almost empty whisky bottle; Grumpy I think.”

“Still not enough to convict him,” responded Officer A. “Let’s try one more…”  He wrinkled his brow and thought. “Aha, how about Marmalade Rabidson.”

“I’m getting what looks like a word on the screen,” said officer Hagar, staring diligently at the screen. “Looks like Grunt, no no. there’s no R. Gunt I think, or is the first letter G?  Not sure, could be a similar letter.” He sighed deeply. “Still not enough to convict this enemy of the state I’m afraid.”

Officer A stepped up so close to me that I could smell the doughnuts on his breath. “Where’s your ID card?” he snapped. 

Having shown it to him, he scanned it, and gave it back to me. “You’re a bit lucky tonight Mister Thoughtful Enemy of the State. If we’d had the Mark 2 Thoughtmaster you’d have been sunk. We’ll be getting the Mark 2 soon, so just watch your step. We’ll be watching you.”

I wasted no time in melting into the darkness and hastening home.

Officers A and B got into the car and slammed the door. A few seconds later, both of them got out of the car and slammed the doors violently. “Ruddy flat battery again,” snarled Officer Hagar, and they began to trudge angrily in the direction of Inclement House, the Police Headquarters.

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