Week 44: My Preciousss

 Type of writing: Parody of Gollum's love of the ring in The Hobbit.




Deep down in Dunstable, near the Polish church and Mon-Fri police station, lived a small creature. Spawned from sperm and ovum, he was a Baby.

In his isolated cell, he roamed back and forth, experiencing little natural sunlight in Lockdown Britain. He had been dissatisfied for months now. The smile he wore fraudulent, not worth the paper it were written on. The laughter? Fake too. It sounded a million dollars but a professional critic would soon determine it ‘imitation.’ Why was he a private ball of rage? The lanyard. The lanyard had been taken from it.

Once upon a time he had access to the lanyard dawn and dusk. His father would put it on over his neck in the morning. Its oscillations- a hypnotist’s watch- entrancing, ensnaring him. He was under its bewitching spell. ‘I wantsss it,’ he thought. ‘I wantssss it,’ he grabbed. Yes, the father went to work, but the morning consumption was enough to sate him until he returned. When he arrived from work, there it was again. His dumb father believed the smile were for him. It wasn’t. It was for the lanyard. ‘It’s mine again,’ the Baby cackled. ‘I am its master. He is just a pitiful, pitiful peasant hiring out my preciousss, preciousss property.’

Then one day the lanyard did not come out. The father did not go to work. The lanyard was not worn. The Baby could not reach for his ‘preciousss.’ There was nothing for him to cling to in the morning, nothing to sustain him through the afternoon, nothing to revive him come the evening. His funk turned to agitation. This agitation to mania. ‘Where iss it?’ he whispered to himself. ‘Where iss it?’ he groaned. ‘Where iss it?’ he cried. The Baby's bottom lip would fall, an earthquake would follow.

The Baby didn’t understand why it was being kept from him. The father had stolen it from him. Yes, he was a thief, a wicked, wicked thief. ‘Curse and crush him,’ thought the Baby. But his spit and vitriol were in vain. No matter how much he crawled to the locked bedside cabinet, the door never opened. To be so close to a precious, precious prize but denied access was a cruelty no man or beast should endure. So each day the Baby concocted plans, plans to grow, grow fast, turn the key, extricate the lanyard, usurp the father, wear the crown. These schemes would sometimes keep him awake at night, would make him toss and turn, cause him to howl at the thought of the long, long wait.

Then one morning everything changed. The father put on a suit for work. The father had dressed in rags for months. Now, he was dry cleaned and laundered. And what’s this? The mother was in work trousers too. She had worn track bottoms ever since meeting her. What was this development? Turning back to face him, he noticed it over her neck. Turning to face the father, he noticed it over his neck.

Lanyards. Two lanyards.

The Baby clasped his hands in glee. ‘My preciousesssssss.’

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