An Ugly Morning

Donald P. Bellisario?

Captain Stuart Turnips kept thinking about that name. He had precious little else to think about in his tiny little world. It was a world comprised of concrete, shouting guards, humorless solo "re-education" sessions with an austere chain-smoking Eurasian officer known only as Lt. Fruitbat, and a thin gruel of rice and rat meat. It had been this way since the day he was captured by his Father's nemesis: General Tang, from the island of his friend the dread assassin Scaramanga.

Donald P. Bellisario

Why would that name be running through his head? He tried to remember what Scaramanga had told him about memes and collective unconsciousness. None of that made much sense in this place. He tried to will himself to standup to the daily sessions with British reserve and stiff upper lip. As his diet suffered, so did his willpower to resist the indoctrination. Particulary difficult to resist was Lt. Fruitbat's focus on the evils of the Imperialist system and its internal contradictions. For a while he remembered his time at the prestigious Tiny Finding's Dayschool. His memories of the Herndon Red Wings, his cricket team were another reserve of mental resistance to the glowering garlic-soaked Lt. Fruitbat.

Donald P. Bellisario?

He could only wonder what Lt. Fruitbat had meant when he told him during his last session: "Criminal Stuart, dis is just the beginning of your education. I am but the one who opens the door. Your real training will occur in a different location and will involve far more sophistocated methods."