A Tale of Two Andys

First of all, no matter how realistic the story below sounds, it is entirely a work of fiction. Just a very realistic work of fiction.

How do great stories start? What the fuck i try to think of a great chapter 1 and all that comes to my pathetic mind are " A dark and stormy night" (Snoopy style), "RRing! My alarm clock rang"(primary school style) and "With the advent of globalisation in the blahblahblah" (jc style). That's 12 years of education and 2 years of degeneration for you.

So it's off to copy a great beginning, because copying is really the greatest form of flattery and what better story to mimick than Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Well if you've never read the story before, fear not, because i haven't either, other than the kiddies' abridged version. Fortunately, there's always sparknotes for those who love to pretend to have a more literary background than they actually have. I've even very kindly included the link "http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/twocities/section2.rhtml" for those among you who got Excuse Typing.

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of stupid pple, it was the age of stupid things. It was the epoch of no off, it was the epoch of no leave. It was the season for flu, it was the season for MC. It was shit in spring, ITS ORD IN NOVEMBER! and such was the entire setting of the story, because i have the attention span of a hamster and i can't even finish reading sparknotes.

On this fateful day, I woke up with a start. My eyes turned to the clock instinctively. It read 7.45am, and the fucking phone was vibrating against my wooden table again. As my hand reached out to grab it, i dreamt of that beautiful november day when evil spirits would stop using the phone to manipulate my soul.

"Hi, this is your slave here, how would you like to abuse me today?" I chirped in my most cheerful voice.

"You gotta go to court today." The evil spirit's message reverberated through my heart, my soul, and every sinew of my iron-marked body. Still I had my brain with me, so I was shocked.

"What the hell did I do? If im going to jail for punching somebody, it'll be nice to actually have punched somebody! And there's no lack of people in mind!" i replied good-naturedly.

"Your colleague Andy is going to get charged. So you have to be there." was the terse reply.

"Oh ok. I'll go. Andy's a great guy." I said, obviously under some Jedi mindtrick.

With that, the connection ended, and i lapsed onto my bed, exhausted. But there was no time to to relax, for i had to get into some decent clothes and fast. So in the end, i got there with Andy, don't ask me how, use your own godamn imagination for a change (and don't say im lazy!).

I have never been to the court before, so it was an eye-opener of sorts. Here are a list of things that i recommend that you do not bring there.

1. gold bar
2. the memento piece that you chipped off the Eiffel Tower
3. anus ring (if it exists)

simply because there are metal detectors. There's no check of identification, so if at any time you feel that life is meaningless or that you simply want to prove to yourself you aren't that forsaken by God after all, compared with other people, you could swagger into the place and witness the full power of the law, assuming you don't have an anus ring.

So i strode into the courtroom with andy. It wasn't like any place i've been before. One bored looking dude also known as the judge sat behind a high wooden table sounding very irritated, and he had every reason to be. From his high perch (probably signifying his moral high ground) he could probably see the mass of humanity, all on the fringes of society awaiting his judgement before he could finally go home and take a shower.

So i sat down and waited. It was cramped and uncomfortable, like waiting at any other government body, except that there was no queue number. It's a simple case of get up on the stand when your name is called, and the system is flawless. That is the power of the law. No matter how many tattoos the guy has, he's still punctual. I mean, try getting a battalion of NSFs to arrive on time for an outcamp run, and 'er. i got stomachache' or 'wah sorry i didn't know i took the bus in the wrong direction'.

One distinct difference between the court and other government waiting rooms was the undeniable sense of anxiety, even though there were so many people moving around looking busy, seeming even chaotic at times. And so it was in this uncomfortable atmosphere that i waited for the verdict. I could see the defendants take their stand one after the other in front of the irritated judge, and finally andy's verdict came.

I waited with bated breath, only for the prosecution to say, " Your honour, we are not ready, please give us another 2 weeks".

I can't remember the jargon that the judge said, but it amounted to 'ok whatever'.

Well i was kidding about the bated breath that part, because andy told me that particular court acted as a coordinator of sorts, throwing cases to different courts, and didn't do the dirty job of sentencing. What the verdict meant was andy got his freedom for another month, since it took that long for a case to move through the bowels of the courts before squeezing out a verdict.

So this Andy got his freedom, albeit for a short while.

So now it's time to see the other Andy, this time for my freedom, from the pain and suffering bugging my knee of course. It was my first time meeting this other Andy, and he promised to relieve me of my suffering. It's going to be a long time, but i'll deal with it. I'm not going to talk about this other Andy cos he's a mysterious fellow. So unlike Charles Dickens' famed novel, this particular story won't have a touching, moralistic, complete ending. That is also a reason why I don't write novels.

Instead, I shall be a complete fraud and edit his ending. With the help of the second Andy, i hope to have a far, far better rest, than i have ever had, for these 1 year 10 months. The End.