Anonymous asked:
Hi! I was wondering where the photo you submitted to the Photographers Directory was taken! It's so beautiful. :)
My Dearest Anonymous,
Thank you for your long awaited letter. Even though years have passed since we last met, I assure you that I have not forgotten our time together in Paris. In a way, we were both tourists back then but that evening, when we played Chet Baker in your apartment and I held you close to me, you felt like home. Chet played us like puppets that night as his rendition of My Funny Valentine echoed through my loins.
Then came the departure. You wept and I was manly. I was inexplicably wearing the uniform of a milkman. I gripped your chin and jiggled it about a bit affectionately and then pretended to steal your nose and placed it into the breast-pocket of my overcoat and told you I’d return it to you some day. You wept some more and I looked deep into your soaked eyes and lovingly pressed a pint of milk into your hand before turning and boarding the plane bound for London.
When I arrived in London I was met by Lord Frostly’s son Arthur whose sole characteristic is the fixed expression of a man who is perpetually uncertain as to the direction the next 10 seconds of his life will take. We drove from London out to Lord Frostly’s estate where, as we ascended the steps, a bottle of wine flew out from the Dining Room window, closely followed by a servant. “It must have been Australian” said Arthur. ‘The wine or the servant?’ I wondered.
We entered the Dining Room and, as I suspected, Lord Frostly was not in the best humour and from his bellowed “FUCKING FILTH!!” I was able to ascertain that sometime that morning the Police had entered the estate and begun to free several dozen bewildered elderly ladies from the old silage tower. “Emptied the abattoir too I bet!” I raised an inquisitive eyebrow to Arthur who quietly explained that Lord Frostly was referring to a nearby nursing home he funded. Lord Frostly’s rage was directed primarily at three extremely old doctors who were dressed mostly in severely frayed expressions. Lord Frostly finally punctuated his discussion by producing his pistol from his jacket and firing a shot into each of the doctors whilst screaming ‘TELL HITLER I WANT A REFUND!!”. Everyone exhaled and settled in time to the bullets swan song and Lord Frostly twisted towards me and snapped “Do you know what they did this time Jack?” I did but thought it best to feign ignorance and, as I was about to enquire politely, Arthur, in his characteristic sudden pointlessness, like a soldier flinging himself upon a grenade in an empty room, squeaked “I do love your beige jacket father!”. Lord Frostly let out a slow irritated sigh while still looking at me and then began to laboriously pivot on his heels towards Arthur while his drunken eyes struggled to keep up. “It’s called PINK INERTIA you little FOOL! Your ONLY responsibility was to keep your fucking mouth SHUT! Why can’t you do just that one THING?! Don’t stand there impersonating the sphincter of a dog with diahorrea, explain yourself!” Before Arthur could synchronise both his words and lips, Lord Frostly offered his own assessment of Arthur’s character. “It’s times like these that I regret ever fucking your sist…”
Lord Frostly passed out drunk mid-sentence and slumped forward onto his cane which buried into his wiry belly. He was propped up like a photo frame and the servants who sternly papered the room wore looks of fearful uncertainty. To remove the cane would be perilous but to leave it there may aggravate his stomach troubles which none of the servants relished dealing with. I mean this not to boast but I came up with the brilliant idea of tying the cord from one of the curtains to Lord Frostly’s trousers, thus he would be supported from above and the cane could be removed safely. With the cord fixed, the cane was removed by Arthur, in his capacity as the most expendable person in the room, but what I had not anticipated was Lord Frostly’s emotional attachment to the cane which did not, so far as I had ever witnessed, serve any medical purpose and instead was most commonly employed to remove children and small animals from his path. And yet, the moment the cane left his person, Lord Frostly’s eyes darted open and fixed Arthur with a crazed stare as he began to make faces and sounds like a cat being sick. What happened next is hard to describe in its entirety but, in essence, Arthur began to run, Lord Frostly pursued, a curtain was drawn, trousers became detached, a cane was dropped, a cane was retrieved and a maid was overcome on the billiard table.
That was the last I saw of Lord Frostly that evening and Arthur to date. As I was only due to stay at the manor for one evening and with Lord Frostly otherwise disposed, I let myself into his study and, after briefly examining documents that seemed to be a mixture of blueprints for human biological alterations and receipts for various kitchen appliances, I located the briefcase I was there to collect. I then retired to my room for the remainder of the evening that bled into a fevered sleepless night filled with thoughts of you, my dearest Anonymous.
I left the manor the following morning and, as I went about borrowing Arthur’s car, I could hear the trouserless Lord Frostly’s celebratory animalistic roar from across the valley which I must admit provoked a small affectionate smile. I returned to London to finish my assignment, investigating England’s plan for Europe, before President Sarkozy officially resigned. Since its erection, Sarkozy had become increasingly concerned about the monument the English call ‘The London Eye’. My assignment was to uncover any evidence of a smaller wheel being constructed alongside it as Sarkozy was certain Britain planned to invade Europe using a giant Penny-Farthing. This assignment proved to be as disastrous as it was fruitless as, not only was there no evidence of such a plot, I had spent almost half of France’s defence budget on tickets for The London Eye; London is a very expensive place to visit but if you spend two years in an endless circular motion, witnessing spectacular things from a distance while trapped in a cage, you begin to gain insight into the psyche of the English.
After submitting my report I travelled to Scotland with Lord Frostly’s briefcase to make the drop and this brings us to the other matter in your enquiry (I will not rise to your flirtatious lack of a question mark – oh how you drive me wild with your purposeful poor grammar!). First you must travel to a small town in the North East of Scotland called Braemar and then head West for roughly one mile until you come to a layby. Leave your vehicle there and cross the road on foot and you will see a derelict cottage. Make your way across the field and behind the cottage you will see the place where the photograph was taken. Walk down to the broken bridge and underneath it, on the other side of the river, is where the suitcase that contains the missile launch codes is hidden. 303 unlocks the case. Good luck comrade.
And so I must end this. No matter what happens, be it revolution or gulag or death, I will always remember Paris.
Adieu,
Jack x
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