Tales of Worrow Volume II

by Darren Worrow

  This sure made them think but Neil was on a roll, “and why can we not enjoy the wealth of TV networks and be entertained by a Hollywood that we can proudly claim is from OUR country? We welcome a time when monotonous scenes of Hugh Grant blithering about in his slack shirt, hopelessly dribbling over some piece of posh totty can be replaced by exciting car chases and urban shootouts with Will Smith…… ” he continued unabated, “…..and to what of language I hear you ask, Why, we may want to drop the letter U in colour, it really doesn’t need to live there. We might want to refer to our pants without being laughed at, we don’t want to have to remember all the different names of all the different varieties of biscuits when the word cookie will do and as for fanny, well, every Englishman would want one of those, just to try for a while. I am certain,” he went on proudly engaging his audience, the whole of the UK, “Ladies and gentlemen of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland I am certain that we all really want to be cowboys and cowgirls in the Wild West, we all would want a chance to run for a term in the White House and we all long to be married by an Elvis impersonator in a Las Vegas hotel.”

  The crowd seemed overwhelmed with positivity, the country were clearly jealous of those Americans and they all wanted a piece of the action. Neil was tapping into their deepest desires but the plan was yet to be fully revealed, how they would react then Neil was unsure, so he continued to build up the hype, “We love with a capital L, a capital O, a capital V and a capital E to use our Americanisms, we buy into every gimmick those US companies throw at us. From hot dogs to Santa Claus, from trick and treating to beef jerky we, in today’s Britain are more Americanised than the Americans themselves! We want our Twinkie Bars and we want them NOW, or, or, I’ll pop a cap in yer god damn ass!”

  A pause for dramatic effect was swallowed up hook, line and sinker by the nation, “So I thought this idea up as a child and absurd as it may sound it is in fact, by the reckoning of the leading scientific minds, today, possible. You see I put it to the back of my brain, filed as my crazy imagination but one day I was walking through the market place and I saw a sign on a stall that read ‘hot donuts!’ I figured, donuts, not doughnuts!” Suddenly he threw his whole body into a spasm, flickering about the stage, “So my friends, my good, good friends, I thought there and then, to hell with it, to hell with Brussels and their silly laws on the shapes of bananas, to hell with the Euro, let’s rip off the Chunnel and tie it like an umbilici cord and then look at our newly formed belly button and laugh out loud, give those French the finger and let us join our American friends in the big country, let’s live off the coast of Florida, where the sun always shines and old people go around on roller-skates, where it is law to smile and wear Mickey Mouse ears and everyone is bronze and beautiful…. So, ladies, gentlemen across the nation, take heed of my plan, love my thoughts, and support me in my mission; that is all I ask. With the help of Doc Darren Horton here we can dig underneath this rain-drenched country and we can float this baby like a huge boat and we can erect masts of massive proportions across the Midlands with sails waving red, white and blue and we can sail this bitch to America!”

  Suddenly the crowds ceased the cheering and stood and stared at Neil with his eyes closed, standing legs akimbo and thrusting a fist into the air. Neil sensed the silence. He peeked with just one eye open to see that the whole of the UK held their mouths open, gasping.

  For the first time in his speech he stumbled, his words, now sounding more sincere, more meaningful conveyed his passion, his dedication to this cause, with a croak he mumbled, softly, honestly and genuinely, “we could be the 51st State of America…….think about it…….”

  5.

  A national referendum was called; every man and his dog came out to vote. Then, when the government realised that dogs were voting they deemed this unacceptable and had to call the whole ballot again. Neil waited as patiently as he could; he lost most of his hair and chewed his fingernails to the core. Then one day, the votes counted a 99% positive outcome for his campaign and the country got prepared to set sail. An overjoyed Neil collapsed with elation and was called into hospital.

  A whole five years passed, Neil’s project employed over a million workers, boosting the economic recovery in Britain. Many European contractors and labourers pulled out of the deal when they realised exactly what the plan was; they figured that Britain leaving their shores would not be good news for Europe, at least not for the baked beans and tea industries at any rate.

  During the first half of the term Neil was on fire, he had become the celebrity of the day, the hero of the decade and he relished in the attention. He performed on chat shows, addressed the nation on the progress of the project and drafted a book of his experience which reached the top of the charts, outselling the memoirs of Ant and Dec. Musicians and singers grouped up to perform a celebratory concert and Neil made several visits to the USA where he met the important people like the President and even more important people like Bruce Springsteen. His most memorable part of the visit though was of course his trip to the Create-A-Cuddly Workshop where the staff treated him to a full size cuddly Tyrannosaurus Rex with sunglasses and a stars and stripes bathing suit, which he called Gavin.

  However, through the turning of the latter half of the preparation stages to dig under the country and float it, age began to get the better of Neil Kimber and he experienced some medical problems, losing his hair and back troubles were minor and now gave way to more serious issues with his heart and cloistral levels. The highest experienced doctors were on call and it was not long for Neil, like most people coming of a certain age, to manage to come to terms with his condition and he began to feel much better.

  Teething troubles with the plan like ensuring they tunnelled deep enough for all the trillions of pipes and cables to stay intact, all archaeological sites were excavated or abandoned and the decision of if they should include Canvey Island or not all had to be ironed out by professionals and people who had never actually been to Essex. Soon though things were looking good, health and safety officers were happy, the scientists were content, the only people still complaining were the conservationists and environmentalists whose concerns lie with the natural habitat of a variety of wildlife in the country but it was soon pointed out to the nation by Neil’s overpaid experts (sponsored by Starbucks) that maybe the foxes, deer and hedgehogs could do with a bit of a holiday with some nice weather.

  The Queen met with Neil on several occasions with concerns to her monarchy, asking if she would now be under the control of the President of whom she considered to be “a rather uncouth and gaudy individual.” Neil assured her that if she was to run for President of the USA she would surly win, the Americans loved her more than anything else British except for maybe Stonehenge and Benny Hill. She seemed happy with this and started eating chilli dogs and rapping to hip hop straight away. If all else failed she was advised by MI5 that she should reveal the truth that she is in actual fact an android; the American’s loved androids in their Government and Arnold Schwarzenegger was given as an example. Providing, she was informed; you don’t reveal that you were made in Japan.

  So, some years it took for the plan to become fact but now, as a fully repaired Neil Kimber flew over Birmingham in his chopper he looked upon the giant masts being erected underneath them and smiled. “Welcome to Create-A-Cuddly Workshop!” he laughed to himself but was not heard by the pilot.

  “What was that Neil?”

  “Oh, nothing….really…..” he replied.

  A quick tour of the masts, another to inspect the large turbines erected all across the east coastline, save Great Yarmouth, they’ve had enough crap already thought Neil and things were looking good. The Prime Minister set a launch date of the 31st of February which was quickly altered and put down to the fact that he was exhausted after all the excitement despite not being wise enough to realise that in a few months’ time his position will be redundant or at the very most, nothing more than equal to a parish councillor.

>   People in the USA were excited too, some of them had even heard of the UK and the average five percent of the nation that could correctly point it out on a world map rapidly increased to a staggering seventeen percent. The beaches of Miami were flocked with supporters waving Union Jack flags and trying fish n chips blissfully unaware of the reality that a rather dull and unexciting island with pompous and old fashioned attitudes was about to crash into their lively shores land locking them forever.

  Still with both nations gripped by the event a zeppelin sized champagne bottle was smashed upon the White Cliffs of Dover while Robbie Williams sang a farewell to Calais and the boosters blasted off a speedy launch. In Birmingham and all through the central Midlands the sails were cast and the Shard in London was used as a birds-nest with top Navy officers at the helm. They assessed the wind and directed the whole country in a south west direction across the Atlantic Ocean.

  After a week people got used to the delicate rocking of the country and gradually life returned to normal. It would take an estimated two years for the country to land in Florida and so everyone was urged to stay calm and carry on, it was a slogan that though had been used before in wartime was now popular as a parody on Facebook and therefore suited to the whole bizarreness of the event.

  Doctor Darren Horton looked at Neil in merriment, “Well, we’ve done it; though we will never quite look like her we will soon be as American as Marilyn Munroe.”

  Neil smirked, “yes, I cannot believe it has really come to pass; my childhood dream……” (Not to look like Marilyn Munroe you understand; just to be American, Jeepers this isn’t some kind of transvestite tale you know.)

  6.

  “One man’s dream has turned into a national nightmare,” informed a rather dash looking newsreader with a smart suit and black designer glasses, “as Cornwall falls into the hands of the Atlantic and Skye has long since perished the people of Britain are asking how much longer can we hold out, Bridgwater was never supposed to be a seaside town?”

  Neil slammed his bony finger upon the off button of the TV’s remote control in frustration, “Shit!” he cried. The rest of his team around the boardroom table fell silent, twiddling their thumbs and looking up at the tube lighting breathing artificial illumination to the morbid ambience in the room. No one dare speak up except Gavin (Gavin’s are like that,) a young apprentice keen to better his position in the company, or, in technical terms, brown tongue. With a wheezy asthmatic whine he whimpers, “Sir, we have to call the President…..”

  “God damn it, you don’t think I’ve tried that?” yelled a frustrated Neil who strolled over to the window and flicked his index finger away from his middle finger after jabbing it into the blind and caused a streak of light to shine through. Neil looked down at the beautiful gardens of his manor below. How he loved this decadence, he had worked so hard to get it. He never took it for granted, he was a self-made billionaire and always thought he had maintained his feet to the ground so to speak but now he questioned the effects of his wealth and power, was he really just another average Joe Blogs?

  The scene on the other size of his sizable fence fuelled his concerns as a screaming mass of protestors pushed and forced the fence with a private security team and police forming a human chain between them and fence and getting rather squashed under the pressure of a million hippies with bad hygiene. “We have to do something about them,” pointed out Gavin with a sly smirk.

  Neil thought out loud, “throw them some soap?”

  However it was more than just hippies now, a full riot had begun to form under his very feet, the crowds shouted out their hate remarks, they shouted out for Neil’s head, they held badly grammatical placards, they jolted them into the sky and pushed and shoved their way to the front, they wanted to be the first in the queue to ring the neck of the man that put them in the middle of the Atlantic ocean without a paddle. He took a gulp and quickly pulled his fingers out of the blind, how could it have gone so wrong? he gravely asked himself.

  Neil took a seat and frowned at the yes-men sat before him, questioning the value of any input they may dare to contribute, they sat there looking scared of him; the whole atmosphere could be cut with a knife. “Wait until the Scottish get here,” pondered the spotty lad out loud, Neil wished he was Darth Vader. The whole idea of strangling this blotchy boy was the very turn in his image that he wanted so much to avoid but often, with great power it becomes tricky not to play out this stereotype. He wasn’t evil, he just had a dream and it went wrong. As the sea became fiercer and the equipment wore thin, the floats began to subside, the country began to tip and tilt, floods covered the low lands and it appeared that the country was cracking apart. Many people had perished already, the Queen had gone into hiding and before she did she despatched a message for Neil to do the same, revealing a secret hiding place in which she could meet him at. The fact that she publicly posted it on Neil’s Facebook wall was concerning and he doubted if she still alive at all, those raging maniacs outside were verging on a uprising, and who could blame them, it had gone so wrong.

  Neil tries to put them to the back of his mind but, the thought of them getting past the security, nonetheless the security themselves turning against him had become a topical issue raised in the meeting; them, or them, or any of them, tearing his limbs from his body was something that was hard to mentally put on the backburner. He quivered at the thought of it all and returned to focus his mind on the boy’s earlier comment. He recalled with distaste the conversation with the President when he tried to make contact. A clever man in running a country but a nincompoop with a mobile phone; he never remembers to turn it off, revealing much top secret information for anyone to hear on the other end of the line.

  However distraught Neil was determine at that point not to try and sound too desperate for his help, “Hello? Mr President, It is Neil Kimber here,” he began with, sighing under breath.

  “I’m having a bath!” came the distant reply as if he was not talking directly to Neil but someone else in his room which was soon confirmed when he continued to say, “why do they always call me while I am having a bath, tell them to piss off, bloody Russians!”

  Neil sighed a deeper sigh, it was impossible not for it to be hidden, he overheard a voice explain to the President of the USA that it was not Russia but Neil Kimber from Great Britain. “Who, from where?” was all he asked and that was so demeaning that Neil slammed the phone down to hear the last words from the other end, “have we got anymore bubble bath?”

  Neil knew he had to try again no matter how futile the result may be. He called the meeting to a close, took Doctor Horton to one side, bought Gavin some Lego Star Wars which cheered him up somewhat and retired to his private quarters. All the way there the brainchild of the project was pointing out his miscalculations, apologising profusely for the errors in his maths and suggesting that perhaps the engineering staff had cut corners from his original blueprints. Neil cared for none of it, “what’s happened has happened; we need to find a solution and fast. The time for blaming can come later Darren, we need rescuing.”

  “Are you seriously going to try the President again?” inquired the Doc.

  “Yes, I believe I am,” answered Neil, overflowing with scepticism but at a loss end for another suggestion. He picked up the phone, fell into his finest office chair and spun it round, “Katie, get me the White House.”

  This time the President had obviously been briefed as he replied to Neil’s greeting as if he was an old friend, “Hey Neil, buddy, how’s things?” It sounded so fake, you would have thought that the President of the USA would have known who he was being that they met on several occasions and you would have also thought that he would know where the country of Great Britain is, particularly under the circumstances that it was due to crash into one his many states any day now.

  “Very bad Mr President to be honest,” informed Neil, “we are experiencing some bad storms out at sea, the floats are not keeping up and half the country has been
flooded, millions of people have perished and now we are noticing huge cracks in the surface of the land, tears and rips that could break us all apart.” This was all well put; the fact was that many cracks and splits in the hull of the country were becoming a serious threat, especially in a city called Hull. In particular was the line along Hadrian’s Wall that was tearing Scotland completely away, although, unbeknown to Neil and the Queen this was all quite deliberate on the part of the Scottish who had, after taking the liberty of nationalising themselves, decided to use Hadrian’s Wall like perforations on a business form and were currently using the grease from deep fried Mars Bars to fuel the energy to cut along the line with a huge pair of scissors.

  There was a silence from the other end of the phone line which Neil feared and then suddenly the President did something unexpected, he laughed. Neil could hear in the background the man himself addressing the first Lady who had asked who was on the phone. “Those Brits!” he explained with a belly laugh, “I just don’t understand their humour, all that Monty Python stuff but jeepers, do they know how to tease me,” then he pulled his phone back to his mouth, “you crack me up you Brits,” he lied, “that British humour, I can’t wait to see you all soon, we have pancakes.” And with that the phone went dead.

  “In America bad means good,” suggested Doctor Darren Horton as Neil looked up to him desperate for an answer to the madness, “as in; Bad, I’m bad, I’m really bad, you know it, j’mon!” Neil ignored the doctor fondling his crotch, twirling and moonwalking around the room and decided to scratch his chin. The whole country has gone mad, perhaps I should join them, he considered, after all, the country is doomed, everyone is going to die out here and it’s all my fault; why not go cuckoo?

  As he did so he found the whole room suddenly beginning to melt away as if it was liquid, the walls, the ceiling and everything in it. The floor began to melt around him and he looked over to the doctor who seemed unafraid and also to be joining in with the whole melting theme, quite happy to be diminishing from reality. Neil screamed, confirming that he had finally lost the plot, running around like a headless chicken was one option to express his petrified state but he could not, he found he couldn’t move at all until the whole room and everything in it had melted away, leaving a small grey booth in which he was sitting in. Suddenly to break the new silence he heard a geeky female voice calling, “we have a waker, I repeat; we have a waker!”