Tales of Freedom by Ben Okri

Three
    PINPROP BECAME SILENT . Then he looked around wildly. There was a touch of terror on his face.
    ‘Where are we?’ he asked.
    ‘Pinprop, will you stop this,’ Old Woman said, exasperated. ‘You were just going to tell us that.’
    ‘No, madam,’ replied Pinprop. ‘I was simply going to remind us what brought us here.’
    ‘And what is that?’ Old Woman asked, with some interest.
    ‘Well, em, do you want me to be honest?’
    ‘No, definitely not, Pinprop,’ Old Man said, ‘You know how much we hate honesty.’
    ‘That’s what I thought.’
    ‘Well?’ pressed Old Woman.
    ‘Well then,’ said Pinprop blithely, ‘we came here because we were looking for somewhere else to go.’
    ‘That is disconcertingly too near the truth,’ said Old Man.
    ‘Well then, we came here because we were tired.’
    ‘Still too near the truth.’
    ‘We came in search of violence?’
    ‘Too near.’
    ‘Looking for a place to die?’
    ‘PINPROP!!!’ Old Man cried.
    ‘Forgive me, sir. It simply slipped out.’
    ‘Well then, rectify it.’
    ‘Definitely, sir.’
    ‘Don’t use that word “definite”.’
    ‘Why not, sir?’
    ‘Blasphemy!’
    ‘Alright, sir.’
    ‘Then why?’ asked Old Woman. ‘Why? Why? Why, Pinprop?’
    ‘Yes, why? Emmmm. Can I be verbose about it?’
    ‘Certainly,’ said Old Man.
    ‘Ugliness,’ began Pinprop, ‘and the cruelty of myth. The excessive stench of putrefying bodies. Too much blood and tiredness, and iron in the throat. Small places turning septic, and large spaces tumbling into confusion. And people becoming hell. And hunger bloating too many bellies. Tiredness and tiredness and chaos. And fear, Sir, limitless fear.’
    ‘You should be hanged, Pinprop,’ snarled Old Man.
    ‘Too much neurosis and disease and new diseases.’
    ‘You should be flagellated, Pinprop,’ snarled Old Woman.
    ‘And the shrinking of cages till we can no longer fly.’
    ‘You should be served for dinner,’ Old Man cried.
    ‘And squabbles and lies and terror. Self-destruction and the wilful destruction of other people. And sickness, sir, sickness in the throat and stomach and food and streets and faces and the air …’
    Cutting through his iteration, Old Man and Old Woman shouted as one:
    ‘The chain, Pinprop, the chain of iron and blood.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Pinprop, a little chastened. ‘I forgot. I got carried away.’
    With a noticeable change in their voices, and still speaking as one:
    ‘Yes, Pinprop, you got carried away.’
    ‘What?’ he enquired, puzzled.
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘Oh, indeed, yes,’ said Pinprop, relieved. ‘Yes very very much. A fat yes to everything.’
    He laughed. He seemed pleased with himself. He did a dance step.
    ‘Yes, Pinprop. Yes,’ they both said, with a decidedly sinister tone.

Four
    THEN, QUITE SUDDENLY , Old Man and Old Woman kicked away their chairs and tossed aside the table. And while Pinprop danced unsuspectingly they grabbed him and, with surprising ease, lifted him up and carried him off into the woods. They dumped him on the ground with a thud. Pinprop wailed and laughed wildly at the same time, while they chained him. Then, wheezing and coughing, Old Man and Old Woman returned to the clearing.
    Breathing heavily, Old Man said:
    ‘That was a job well done.’
    ‘A satisfactory achievement,’ Old Woman replied.
    ‘A major victory, considering our ages.’
    ‘Let us not talk about age.’
    ‘I’m exhausted.’
    ‘Do you think we were a bit too hard on him?’
    ‘Definitely,’ said Old Man, with dignity.
    ‘That’s wonderful.’
    They picked up the chairs, put the table back in its former place, and resumed their seats.
    ‘Now all we can do is wait,’ Old Woman said.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And the boredom?’
    ‘Oh, that. Let’s enjoy that as well.’
    ‘Ah, yes.’
    ‘Yes to all that.’
    ‘Yes to everything.’
    ‘And to nothing.’

Five
    THERE WAS A brief silence. Then Old Man and Old Woman began to reminisce, to speak as if the