An Unlikely Collapse

Betty Zoo was in a conundrum. She wasn't her usual daisy picking, trinket snatching self today. It wasn't anything in particular that led her to the conclusion. Truth be told, she couldn't have arrived at any sort of conclusion that day in the first place. Her decision making process seemed compromised, like the arduous jinning and jagging of rusted gears come to a wrenching halt the moment you flippantly chuck a wooden leg or your dog's chewtoy into it. Then there is that uneasy moment when you stuff your neck into your shoulders and feel your toes go all twingy, fearing an apocalyptic explosion and react, perhaps in the same manner a tortoise would react if it feared the sky might be falling down on it at any instant. If tortoises could think that is. But Betty Zoo was no tortoise. She had the uncaring nihilism of a creature much higher in the food chain. Perhaps one too high and mighty to deign to descend from its proud perch atop a Banyan tree.

But every once in a while, the machine does explode or in the very least, shoot sparks and Betty Zoo could have sworn there was smoke swirling out of her ears for a good two minutes, although scientists have not, till now found any evidence to confirm that. Perhaps, that is owed to the fact that they couldn't give a damn. The Lulamay Research Centre was one that thrived on government subsidies and mid-afternoon parties. Betty Zoo was free to walk in and out as she chose, but her blood, bone and any special tissue she possessed belonged to the government. For months, the story was circulated, headlining the sundry newspapers of Richford, of how a twenty year old be-spectacled, be-braced girl had survived cancer. The symptoms just miraculously disappeared. So she found herself liberated from the bore of having to go through chemo and having her head shaved off and reserved a part of her day for the joyous pleasure of having a bath. But the research department of the Lulamay Research Centre for Cancer and other Ailments had other plans. They planned to stick her with needles, give her a cold, then give her a sauna and then stick some more needles into her, just for the heck of it. In fact, there was a group of giggling scientists and one research scholar behind every closed door who loved to hear the shrieks of a helpless damsel being prodded to distress with horrid injections.

Betty Zoo was strong however. Whenever the first touch of an exploratory needle broke her skin, she would close her eyes and lick her braces and think of the last song that she'd been listening to. Waves of pleasure and pain propagated through her neurons like an electric field, flowed this way and that before finally settling down in a quiet corner of her cerebrum, quite overwhelmed by the terrible singing voice in her head. When the Research Centre broke down that afternoon, there was a gleeful squealing in her head that caused Betty Zoo to wonder if she was even human.

"Squeeeeeeeee!" It said.
"Huh?" her more founded faculties inquired.
"Wouldn't it be great if that giant chunk of concrete fell on your head?"
"I wouldn't be very pleased. I only have the one."
"But it's never happened before! It would be new and exciting!"
"I suppose you're right."

Her founded faculties were too old to put up a good argument and were too gullible, really, to have anything at all to do with guiding her actions. So she found herself standing upright, stupidly grinning at the ceiling while six stories of LulaMay Research Centre for Cancer and other Ailments collapsed around her. She was still stupidly grinning up at the sky when 20 minutes later, she was standing on a flight of stairs, with dust in her hair, the flotsam of debris at her feet, and a confused silence around her.

"Golly," said the voice as she climbed over the toppled fence, disappointed beyond all measure, "It missed!".

And there was no blaring of sirens, no panic-stricken mob and no semblance of disorder in the world as she stepped off the pavement, looked left, right and then left again, and made her way across the street. Just the plume of smoke above her head, shooting out from her ears.