The Visiting Speaker

My dearest and most sympathetic of readers, I will now reveal the identity of the visiting speaker, whose company we must endure each day this week as part of a cruel torment devised by our sadistic male nurse. Rest assured that I now look back fondly to the days when our only recreation was the removal of coagulated cats' droppings from the bottom of wire cages.

This afternoon, thick-wristed male nurse Pugg Muckle, with his blunted, scabbed knuckles and his mighty belt buckles, lashed us into submission with a length of cable then he and his underlings hauled our protesting forms through to the community auditorium where they bound us to chairs with chicken wire. Laughing maniacally, he introduced us to the guest speaker, whom he had carefully chosen to offend our sensibilities and evince anguish and nausea in all residents. He then ran from the room so as not to suffer any injurious effects himself.

The visiting speaker appeared on stage clutching several manuscripts, which did not bode well for it meant that he intended to read from them for some considerable time. Dearest readers, the visiting speaker was none other than the Dundee 'street poet' Gary Robertson. He proceeded to read his work to us for upwards of an hour, either oblivious to the inmates' weeping and howling, or relishing the pain that he was able to inflict. At present, my nerves are too frayed, my hands too shaky, and my soul too despairing to permit me to relate much more of the horror I have witnessed today.

Suffice to say that one of my fellow inmates has just forced a propelling pencil into both of her ears and permanently deafened herself so that she will not have to hear anymore of Robertson's poetry tomorrow. Pugg Muckle promptly removed all such implements to prevent anyone else trying the same scam. As I write, the newly-deafened inmate sits smiling serenely, and we each look upon her with the greatest of envy.