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The Adventures of Lynne Douglas

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Journey to the Centre of the Earth | Plight of the Mousemat | Tarot of Death

Downward Spiral of Lynne Douglas | Redemption of the Death Squad | Beyond the Sunderdome

The Downward Spiral of Lynne Douglas

Upon departing from the train Lynne considered the unsuccessful nature of her holiday to Blackpool, she thought to herself that it had been even less successful than her stint of selling tweed curtains to schoolteachers – this sent a shudder down her spine. Far from coming back relaxed she had returned as a knotted sandwich with half the filling already falling out before the packet has been opened.
“I can’t face it anymore!” She screamed, throwing her executive travel case at an unfortunate passer-by and launched herself onto the train tracks.

It was a few minutes before a man came over and told her that the lines weren’t carrying any electric current and therefore her folly was far beyond pointless. In a gesture of irony she found that her executive travel case had knocked the unfortunate man into the path of an oncoming train and his remnants were now travelling to Birmingham at 100mph. She decided that the best course of action would be to scarper in case the cops fingered her for the man’s murder, as this was her third offence and under new laws the punishment would be either guillotine or hanging. Although she had just tried to end her life she wanted the pleasure of ending it herself, no executioner would get one over on her! Her swamped mind began to wander, ‘This has been a rather shocking morning, not only have I committed a murder, failed a suicide attempt, returned from the most stressful holiday in the history of mankind, but I have also lost my irreplaceable executive travel case that I won on Bullseye in the 80’s and along with it my supply of souvenir shortbread!’

Back in Heywood things weren’t much better as they had just re-introduced the Guinea as their currency and the bureau de change had closed at 4:00 sharp and she needed to buy some more shortbread before returning to her workhouse. All of a sudden she heard a ringing noise coming from her pocket; she pulled out a phone and considered the peculiarity of the situation, as she used carrier pigeons and therefore didn’t own a mobile phone.
“Hello, Lynne Douglas speaking how may I help you?”
“Hello Lynne”, came back the nocturnal voice at the other end, “We have been awaiting your return.”
Lynne puzzled, “Who is this…Master Crow? Mr Giblin? Niles from Ash Residential?”
“No Lynne I am from the Readers Digest. I must say we are very concerned about you. We were rather troubled to say the least when we heard about your suicide attempt this morning.”
“I suppose it was quite unprofessional of me”, replied Lynne mournfully.
“Quite so Lynne, as any regular Readers Digest reader knows, all major train stations in the UK use overhead power lines, only tube trains and shitty local railway lines that don’t use diesel trains have electric flowing through the track!”
“I must confess I have fallen behind a little of my reading of the Digest”, admitted Lynne.
The voice on the phone became cheerful now as if he’d just won a three-legged race at sports day, “Well it’s your lucky day! We’d like you to write an article for us as we’re going to send you on a trip to Mars in our new Readers Digest 1950’s kitsch style rocket and on your way you can catch up on your reading.”
Ecstatic Lynne shouted, “I have a reason to live!”

Travelling through space at 300 million miles per hour in the dynamic space rocket Lynne had managed to catch up on her reading and was now only one issue behind. They had sent a man with her to pilot the craft, she didn’t know his name but she knew he was from Delauneys Road and that was good enough for her. Lynne had also insisted that the rocket should be powered by a team of malnourished peasants rather than by conventional fuels and the Readers Digest were only too happy to oblige.

The touchdown passed without incident and Lynne was now fully up to date on her reading. She bounded out of the rocket and onto the planet’s surface.
A many-headed creature popped up from behind a space boulder and gargled at her. Seeing this Lynne instinctively blasted a hole in its spine with the raygun she’d been provided with.
“Shoot first, ask questions later”, she commented to herself as she watched the defenceless creature squirm in agony. Surveying the landscape she noticed that the ground wasn’t actually red it was more of a blue colour, it reminded her of the Tissot Navy drapes she made in the workhouse in Heywood.
“Hold on a minute”, she said to the pilot, “This isn’t Mars its Venus.”
Jut then a carrier pigeon flew towards her, dropped of its note and then shat on the rocket’s porthole window. She opened the note and read it aloud, “Congratulations Lynne you have expertly identified the difference between two planets of our solar system. This must mean that you are now up to date with your reading and full to the brim once more with trivial knowledge that could one day save your life. Now please write your 5000-word article and submit it to the Readers Digest editor Mr Drinkwater. P.s – Despite his name his occupation is not drinking water, he really is the editor! It was a shock to me too!”

As soon as she had bought some souvenir shortbread from the shop they set off for home in the rocket. On the way she ate the pilot for no particular reason, steered the rocket through a deadly asteroid belt and then intentionally crashed the rocket into the Rochdale canal leaving it amongst some submerged shopping trolleys. “Lets hope they forget about the article because I really can’t be bothered writing it right now, I’m brim full of information and facts…I’m going to go on another adventure!” She shouted in delight whilst stuffing her face with shortbread, “All in all everything’s turned out quite well.” Just then one of her arms unexpectedly fell off.

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