Jackpot Jack: A London Farce. Tatiana Bazhan

pain persists, don't be a grouch,

      Another pill will do the touch!”

      Jack stared, mouth agape, like a landed fish. “Cor blimey,” he muttered. “A prescription in poetry? What is this, some sort of medical pantomime?”

      The doctor merely chuckled, a sound like gravel gargling. “Just take your medicine, Jack. And mind how you go. We don’t want you back here with a broken arm, wanting a limerick for a splint.” And with that, Jack, prescription in hand, left the room, utterly bewildered, yet strangely … amused. The whole affair was as bizarre as a badger wearing a bowler hat.

      Chapter 10: A Leg Up, Or A Rip-Off?

      Jack emerged from the doctor’s room with his leg encased in the plaster cast that he thought resembled nothing so much as a hefty, off-white cricket bat. He hopped awkwardly into the corridor, a veritable parade of the infirm and the fidgety, and cast about for a soul to engage. The silence was a heavy blanket, stifling and unbearable. He needed to verbalise, to pontificate, to generally air his frankly rather nonsensical views on … well, anything.

      Finally, his eye landed upon a gentleman leaning heavily on a walking stick, his face etched with the kind of weary resignation one often finds on the faces of pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Here, Jack thought, was an audience, however captive.

      “Remarkable, isn't it?” Jack proclaimed, his voice a tad too loud for the confined space. “The wonders of modern medicine! Just yesterday, I was practically crippled. Today? Well, I'm practically crippled differently! It's a miracle, I tell you, a blessed miracle!” He beamed, the picture of optimism despite his precarious one-legged stance.

      The gentleman with a walking stick merely raised a weary eyebrow. “Indeed,” he mumbled, his voice as dry as a forgotten biscuit.

      Jack, undeterred, continued his monologue. “Although …” He paused, his brow furrowing as a scandalous thought, like a mischievous gremlin, began to tickle his brain. “Although, one does wonder, doesn't one? Is it truly a miracle, or … is it all a charade? A cunning scheme to bleed us dry, orchestrated by people in white coats with stethoscopes dangling like hypnotist's pendulums!” The thought bloomed in his mind, a monstrous, albeit ridiculous, flower.

      He leaned closer to the man, lowering his voice conspiratorially, though not quite low enough. “I mean, what if they're all at it, the whole lot of 'em? Exaggerating ailments, prescribing unnecessary treatments … extortion, pure and simple!”

      However, what came out of his mouth next was rather profound. He straightened up, his eyes gleaming with righteous indignation. “What we need is to lock up these doctors who take bribes!”

      The gentleman blinked. “If you jail all the doctors who take bribes, who will be left to treat us?”

      Jack recoiled, his face a mask of utter horror. The world suddenly seemed to tilt on its axis. He hadn't considered that! The abyss of doctor-lessness opened up before him, a horrifying vista of untreated ailments and galloping diseases.

      He stared at the man, then, in a moment of epiphany, a solution so blindingly obvious it made him feel quite faint.”'I know!” he declared, his voice filled with sudden and utterly misplaced conviction. “I shall simply never be ill again! That's it! Genius, pure genius!”

      And with that, Jack puffed out his chest and, forgetting entirely about his cumbersome cast, attempted to stride confidently down the corridor. He promptly lost his balance, flailing wildly before crashing into a nearby trolley laden with bedpans, creating a cacophony of clattering porcelain and startled cries. But even as he lay sprawled amongst the debris, a beatific smile remained plastered on his face. He was, after all, a genius. Or so he thought.

      Chapter 11: Crutch And The Cryptic Crumb

      Jack was in a state of positively radiant self-satisfaction. An idea, a veritable Archimedean lever of thought, had taken root in his brain, promising to shift the very foundations of … well, something undoubtedly impressive. He practically glowed with the genius of it all. This glow, however, was rudely interrupted by a rumbling, a grumbling complaint from the depths of his very being. His stomach, a notoriously unreliable barometer of his intellectual fervour, declared a state of emergency. He hadn't eaten a thing all morning, lost as he was in the labyrinthine corridors of his own brilliance!

      But duty called, or rather, hobbled. He needed a crutch. A magnificent, supportive friend, to replace his particularly enthusiastic hopping session. Yet, the siren song of his growling stomach proved too powerful to resist. With a sigh that echoed his inner turmoil, he limped into the nearest establishment, a café that looked as inviting as a damp dishrag but promised salvation in the form of edible sustenance.

      Inside, the atmosphere was thick with the aroma of stale coffee and quietness. A waiter, whose smile stretched across his face like an elastic band about to snap, approached with the menu. Jack eyed him with suspicion. This smile, this too-friendly demeanour, reeked of conspiracy! He was convinced the man was a shark in a waistcoat, plotting to foist upon him the most overpriced, or worse, the most questionable offering on the menu. A dish, perhaps, concocted from leftovers scavenged from bins with a dash of something utterly unmentionable.

      “Good morning, sir!” the waiter chirped, his voice as bright as a brass button. “What can I get for you?”

      Jack, determined to outwit this culinary conman, narrowed his eyes. “Just … just some plain biscuits and tea,” he declared, his voice a masterpiece of wary caution. “Nothing fancy. Nothing … adventurous.”

      “Biscuits and tea it is, sir!” The waiter, seemingly unfazed by Jack's apparent paranoia, scribbled on his pad. “Will that be digestive biscuits, rich tea biscuits, shortbread biscuits …?”

      “The plainest biscuits you have – nothing “rich”, nothing “digestive”, nothing that might cause … unforeseen consequences?” Jack interrupted with a grimace.

      “Nothing plain as it gets, sir!” the waiter responded, the smile not lessening. “Right away!”

      Jack watched him go, convinced he had narrowly avoided a culinary catastrophe. He decided the café was a viper's nest- a place where the unsuspecting were lured in with promises of comforting food, only to be subjected to overpriced delicacies. All he needed was a spot of tea and a couple of biscuits – enough to sustain his genius until he could find a proper crutch. His brilliance, after all, required fuel, even if that fuel was as bland and unassuming as a plain biscuit.

      Chapter 12: The Perils Of A Biscuit-Fuelled Discourse

      Jack, was whiling away a dreary afternoon in “The Crumby Cup,” the name which was, alas, according to him, a tad too accurate. He believed he was nursing a cup of lukewarm tea and gnawing on a biscuit of dubious freshness, his gaze wandering about in that aimless fashion peculiar to the profoundly bored. Solitude, for Jack, was a foe to be vanquished, preferably with a generous helping of conversation, no matter how inane.

      His eyes, like a moth drawn to a flickering candle, landed upon a gentleman at the adjacent table. The gentleman, a stout figure with a neatly trimmed beard and an air of quiet observation, seemed, to Jack's addled mind, the perfect target for a bit of idle chatter. Little did Jack suspect that this seemingly unassuming chap was none other than Mr. Grimshaw, the café's proprietor, a man who knew his establishment and its inhabitants as intimately as the wrinkles on his own brow.

      “Rather slow service today, wouldn't you say?” Jack began, his voice a touch too loud, like a foghorn in a teacup. Mr. Grimshaw merely nodded, his eyes twinkling with an amusement that Jack, in his blissful ignorance, completely missed.

      “That waiter, now,” Jack continued, emboldened by the lack of immediate protest. “A bit of a dim bulb, eh? Seems the sort who'd struggle to boil an egg, let alone hold down a proper job. Destined for mediocrity, I'd wager. Utterly, irredeemably … underwhelming.” He punctuated this with a