Oliver Benjamin
Roy saw that he would not be able to leave this new home, this
prison, this mortal gaol. Colin’s words were superfluous. He hardly
heard them. Undergrounds gone. Leona dead. Izzy disappeared.
There was something them taking a beach holiday, but it was all
Greek to him. An inexplicable oddity did manage to shake him out of
his torpor.
“Who the hell are you?” Roy said. It was obvious. Impossible, but
obvious.
“Sammie Davis Jr.,” the man introduced himself. “With an i-e,
that is.”
“That is,” Roy said.
“We’re gonna get you out of here Roy,” Bennie promised, “We’re
working on it.”
“Sorry about Undergrounds,” Colin said. “And Leona. And Izzy.
Oh, and Sprout and Yak, too. Martin…Partment…Niles…”
They all looked at each other in unhidden bewilderment. What a
laundry list of destroyed lives. A massacre of the innocents. How
could they all be so cursed? A heavy silence fell upon the bunch. Only
Sammie Davis seemed unstung by the evil eye.
“Don’t worry, chickybabies,” he tooted, “I’ve been through hard
times before, but like David before the ark, I’ve always managed to
dance my way out of it. You know, I could sit here and tell you to keep
your chin up and wish the clouds away. To smile and let the whole
world smile with you. To pin your hopes upon a dream. But I won’t.
That’s because words only go so far…”
“Thank God for small blessings,” Roy said.
“… and I could really say it all so much better with a song.” He
stood up, perpetrated a little soft shoe and sang:
Who can take a rainbow?
Wrap it in a sigh?
Soak it in the sun?
And make a groovy lemon pie?
The candyman can,
Cause he mixes it with love
To make the world taste good…
It didn’t last long; the guards threw him out. They kicked out Bennie
and Colin too and sent Roy back to his cell.
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