Aldermann inspected the parcel which had arrived at his doorstep. Confused, and somewhat alarmed at the prospect of someone having obtained his address, he was cautious about what he was to do with it.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of him on an idle tuesday evening and he set about cutting the string that surrounded the brown paper with a small pocket-knife, as a surgeon makes an incision. The contents were laid out on the desk and inspected one by one in detail:
- A light bulb filament, extracted from the bulb intact and glued to a piece of card. Inscription on the card: “I was the last one left. I turned out the light.”
- Polaroid photographs depicting three close-up angles of a gallows, glued to the front of a popular gossip magazine to replace photographs of prominent celebrities.
- A 9x19mm shell casing, tipped with the tip of a bleached human finger-bone.
- A lock of hair, red, sealed in plastic, unknown origin.
- Twenty-four plastic tiles, each numbered in black with the exception of number ’00′, marked in red.
- An 8mm film reel. The first 250 frames of the film has been spliced to alternate between two pornographic scenes of unknown origin, frame-by-frame. The final 250 frames are a speech by a leading politician, audio has been swapped between the first half and the last half.
- A first-draft pilot of an untitled television series, which approaches the social and intellectual impact of the mass media on public opinion, set against the backdrop of the mealtime of Spot the dog.
Aldermann leaned back, considering all of the items that had been sent to him. He shook his head, trying to make sense of it all, before he realised that it might be exctly what the sender wants him to do. At that moment, he felt trapped in the sender’s web.
