CBAL-Literacies

 

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   by  CATHY BARNETT

I was sitting having a drink in the 'King and Queen' minding my own business when this man sat at the next table with a drink. After we were in the pub a long while, we started to talk about different things for a while, then this perfectly ordinary man started to scream with pain. "Help me, please help me!", shouted the man. His skin began to melt right in front of me.
      I was shocked and felt helpless as I didn’t know what to do. The other people just ran out of the pub. I just stared at him. First his hair fell out, then his skin melted, his eyes fell out, then I saw his clothes fall to the ground. There was nothing left of him apart from the skull and skeleton bones. I asked at the bar for another drink and asked what could have caused this to happen. No one could tell me. I left the bar and went towards the skeleton and clothes. I looked through the pockets of the jacket and found a wallet with some identification. To my surprise the name on the card was Dr Harold Jackson from the lab at the Scientific Institution, which was only two miles away from the pub. I left the 'King and Queen' got into my car and drove. Everything was too quiet.
      I approached the guards at the gate and asked for a Dr Harold Jackson. They told me to wait. They went to a phone then came back and asked who wished to know. I told them that I was Dr Benjamin Clark come to see Dr Jackson as he was expecting me, but they told me that Dr Jackson had left the institution about half an hour ago to go home. I asked if they knew his home address, but it was forbidden to give that kind of information and they asked me to leave. I about turned and drove one mile and stopped. I just could not leave it at that.
      The next morning I went back to the institution and asked the guards again. They phoned, but this time when I told them who I was they came back and told me that Dr Jackson was at the third building on the left. I was shocked when I met Dr Jackson as he was the same man that I had met in the 'King and Queen'.
     I tried to act as if nothing had happened. My mind would not let me be. Suspicion got the better of me. When it got dark, I went back, but did not go passed the guards. I found some other way in. I had to find out what was happening and why. I know Dr Jackson was working on some experiment which he wanted to tell me and show me, but now I did not know if this was the real Dr Jackson or not. I had to find out.