The Pillar is pushing me in a wheelchair. We’re heading toward the Palace of Westminster's entrance. This is going to be crazy.
I am wearing my tattered nightgown from the asylum, and am tucked in the wheelchair. I have my legs crossed awkwardly, and I wear one sock with a hole in it. My other foot is dirty with mud, and my hand is hanging loose to my side. To add some drama to the madness, I raise my other hand in the air, as if I am a marionette left hanging by a thread. My hair looks as if it was fried and dried, sticking out like spikes everywhere. It's topped with a flower-colored hat, the kind you put on toddlers.
The hat's laces are knitted like shoelaces around my neck, but that’s not the best part. White liquid is drizzling from my mouth. People think it's vomit, but it's actually marshmallows. I stuff my mouth with them discreetly, chew them until they are mushy enough, and then let them drizzle out from between my lips. It was the Pillar's idea.
I am doing my best not to laugh again, acting like a total loon, as the Pillar wheels me across the Parliament’s entrance. The guards stop him. They speak politely since I look pathetic and he looks like a homeless dad on a pension he's never collected.
"Good morning, government!" the Pillar salutes them. He is wearing blue overalls with nothing underneath, and big torn shoes. His peeling skin shows on his shoulder, and makes him look even worse. The tattered parts of his overalls are sewn with pieces of cloth. One of them is the badge of the Liverpool football team, the other is the flag of the United Kingdom, with the Queen smoking a hookah on it.
"Sir, you can't walk past this line," the guards are extremely considerate. The people around us aren't. Those in expensive suits are trying to get away from us as quickly as possible. People driving by are just laughing at us mad people.
The Pillar flashes out my Insanity Certificate, as if it’s a map to Treasure Island. With the bandana on his head and the silver tooth, it suits him well. "This is a certificate from the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum that my daughter is insane," the Pillar says. "She is cuckoo in the head. Loony in the Tony. Nana Banana," he begins to cry. "She is all I got." When he cries, my wheelchair shakes. He is that intense. I can't stop myself from laughing, so I drool more marshmallows to hide it. Sweet marshmallows.
"Sir," the guard repeats. "We're very sorry about your daughter. But you have to leave. This is a government building."
"I know what it is," the Pillar snaps, and flashes another paper that means nothing, probably some doctor's prescription. "This is permission to meet Margaret Kent."
"What?" the guard looks puzzled.
"My daughter is dying. She has Jub disease. It's a contagious infection that comes from tropical birds," the Pillar flaps his elbows like a bird’s wings.
The guards back away from me. I push the limits and reach for them, like a desperate beggar. "Pleath!" I plead. A woman nearby starts to sob out of pity. I am getting cramps in my stomach, from the laughs I am holding back.
"All my daughter wants before she dies is to meet Margaret Kent," the Pillar says. "This document here is permission to meet her," the Pillar exaggerates, and shows the document sideways to everyone.
Nobody cares about checking its authenticity, but the guard. When he does, I wheel myself closer to him. "Pleath, Mithter," I reach out my marionette hands again, and cough marshmallows on his legs. The guard backs off and starts to dispatch someone inside the building.
"Didn't you see us on TV?" the Pillar says. "Margaret Kent promised to see my daughter. I know Margaret Kent is a good woman. She would never let us down, right?" the Pillar is talking to the sympathizing crowd. They nod agreeably. Pity creates wonders.
A daughter of one of the observing women is licking an ice cream. I turn the wheel and stretch out my hand. "Aith Kreem!"
"I'm sorry, Madame," the Pillar says. "My daughter hasn't seen a cone this big before. You mind giving it to her?"
The woman kindly asks her daughter to give me the cone. The Pillar snatches it from her, and gives it to me as we turn to face the guards. Actually, he splashes it onto my cheeks so I look totally miserable now.
The men and women in suits start complaining about not being able to enter the building while I am blocking it. "She's got Jub Jub disease!" they yell at the guards. “And we have an important meeting we need to attend.”
“I heard Jub Jub disease is lethal,” a man in a suit and tie declares.
"Pleath Mithter," I roll toward the man. "I want to kith the ducheth." I spit out marshmallows and cherry ice cream.
A senior guard appears from inside and orders the guards to let us in. "We're not going to waste all day on this," he yells at them. "Let them in."
"Thank you." I reach for him. The man jumps back away from me.
The Pillar cries tears of happiness that we're going to see Margaret Kent, and rolls me inside. I have to admit, insanity is so much fun.
Chapter 39
Westminster Palace