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In the darkness she could almost convince herself she was somewhere good, with buttercups and kittens and other assorted happy bullcrap, but then the lights came on and she shielded her eyes, waiting for the onslaught.
"SO!" Maggie barked, spraying her prisoner's face with spit. Maggie the Maladjusted. A nutter in all the ways you could imagine, but most well-known for her treatment of intruders on her property. If you could call it property – she lived in a weatherbeaten shack halfway up a mountain. "Thought you'd play a little game did you, you complete b*****d? I'll not be able to get another meal for months! Unless I chop you up, in which case i'd be set for a while. Your fingers, the starter, the forearms for the main course, oh and I mustn't forget to call Ringo and have him bring up the Christmas decorations, the palace is looking a tad grey – "
She was getting pretty good at phasing it out. She registered the comment about Ringo, though. This mysterious man had never visited the shack in the six months since she'd been dragged here – he may once have genuinely been a fixture in Maggie's life, but she strongly doubted it. If it was true that he'd left to seek his fortune as a paperback writer, well, good for him.

"ROCK AND ROCK AND ROLL RADIO, LET'S GO! ROCK AND ROCK AND ROLL RADIO, LET'S GO!"

She was stirred from her thoughts with a jolt – too many times, she'd been disturbed in the middle of flights of fancy by the strains of the Ramones floating through the walls. That crazy old hermit Roger had initially got her hopes up with his musical taste, but after six months of almost non-stop Ramones songs playing at full volume, she was getting tired of it. To the best of her knowledge, there wasn't even any source of electricity nearby, so how he managed to keep a stereo going was beyond her.

"ROCK AND ROCK AND ROLL RADIO, LET'S GO! ROCK AND ROCK AND ROLL RADIO, LET'S GO!"

Against her will, she found herself mouthing along, "This is rock'n'roll radio. Stay tuned for more rock'n'roll." Then, spurred on by a sudden burst of feverish strength and rage, she lunged at the Maladjusted and battered her with clenched fists.
"Get off me, you complete b*****d, I won't be able to hear the door when Ringo arrives, go and sit back on your newspaper!" Maggie screeched, trying futilely to shake the girl from her vicelike grip on her hunchback.
The complete b*****d didn't get off. She persisted, used nails and teeth and hair in the battle, biting and tearing until all that was left of the Maladjusted was…a really pissed off old woman. "WHAT ARE YOU PLAYING AT, YOU COMPLETE b*****d! I'M TOO OLD FOR THIS KIND OF TOMFOOLERY!"
TCB responded in the only way she knew how – she gave her captor one last forceful kick, as forceful as possible with bare, frostbitten feet, and lunged at the door. It was hanging off its hinges, and therefore didn't present much of a problem. TCB took a deep breath of the bitingly cold air and looked up at Roger's cottage, nestled on a ledge above. She registered with alarm and joy that Devo's "Mecha-Mania Boy" had come on. TCB danced wildly in the snow, throwing her arms left and right, until she collapsed from exhaustion and hunger. She had to drag herself the 20 feet up to the cottage with her frozen, near-useless fingers. When she finally reached the door, a much sturdier, more intact model than the one she'd exited through, she fell against it and just managed to scream out, "LET ME IN, YOU COMPLETE b*****d!" before slumping to the ground in a faint.
When she awoke, Roger was leaning over her with a syringe in his hand and a devilish glint in his eye.
"Now, what the ******** do you plan on doing with that?" she cried, aghast, leaning up in preparation for severely beating him about the face and neck.
"I'm a heroin addict," he replied flippantly, sticking the needle into his arm as she watched.
"Well, just so long as you are." She went over to the stereo. It was "Manic Depression" by Jimi Hendrix. "This is probably my third favourite Hendrix song," TCB announced to her rapt audience – Roger, almost passed out by the stove, and a small goat who'd wandered in some time ago to watch What's New, Scooby Doo?
"I never much cared for Jimi Hendrix," sneered the goat, eyes still fixed on Velma (who conveniently waited, as usual, until after she'd removed the villain's mask to announce his identity to the Scooby gang). "It's all noise to me. I do, however, find the music of Wham! to be endlessly poetic and stirring."
TCB considered this for a moment, and a strange sense of calm flooded over her. It was as though her body floated across the room of its own accord and attempted to sever the goat's head with the CD case. Shaking himself free from her grasp, the goat spat out a cracked, bloody tooth onto Roger's inert body. Tonguing the gap where the tooth had been, the goat stared up at TCB with equal parts disgust and rage. "You complete b*****d!"
Just as the goat was lowering his head and preparing to charge his attacker, the Maladjusted burst in and surveyed the ransacked cottage, her eyes darting between TCB and the goat. "Whatever you do, don't tell her what you think of the Clash. We had a visitor last week who was a big Barry Manilow fan, and the carnage was akin to that scene in Antz where Z, voiced by Woody Allen, is the only survivor, and he then goes on to be rewarded by that big burly evil guy for being a brave, heroic soldier, but because of his hanging around with all the really high-up ants in the colony he overhears their plans to kill off all the low-down ants in the colony and take over, and he becomes embroiled in a complex plot to save their lives and overthrow the government, and there's a kind of ant revolution – no wait, it's not like Antz at all."
The goat raised a goaty eyebrow in distaste. "Well I must say, I never much cared for the Cl – AAAARRRRGHGGGHHHHH!"

Grace leaned back in her computer chair and pondered whether it was worth making a trip to the 24-Hour Tesco for some 36p Shrek-themed pasta shapes in tomato sauce. "On second thoughts, I'll just not eat anything for a bit."

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