My hero, the State - A short story by graham gambier

My hero, the State

A short story by graham gambier

The other day, with total disregard for my own safety or the safety of others, I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror wielding a dangerous weapon, in the form of a small pair of trimming scissors, in a selfish attempt to deny my community an employment opportunity by trimming my own beard. Btw, although I sport a beard, I am not a terrorist.

Becoming momentarily distracted, I came within a hair’s breadth of snipping my own ear with the scissors and, in my fear and anguish, I cried out to my hero, the State, to save me. Instantly, both my toaster and my fridge flashed my distress cry to my local Citizen’s Protection Centre and within two days, a multi-million dollar combat helicopter containing a heavily armed SWAT team was dispatched to my neighbour’s farm.

Unfortunately for the brave SWAT team they reluctantly had to shoot my neighbour’s three month old Jack Russell pup because it viciously attacked them when they kicked in his door at 4pm so they could throw in the stun grenades.

Even under enhanced conversation, my neighbour foolishly failed to co-operate with the peace officers by trying to deny any knowledge of the incident, which to be fair he actually had no knowledge of (but that’s irrelevant), so they carried out a thorough search of his property.

Their search revealed that one of my neighbour’s tractor tyres was underinflated, which is a serious violation his State Farming License, which left them no choice but to suspend said license, bulldoze two of his barns, and impound his livestock. He won’t commit that error again, that’s for sure.

Anyway, everything turned out fine for me thanks to the State. I didn’t actually snip my ear so no physical damage was done, and a nice lady from Citizens Protection is helping me to draft a damages claim for my PTSD against the capitalist bastards who sold me the scissors.

Also, I am hoping to pick up my neighbour’s 4x4 for a song at his upcoming bankruptcy sale. Sweet!

The only thing left to do now is to start a campaign to petition for State for scissor control regulations and State provided free barbering services, so that unfortunate incidents like this never happen again.

Thank you State for being there for me.