Mr Benn's Breakdown

Mr Benn walked down Festive Road. A crushing weight on his shoulders. A dark menacing creature hovering above him. He walked past the children playing on bikes and scooters, flying kites at ridiculously low altitudes, skipping and laughing. Jollity all around, whilst the normally happy tune that accompanied him in his head sounded as if it had been reworked in Minor keys with occasional discordant eruptions.

Was any of this real? He struggled to remember where he'd been. He knew where he was going - the sanctuary of his living room. The door shut firmly on Festive Road, curtains drawn. Hell in private is the best he could aspire to at this moment. That's where he was going.

But where had he been? Flashes of images appeared to him, seemingly synchronised with the discordant eruptions in the music in his head. The music - usually jolly and bouncy - was fast becoming a nightmarish cacophony. Images of a hideous old man, strangely attired, offering him a selection of costumes. Yes! He remembered.The Shopkeeper!

The Shopkeeper was behind this.

He got to his door and fumbled for his keys becoming desperate as the keys refused to enter the lock. They seemed to big for the lock. They were to big for the lock! Much too big. These keys were huge keys the size of his hand, on a rusty old chain.

These were the wrong keys.

He found the right keys in the pocket of his now crumpled and vomit sodden trousers and tried them in the door.

These keys fitted.

He opened the door, almost dived into the hallway, slammed the door shut behind him and leant against it breathing heavily.

The cacophony had stopped.

Sweet silence.

Mr Benn looked at the enormous keys attached to a rusty chain around his waist. A feeling of nausea rose within him for the second time this afternoon.

Mr Benn vomited onto the swiss cheese plant .

Holding the giant keys in his sticky puke-coated hands he watched pieces of what he ate drip from the leaves of the plant. It was at this point that he realised that they were keys to the buried treasure chest on Pirate Island.

But that's all he could recall.

These keys, a souvenir of his adventures.

On the floor of his hallway, in grey half light, Mr Benn sobbed into his swiss cheese plant.