I shouldn't be telling you this, but the world needs to know the truth. If only so there is some lasting testament to all those young, idealistic men that have been lost to the cause. I'm all that remains of the fifty and I haven't got much time left. The... change has started. If that doesn't get me then it's just a matter of time before my cover slips or the government 'retire' me. So sit comfortably and listen well. This post will probably be removed fairly quickly but hopefully some will learn the truth before it casually wiped out - like the rest of my unit. In late 2009 a clandestine group of government officials met under the pretext of 'The Census Corrective Thinktank'. This group were formed by a group of like-minded individuals within the government who had stronger concerns than most about social ghetto-isation within London. Early projects were innocent enough - such as trying to curb the spread of single-speed bicycle ownership in Hoxton; One hundred practical bikes, some with up to 21 gears, were introduced to the area over the course of April and May 2010. By July 2010 the synopsis made dark reading. Yeah, a few of them got ridden on the odd occasion, but at the end of that three month period 63 bikes had been converted, 17 bikes had been removed from the area,7 destroyed and the remaining thirteen unaccounted for. The CCT just didn't learn. Operation Blerks would suffer a similar fate in East Dulwich. I was one of the fifty single males selected for operation Blerks. We were all top of the single-man game. An entire month of takeaway food wouldn't phase us, we laughed at the idea of a seven hour playstation session clothed only in underpants and scatter-cushions were something that would never find its way into our bedsits. I myself was recruited because of my specialist food skills: Being able to create a sandwich from literally any foodstuff. I'm talking pie sandwiches, last-nights-chinese sandwiches, the works. We took our mission in good faith. Proud to be working for the government we left the training camp and were slowly filtered into ED. Our cause, to re-balance the dearth of unattached menfolk in the area. The first few weeks we lost over 20% of our number. Mostly due to sloppy mistakes such as forgetting to wear the standard issue white-gold wedding band when buying meals-for-one in local shops. Schoolboy error. Others were things we couldn't have been prepared for. One of my cell members got lucky after work one night. It had been six months of enforced celibacy before that and he did what all single men find it impossible not to do in that situation - he spent the next day walking around like a man carrying two invisible pots of paint and grinning like a chimp. No one who is married ever experiences that level of smugness combined with relief and he was soon spotted in Lordship Lane. Taken to the forced marriage and breeding camps like so many others. Now it's August 2011. Again the synopsis makes dark reading. Yeah, a few of them got ridden on the odd occasion, but at the end of that period 33 singletons had been converted, 7 removed from the area, 4 destroyed and five unaccounted for. There's only me left. Last month my final contact went dark. I recently saw someone who I thought was him walking on Goose Green, wearing clothes designed for someone ten years younger than him, sporting a goatee, trendy specs and pushing a buggy. I never thought the change would get him, but it always does. It always does. I've also started noticing odd things happening within myself recently. Sometimes I'll wake up sweating, mumbling in a patronising voice, "Oedipus,don't do that to mummy...". Other days I'll wake up with a hangover and remember that at some time in the night I bought a bottle of wine. Twice its even been prosecco. Prosecco. I've found myself jogging on occasion, chopping herbs from time to time and even doing my laundry on a regular basis. The final straw is posting on the East Dulwich Forum. The place has got me; in two weeks I'll be married to a hip-mum and have two children with very individual names. Don't weep for me, I'm already lost...
