Fuelled by Gossip

If you asked a Sleepy Hamleter where any rumour had started, they couldn’t rightly tell you. They could go back about two tellings but beyond that point, it was a mystery.
You see, to a villager, gossip is what they live for. It’s what binds their days; it’s what splits the village in half and it’s what brings them back together again. They know how damaging a bit of ill conceived gossip can be but they seem totally incapable of halting the juggernaut of adrenalin that courses through their veins every time a snippet of it is in the air.
A classic case of how a simple situation can be blown out of all proportion was when Mrs Markle, the village postmistress was talking with Miss Penny, the local mobile hairdresser; she was saying that a renewable energy company had approached Farmer Witcombe and asked if he’d consider having a wind farm on his land. But by the time this little snippet of juicy fresh gossip had done the rounds of Sleepy Hamlet, it had gone from what was originally stated, to a company wanting to experiment ON the village, to experiments WITH the villagers to its final and ultimate destination of a government company were surrounding Mrs Heppleheimer’s cottage, and were going to experiment on HER.
Now for those amongst you who are unfamiliar with Mrs Heppleheimer, the thought of experimenting on her was just ludicrous. No one, and I mean no one in their right mind would do anything to this mass of unstable Germanic molecules without her express permission. But never the less, a rumour has no levels of logic. So by the end of the day Mrs Heppleheimer had ensconced herself within the Cock and Bull pub and had managed to fortify it with followers, saying if anyone wanted to experiment on her, they were going to have to come and get her first.
All that night, the villagers stayed inside the pub, and because they were inside the pub, they fortified themselves with alcohol as they plotted and planned until the early hours of the morning. So by the time the first van arrived into Sleepy Hamlet, the Hamlet Freedom Fighters were pickled beyond repair: the foot soldiers were propping up the bar, the war committee were arguing over the juke box and the rear guard had passed out, somewhere in the rear.
It was eight O’clock and they were just about to order another round when Mrs. Mulliner or head of logistics as she now liked to be called, heard the sound of a van as it drove past the pub towards Hamlet Villas. Mrs Mulliner stood up quickly and immediately regretted such a rash move on top of so much alcohol, but just had enough time to warn the others of the vans arrival before slipping out of sight behind the fruit machine. As one, the Hamlet Popular Front moved to the window and spied the strange van parked outside the village stores. Mrs Heppleheimer, fuelled with alcoholic paranoia and terminal nincompoopishness, said that these were the government scientists come to get her. She convinced the Hamlet freedom fighters that the best way forward was to get out there and kidnap the government officials and keep them as prisoners of war. Common sense having long since vacated their drink addled brains, they all agreed this was a great plan and after they’d all been for a tinkle, they’d execute it
And so it was two very confused Wind Farm engineers that where suddenly swooped upon by a mass of drunken freedom fighters led by a German sounding woman of frightening proportions, wearing a world war one German helmet, shouting ‘Hands ze hoken, hands ze hoken!’ Mrs Markle, aware of how easily enflamed her fellow villagers could become, tried to calm the situation, but Mrs Heppleheimer had built them up into a near Nuremberg rally type frenzy and they were having nothing to do with conciliation. They’d won a famous victory and to the victors now came the spoils. They dragged the bemused workers out of the shop, relieving them of their spoils (2 snickers bars and a packet of smoky bacon crisps), bundled them into the van and drove off to Mrs Heppleheimer’s cottage.
It took about as long as it does for a person to sober up after an eighteen hour alcoholic binge to unravel and solve this nightmare. Once it was proved to Mrs Heppleheimer and the Hamlet Freedom Fighters that it was all a misunderstanding caused by gossip that got out of control. And only after the real story was explained, were the workers released from Mrs Heppleheimer’s underground dungeons. It was not asked why Mrs Heppleheimer had dungeons under her cottage; that was a subject best left for another day, she thought. Mrs Heppleheimer seemed happy to give up her prize without a fight, and that was a huge enough relief in itself.
After even more negotiations with the energy company, and managing to convince them that pressing charges against someone as volatile and unstable as Mrs Heppleheimer was never going to be a good idea, but that the wisest action was to turn a blind eye, the whole thing was eventually smoothed over. Mrs Markle, her diplomatic role at an end for now, went back to her village store, the villagers went back about their lives and Mrs Heppleheimer went back to whatever it was that she got up to in the dark and disturbing secrecy of Fershlugginer Cottage.
As a post script to this story, Mrs Markle received a letter from the energy company a few weeks later stating that after careful consideration and extensive viability studies, it had been decided that Sleepy Hamlet was not a suitable place for a wind farm after all. But if they ever found a way of harnessing the power of gossip, then Sleepy Hamlet could, in their opinion, fuel the entire nation.
Sleepy Hamlet ©Karl Dixon 2010