So I went to the theatre the other day. Not the movies, understand, the [theatre. Bit fancy I’ll grant you, but I won tickets in a radio contest (Don’t ask me what station, I’ll not tell you because if word ever gets out, well, bang there goes my rep right there). Anyway, I ended up taking a friend of a friend, Melanie, who knew about the show and wanted to go see it – she’s a drama student at one of the other unis in Perth and had a friend in the play, but I guess he’d used up his free ticket allocation or whatever. Besides, when kyle (the afore mentioned friend who is friends with Melanie) told me about her I figured - Drama student, better than average chance that she’ll be better than average looking. Good guess, incidentally, but that’s not really central to my story.
Anyway, we went to the play and it was more or less what you’d expect. I mean… there’s a reason these things were replaced by movies right? But, well, Melanie seemed to be enjoying it, so I just sort of sat there and tried to get interested. Anyway, we were halfway through the second act when, and I**** you not here, the main supporting beam fell out right above the stage and the roof caved in. Christ, I’d never seen anything like it – there were people trapped under the rubble, dust everywhere, nobody had any idea what was going on… when suddenly, everyone just hears this oice “Yes sirt, I would very much like to try your scones!”
Now, granted, that probably reads pretty weird, and it was weird at the time, but as it turned out that was the next line in the play. And the guy who’d spoken it was striding up onto the ruined stage, spouting off the next line as he went “Oh, wonderful! I shall go and get the cream right away! Would you like some tea?” And just like that, boom, everyone was enthralled or something. I dunno, it was the weirdest thing – one minute everyone’s screaming and calling the ambos and running around, and the next… everyone’s back in their seats watching what used to be a full play converted into this weird one man show.
And that was kind of when I noticed it. The guy on stage…Black cape… utility belt… Rubber torso.
Batman
“Batman! What the ****!” I yelled “There are people trapped under that ****ing rubble! What the hell are you doing!” But he ignored me. Actually, almost everyone did, except for this guy in front of me, who shushed me. People were dying under tonnes of rubble on stage and I got shushed. I tried a few more times, but in the end I just had to give up and let the show run on. Forty minutes later, final curtain call (though it lacked most of the traditional impact as the curtain had come down with most of the roof) and finally the firies and ambos were let on stage to help the people out.
Final cost was three dead, twelve serious injuries and a whole lot of bruises and scratches in the front rows. The official explanation? Earthquake. Now, I’ll admit I wasn’t the guy holding the seismometer at the time, but I’m a fourth year Geology student, and I’m fairly sure earthquakes are a lot less localized than that. And, while I’m not sure I’ve got enough evidence to accuse a super hero of a triple homicide, I will say it’s mightily suspicious that he understudy for the entire cast just happened to have access to all sorts of dangerous weapons and explosives, and the training required to make something like that look like an accident.
****ing Batman.
