A dirty hanky is all that I have left of my life before this. Its not just any hanky though it is a silk red hanky that I used to wear in my breast pocket when I would be attending the BAFTAs. It is the red silk hanky that I would use to dry the tears of laughter as I chatted to a talk show host. It was my trademark item and that is why they let me keep it.

After the pandemic struck, life became unstuck for us all. The first wave was followed by a second, then a third and then people stopped counting until a vaccine was found. The worlds population was decimated and as that happened, nature reclaimed territory after territory. The planet flourished as humanity choked on greed and ignorance.

After a few years of sorrow, laughter was something of a distant memory. As a comedic performer my skills were not really required. Nobody wanted to see a sketch about a bumbling window cleaner while the pandemic had been weed killer to all our family trees. A life of wealth had made me soft, floundering with independence in a time which required strength and guts.

Science was the new currency, and all those labs where a vaccine had been sought, they now turned their attention to the rebuilding of humanity. Science had the keys to unlocking our capacity to pull together and rebuild a human race that worked alongside nature and celebrated equality.

That was not the future though, people had become hard on the inside and suffering was a shadow that did not fade in the night. Those scientific minds that created the vaccine became drunk on the power that the vacuum of collapsed society provided. These powermongers required a new kind of entertainment that more suited the new world they were building.

That is where I came into the picture, recognised by my face despite the years of barely surviving replacing laughter lines with worry lines. I was plucked up by these new scientific oligarchs to be a star in their televised entertainment show. Not in the way I was appeared though, as that was dead; misery and suffering were the new entertainment.

So here I find myself cowering in the wood’s nettle stung ankles and black dirt under my nails clutching a spear made from the thigh bone of a horse sharpened by a rock. Out there somewhere is the genetically recreated Tyrannosaurus Rex with the voice of Joe Pasquale and little arms with big claws. If I manage to defeat this monster than I get to live a life of luxury again and the 360 cameras will put me on the big screen again. If I lose…. well then, I will die and still the people will be entertained chanting my name one last time. Most of all though whatever happens I will still have my red hanky.