The Man Who Wasn't There

There are many mysteries in life: where do all the paperclips go to? how much wood would a woodchuck chuck? why is Adam Sandler? Yesterday, there was a new mystery to add to this number: where, on the day the Nyesti Party was launching it's "fightback"(1) on the economy, was the party's once-highly-esteemed Shadow Finance Minister, Geroj Skweeki?

As readers may be aware, Mr Skweeki was once beloved of his party and much of the media and seen as a potential rival to his old friend, party leader Bambi Nottinill. This however, was in the days before he chose to pit himself against the eminence-noire of the governing Krep Party, Piotr, now Horz, Kreepiman by indiscreetly passing on details of his Horzship's favourite over-dinner conversation(2). I need not go into details of the revenge exacted, save to say that it was swift and that Mr Skweeki now finds himself a pariah, scared to show even his face for fear of the mockery it might elicit.

Still, I am happy to say that, while other journalists were hunting high and low for any sign of Mr Skweeki - perhaps walled-up with the amontillado casks at Nyesti Party central office, or suddenly "volunteered" for top-place on the iron-maiden-cleaning rota - this humble scribe had already unearthed the truth of the situation. I can exclusively reveal that the erstwhile darling of the Nyestis is currently confined to the cellar of a well-known Albian hostelry, there to remain until such time as he is no longer an embarrassment to himself or his party. Which cellar it may be I cannot say but I can reveal that he snores something dreadful and has an irritating tendency to take all the duvet ... much to the irritation of, say, any misunderstood journalist who might happen to be hiding out in the same location.

(1) in this case, fightback should be understood as executing a rapid, if somewhat inelegant, U-turn on all those pledges of support for the government "during these difficult economic times" it made when it looked like the government's coat-tails were the place to find votes.
(2) namely the fact that Horz Kreepiman's dear comrade and now boss, Bragdny Door, was, in his Horzships opinion, "a socially maladapted waste of skin with all the abilities of an unusually backward amoeba".