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'I'm … I'm afraid so, my dear,' he faltered.
'Why?' I asked, stalling for time.'
'We need the … need the—'
'For Panjandrum's sake get on with it!' snapped Mrs Passer-by, who seemed to be the chief instigator of all this, 'I need my emotional fix!'
'Wait!' I said. 'You're after emotion?
'They call us Sentiment Junkies,' said Mr Townsperson nervously. 'It's not our fault. We are Generics rated between C-7 and D-3; we don't have many emotions of our own but are smart enough to know what we're missing.'
'If you don't kill her, I shall!' mumbled Mr Rustic, tapping my 'husband' on the elbow. He pulled away.
'She has a right to know,' he remarked. 'She is my wife, after all.'
He looked nervously left and right.
'Go on.'
'We started with humorous one-liners that offered a small kick. That kept us going for a few months but soon we wanted more: laughter, joy, happiness in any form we could get it. Thrice-monthly garden fetes, weekly harvest festivals and tombola four times a day were not enough; we wanted … the hard stuff.'
'Grief,' murmured Mrs Passer-by, 'grief, sadness, sorrow, loss – we wanted it but we wanted it strong. Ever read On Her Majesty's Secret Service?'
I nodded.
'We wanted that. Our hearts raised by the happiness of a wedding and then dashed by the sudden death of the bride!'
I stared at the slightly crazed Generics. Unable to generate emotions synthetically from within the confines of their happy rural idyll, they had embarked upon a systematic rampage of enforced weddings and funerals to give them the high they desired. I looked at the graves in the churchyard and wondered how many others had suffered this fate.
'We will all be devastated by your death, of course,' whispered Mrs Passer-by, 'but we will get over it – the slower the better!'
'Wait!' I said. 'I have an idea!'
'We don't want ideas, my love,' said Mr Townsperson, pointing the gun at me again, 'we want emotion.'
'How long will this fix last?' I asked him. 'A day? How sad can you be for someone you barely know?'
They all looked at one another. I was right. The fix they were getting by killing and burying me would last until teatime if they were lucky.
'You have a better idea?'
'I can give you more emotion than you know how to handle,' I told them. 'Feelings so strong you won't know what to do with yourselves.'
'She's lying!' cried Mrs Passer-by dispassionately. 'Kill her now – I can't wait any longer! I need the sadness! Give it to me!'
'I'm Jurisfiction,' I told them. 'I can bring more jeopardy and strife into this book than a thousand Blytons could give you in a lifetime!'
'You could?' echoed the townspeople excitedly, lapping up the expectation I was generating.
'Yes – and here's how I can prove it. Mrs Passer-by?'
'Yes?'
'Mr Townsperson told me earlier he thought you had a fat arse.'
'He said what?' she replied angrily, her face suffused with joy as she fed off the hurt feelings I had generated.
'I most certainly said no such thing!' blustered Mr Townsperson, obviously feeling a big hit himself from the indignation.
