8am

I was beginning to lose track of time as my delirium grew. It was only by virtue of my meticulous record keeping (cross referenced with my bowel chart) that I was able to say that I had been locked in the vault for sixty three hours and eight minutes. Approximately. I had been researching papers dating back to the first series of Adam Adamant Lives! when I heard the door swing shut with a bang. I am fogged as to how a draft could’ve shut a six inch thick metal blast proof door but it is literally the only explanation as to why the door closed. I was immediately plunged into darkness until I could switch on the meagre desk light upon the chief archivist’s desk. He was elsewhere thanks to a cunning scheme of mine to allow “private” research by telling him there was a n-a-k-e-d woman waiting for him on the thirteenth floor. I estimated it would take him ten minutes to get up the stairs (if he made it that far before passing out) and a further seven hours to recover from the strain and the disappointment. I had not been idle and had uncovered many fascinating documents which I would be preserving in my private collection (lest anything untoward happen to the public archive).

I had consumed all of my throat lozenges and drunk as much as I could squeeze out of the plant pots. I was on the brink of madness and feared I was not long for this world when I remembered something I’d read in “Old Captain Scoggy’s Survival Guide For Eager Boys”. He recommended eating paper as a means of staving off fatal starvation. He said as a last resort you could eat his book (though he recommended you not do that or you wouldn’t be able to move past chapter six – “Eating paper when you’re desperate” – and on to chapter seven – “Eating your fellow travellers when you’ve run out of paper”) but that other sources of paper would prove more satisfying. He gave hints and tips on how to choose the best paper to eat (“Old manuscripts must be taken with care as they are prone to dryness and may encourage you to compromise your principles in exchange for water to quench your thirst”) and even suggested ways of seasoning your paper to make a more enjoyable meal of it (“Never be tempted to add dandruff as a topping – it may look as delicious as a coconut sprinkle but it is bland and prone to be chewy. Instead, a smattering of crispy flaked skin or a bit of freshly washed hair can add texture and relish to your feast.”)

I held in my hands a sheaf of papers giving precise technical and factual details about a previously unknown and unscheduled recording session for Adam Adamant Lives! This small bundle of type written papers were all that existed to commemorate this landmark event in British television history. Future generations would only know of the existence of this unscheduled recording session if they could bear witness to these documents. Oh, I could tell people of them. “But Dennis Brent” they would say, “Where is your evidence? We can all make up stories about fictional unscheduled recording sessions.” My word would be cast into doubt, my reputation would lie in tatters. No, it would not be worth the professional scorn of my peers. The knowledge of this unscheduled recording session would die as soon as I swallowed the documents. I recalled a further tip from Old Captain Scoggy, (“If you can get your hands on some, blood is an excellent sauce to add relish to a paper meal. Rich in iron, salt and carbohydrate, blood is perfect for making your food look gay and taste delicious. Best of all, it goes equally well with paper, wood, sawdust or chicken.”)

I used my non-Swiss generic multi-bladed knife to open a small cut on the tip of a finger and squeezed a few drops onto the first page. I rubbed my finger against the paper to spread it out a bit and scraped a little of the dry skin from my left elbow onto the moist manuscript for the hell of it. If I was going down I was going down fighting. I folded the sheet in half to make a sandwich of it and took the first bite. The guilt of what I was doing mixed rancidly with the disgust of what I was doing it with and my digestion was quickly acidised. But I pressed on – determined to have my first square meal in several days. I wittily remarked that it wasn’t so much a square meal as a rectangular one but deep down I knew I was in no mood for jokes. After I’d finished I wrote my little joke down on my pad – just in case I ever had the opportunity to use it spontaneously in the future – and realised I could’ve saved myself an awful lot of guilt by eating my pad instead. I let out a desperate wail as the pangs of hunger tore through my stomach like Ian Devine through an all you can eat Taco restaurant.

You may be wondering why I had so feebly given up hope of being rescued. The answer was that, owing to a chain of circumstances I am still literally unaware of, a misunderstanding or series of misunderstandings, mistaken identities, malicious untruths, vicious falsehoods and an unfortunate social and genetic retardation of the local people, I am not the most popular man in the Bendaton area. During a maudlin evening of sherry and monochrome television I confided to Ian Devine that I feared the locals would not urinate on me were they to find me on fire.

“That is not true, Dennis Brent” said my friend, Ian Devine.

“Really?” I said, perking up almost immediately and starting to pour myself a second glass of sherry.

“Indeed, Dennis Brent, I am sure many of the local people would happily urinate on you were they to find you on fire. Though obviously they would take care not to extinguish the flames whilst doing so.”

I put the sherry bottle down and gave a deep sigh. It was almost exactly the same deep sigh as I gave in that sealed vault as I put my pad back into my satchel and stuck a small plaster over my pierced finger tip. There seemed little point battling the inevitable. I would die in that vault and no one would mourn my passing.