Diary of a terribly good-looking fugitive

(Published in Business Standard on July 13, 2013)


May 1, 2011

Dear Diary,
I’m soooo bored. I’ve paced around the vegetable patch so often, it’s starting to put me off my food. I can hardly bear to watch my own threats to the United States on loop anymore—and that’s saying something. Things have fallen into a rut. Frankly, if I watch Debbie Does Dallas one more time, I may never be able to get it up again.

Sometimes, I swear upon the Almighty, I would kill to just be able to take a walk down the street, though of course, I’m happy to kill for less than that. You cannot begin to understand the frustration of being the most awesome villain of the 21st century, stuck on the third floor of this whacking great house in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing I hate worse than a low profile.

And when I’m looking so good! Thank you, Just For Men. Laugh all you like, but grooming is a terrific pick-me-up. I’m sexier than ever with the grey gone, diabetes under control, three frisky wives, and that herbal viagra—and I can’t be seen in public. Grrrr. It puts one in a mood.

Of course, the fact that I’m here at all, living in the middle of an army that is busy hunting for me, means that I could probably cartwheel down the street in a bikini without incident. I actually did that once, in the reckless early years, but they didn’t see me. Once I walked up to an army colonel and tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Hey, which celebrity do I look like?” but he just looked the other way while whistling. Odd country. One day they’re going to ask a lot of questions.

Once, more recently, our car was stopped for speeding and the policeman had words with my driver. I had to hunch my back and tell myself: ‘Make yourself ugly, make yourself ugly!’ The Almighty must have heard me, because despite my being tall and so freakishly handsome, the idiot failed to recognise me. That was too close, though, so now I don’t put one single seductive black hair out the door.

I hope posterity will remember my good looks. I’m thinking of filming myself not speaking, just looking into the camera, maybe pouting and batting my eyelids, just so that all this beauty does not go unwitnessed and unrecorded. Sometimes, watching footage of myself makes me a tiny bit aroused. Speaking of naughty movies, at first I wasn’t sure that the Almighty would approve of watching porn, but given that paradise is about deflowering virgins, I’m going with the theory that sex is okay.

I look like a real cupcake in my cowboy hat—one of the few cultural items for which the infidels can be congratulated. It looks positively rakish. Goes with my rake-like physique. Ha ha! See, just because I’m seriously ill doesn’t mean I don’t have a sense of humour. Humour saves me from going all-out nuts. The other day one of my wives hoped that all the death and destruction was worth my children growing up without friends, in what I felt was a sarcy tone, so I fashioned a whoopee cushion out of the skin of a goat the van brought, and put it on her chair. Oh, how I laughed! A less good-looking man might have broken by now. But I keep myself brimful of dastardly plots, I keep a mirror handy, and I write my feelings down here.

It’s very late, must turn in. Tomorrow I have the regular chinwag with the Pakist—I mean, I have to see a man about a dog. Good night, dear Diary.

PS: I think there’s a rainstorm coming. Yay!