26. DOG ENDS

The PIP Assessment

The following answers to some of the questions posed in a Personal Independence Payment claims form were received from someone who considered themselves to be impaired in life by being the target of a Manhunt.

Q. Do you need help from another person to enable you to eat or drink?

A. Yes, most definitely. I need someone to dress in my clothing, heavily infused with my scent, to act as a decoy running around the streets being chased by bloodthirsty hounds while I can indulge myself in a three course meal at a restaurant relatively undisturbed. As one can imagine, anyone taking on this temporary responsibility will be requesting far above the hourly rate associated with carers.

Q. Do you need help from another person to monitor your health conditions, take medication or manage home treatments?

A. Yes, I should say so. Prior to being hunted I was a GP and was able to monitor the health conditions of all my patients without hindrance. But now it’s next to impossible. Although I can randomly access files it is of no benefit when I am in a phone conversation with a patient and they are explaining about their general lethargy for them to listen to me running at full pelt, climbing walls and overcoming other obstacles in the avoidance of my pursuers. Similarly, it’s difficult to encourage a patient worried about suicidal thoughts to embrace the good things about life and adopt a positive attitude to the day ahead when there’s a couple of dogs tearing strips off my posterior. Thus, I have reluctantly had to engage the services of a locum in my Medical Practice.

Q. Do you need help from another person to wash or bathe?

A. Yes, I very much do. One of the hunters messages me when the hounds are in their kennels and it’s safe for me to have a wash or bath without being prone to be pounced upon. The anonymous hunting informant provides this service not out of the goodness of his heart but because he doesn’t want his dogs to tick into smelly meat.

Q. Do you use an aid or appliance to go to the toilet?

A. The frequency of my bowel movements have increased exponentially since being first chased by the hounds after my blood.

Q. Do you have difficulty dressing or undressing?

A. I encounter great difficulty especially with dressing as usually the dogs have made so many holes in my clothing trying to get at me that I easily mistake which were the original holes specifically designed for me to put my arms, head and legs through.

Q. Do you use an aid or appliance to help you communicate with others.

No, not yet. But I don’t think it will be long before I do. As an erstwhile colleague of mine, who was also targeted to be hunted and succumbed to the ravaging hounds, now uses a medium based in Barry Island to communicate with us.

Q. Do you need an aid or appliance other than spectacles to read signs?

Yes, I use a telescope with the most powerful magnification available in the Argos range to look for the tell tale signs that the hounds and hunters are about to be on my trail again. It provides me with about a five mile head start. If I relied on my normal eyesight, or even the strongest NHS specs, I would barely get a quarter of a mile advantage on the barstewards.

Q. Do you find it difficult to mix with other people?

A. No, not if I agreed to participate in a mass cull of prey. The fine print on the contract warns those taking this option that their detached body parts, muscleture and fluids will become so mingled with other prey in the slaughter as to render it impossible to reassemble anyone for burial.

Q. Are you unable to go out because of severe anxiety or distress?

A. Yes, occasionally, when I am home, there are two hounds positioned on the front and back doors at night that make it very difficult for me to go out. I don’t know what their names are but it sounded like one was called Distress, or it might’ve been Duchess?

Q. Do you use a wheelchair or similar device to move around safely, reliably and repeatedly and in a reasonable time period?

A. Yes, a Chieftain Tank. I was able to safely move around in a reasonable time period using this device until the Welsh Government introduced the maximum 20 mph zones.