Weevils, when under the skin, have a tendency to cause extreme discomfort. The type of discomfort that makes you chew large chunks of flesh from your lips and has you clenching your little fists so the knuckles press up against your skin like marbles. The main concern at the moment was that his feet were going to get infected, so he had taken off his argyle sweater and wrapped it round those tattered stumps. Looking at himself now, his legs looked just like crispy duck. He was the worse for wear and hadn't been given his rations in four days. He removed his black-rimmed spectacles and wiped them with his finger, all the while feeling those nasty little beasties burrowing under his flesh. The place stunk stale and acrid, like old crusty bacon rind. There were no guards; it would have been an unnecessary expense. He hadn't wanted to pay for guards. In fact, he thought, looking down at the straw and the shit covering his cell, he could escape, if only he wanted to. The boys would be missing him by now and the offices would be in uproar without him. The weevils were laying their eggs and making his flesh ripple with visceral excitement. He kicked his legs down onto the floor and flailed his arms, weeping and moaning. Maybe he would leave tonight and return to his offices; his wife would be wondering where he had got to; she would have made him tea. But he didn't want the meaningless pleasantries of tea; he wanted this.
     He had to sort his face out. There was no one around to see it but he hated to think of himself as being anything less than presentable. His face positively itched so he knew the skin was blotchy for a start. Adrian had very sensitive skin. In here he didn't have the skin care products that he needed. Of course it wasn't as pressing a matter as the weevils but it was still an issue.
     The hints needed to be checked. Hints were mailed to him in weekly installments and the sealed envelope had arrived. Vehemently he ripped it open, tearing out the slip of paper from inside. The words were printed in block capitals, Arial typeface. And they just said "Bath mat". "BATH MAT". He peered at the items assembled in a line at the back of the cell. He gave the items a quizzical expression. He picked up the items and rearranged them into a circle - jar of oil, feather, monkey tail, hula-ring and sea slug. No bath mat. No fucking bath mat! He panicked. Salty biting panic. Theoretically it should have been impossible to miss an inventory item, but there are always design flaws. If the bath mat was somewhere outside the cell he was screwed. Adrian didn't know whether you could 'restore' in real life. It seemed unlikely. He needed to retrace his steps. Right - firstly the lodgekeeper had been asleep with the jar of oil on the metal shelf just to his right arm. Adrian had used the feather to tickle the lodgekeeper's feet (Money Island style) causing him to knock the jar of oil off the shelf and onto the floor. He had then walked to the front of the sanitarium and used the jar of oil on the rusty iron gate. This time it hadn't squeaked. This had meant the guards weren't alerted and he was able to slip through the gate undetected. The dogs (typically ferocious, with enormous jauls and seashell eyes) were sedated with the tainted meat (again Monkey Island style, he should have gone for more diversity - although the sanitarium had been a nice touch) and the sea slug cunningly placed on east-wall window. The sea slug had attracted the bird, which had attracted the cat, which had alerted the cook. This had allowed him to sneak through into the kitchen when he had pocketed the sausages, adding them to his ever-growing list of inventory items. And now he was here. And he was meant to be here, no mistake about it, but what to do?
     The answer of course could always be the weevils - using the weevils with the motor oil. "That doesn't work," he said to himself; "That doesn't work". Besides the weevils were still in him rather than... out of him. That was the pirates' fault of course. Adrian had felt he had to have pirates in his game. And they had been scurvy mutinous dogs; who had filled him full of weevils. Ok - exaggeration - hyperbole; there were weevils and they were most certainly under his skin, but there were only a couple and, to be frank, they weren't wriggling all that much. They were fairly sedate weevils. I mean, what was this? A damnéd horror game? Because you could fuck that for a start, it was a comedy adventure game and he wasn't changing that for anyone - not even EA!
     Adrian walked over to the bars and pressed his face against them; sharp chill metal, like the sea air he had felt just weeks ago, soothed his bruised and damaged face. He was in a state and his thinking wasn't right. He glanced round again but the inventory items hadn't changed. They would never change. The hula-ring was round and colorful; the jar of oil was slick with filth; and the sea slug was positively dead. They wouldn't change. So what next? He racked his brain for memories of past adventures - an ill-fitting mesh of half-remembered puzzles and Internet walkthrus. In their heyday he had played them all - LOOM, Day of the Tentacles, Sam and Max Hit The Road, the Zork series, Monkey Island 1 2 and 3 (hadn't bothered with 4), the Police Quest series, the Space Quest series, the Kings Quest series. When he had been trudging round his office like one of Romero's zombies or half-asleep at home trying to put the kids to bed, he always knew he had an adventure game to look forward to. And why not? In a chaotic and meaningless universe it was nice to have something orderly and meaningful, like a more sophisticated jigsaw if you will. And then he had started wanting these things in the real world and that was when the trouble had started. Adrian was fed up with things not having roles; with so many things not having reason. When his father had died Adrian had spent months trying to figure it all out, trying to work out what it all meant until one day he realized that it didn't mean anything. It didn't mean diddly-squat. If you cut through the crap most of the universe didn't mean diddly-squat. In Simon The Sorcerer 2 a cat was used to gain saliva off the Eatus Felinus plant; at home the cat just grew old and got fleas.
      It frustrated Adrian that no one but him would understand the relevancy of so much of this room. It frustrated Adrian that this would only make sense to anyone who had consumed at least half of Sierra's output from the late 80s and early 90s, and a good deal of Lucasarts'. They wouldn't have even been able to get the first key puzzle. They wouldn't understand the relevancy of having a monkey's tail that was usable as a spanner; they wouldn't understand the relevancy of the leisure suit he was wearing under his argyle sweater; they wouldn't even understand the relevancy of the guys in the dog and bunny suits! His wife certainly wouldn't; neither would his kids. They were content to play on Grand Theft Auto and Driver 3 - tedious games with no story line or character development.
      So then what? Circles and constellations, circles and constellations! It got him nowhere. There was the gun. It had been sitting in the corner all this time. A long sleek black thing with effulgent metal and an open mouth. But using the gun would mark a symbolic defeat to the action genre. These weren't the early days of Sierra; it was no longer acceptable for the protagonist to die. It was a way out but it was a way out that would leave his face stuck forever in an expression of eternal dissatisfaction. He wouldn't have that.
      So then what? Try every combination...

      That was easy enough in the games. He remembered how in Day of The Tentacle it had taken 4 months of consistent pixel hunting and random use of inventory items to discover that you had to put the hamster in the freezer. He hadn't got 4 months - he would barely survive another week. Besides, this environment was not an exact replica of an adventure game - he realized that now. His quest had been impossible. Fair enough. Fair enough. The cynics and the existentialists would be happy; the children less so when they found out their daddy wasn't coming back to them. But he had to do something - it was time for him to take his turn.

Wait

Nothing happens...

Wait

Nothing happens...

Wait

Nothing happens...

Wait

Nothing happens...

There was always the weevils.