First They Came For The Vulnerable

In a land far, far…….too close for comfort actually, there was a village called Vulnerable.

None of the citizens of Vulnerable had chosen to live here; none of them had been guests on ‘Location, Location, Location’ and had found themselves living in idyllic splendor. Some of them had been born in Vulnerable and some of them had found themselves living in the village later in life.

The villagers of Vulnerable got along reasonably well with the other people who lived in the land, to be honest, for the most part, the other people who lived in the land didn’t seem to notice the people who lived in Vulnerable. Except for those of course who had someone they loved or cared about living in the village.

One day the villagers of Vulnerable heard a beating of leathery wings, the sky darkened, lightening flashed across the heavens and the sunlight was blocked from view by the approach of a fearsome and terrifying dragon. The dragon snarled and licked its rubbery lips as it landed in the village and declared with a roar that this was where it would be building its nest.

Unfortunately for the villagers the dragon had decided to build its nest in the cave at the far end of the village from whence flowed a spring which gave sustenance to the villagers.

The villagers soon felt the dragon’s presence. By day it would beat its leathery wings as it flew over the village looking for glittering treasures it could take back to the nest. The villagers soon found the flow of the spring lessened, and that which still flowed had become diverted and no longer provided nourishment and sustenance as it had before the dragon had come to build its nest.

By night the villagers heard the terrifying noise of the beating of leathery wings as other dragons came to visit the dragon who had built his nest in the village of Vulnerable. They heard the clinking of champagne glasses as the dragons toasted the good fortune of the dragon, Osborne, who had built his nest on their spring. They heard they noise of the forge firing up night after night as Osborne smelted down the treasures he had stolen from the villagers.

One morning they woke to discover that Dignity had been stolen from them and that very night they heard the guffawing and roaring of Osborne’s fellows as they congratulated him on taking this prize.

Over the course of weeks the spring slowly dried up, Support was stolen from the villagers one day; they woke up on another day to find the very bread had been taken from their mouths and on another the roofs stolen from over their heads, Respect had long ago been smelted down in Osborne’s forge.

The villagers were petrified, they appealed to the people in the other towns and villages surrounding them but to largely no avail.

You see, the village of Vulnerable was largely invisible to everyone else. And even those who were able to see them, had been hypnotised by Osborne’s fellow, an elderly dragon called Murdoch who had drip fed the people stories of those living in Vulnerable as thieves  who stole from the rest of the land, who fed on its life blood.

Murdoch had poisoned the minds of the rest of the country; most people were indifferent to the suffering of those living in Vulnerable. Why they were all benefit thieves and dirty rotten scroungers weren’t they? Everyone KNEW that they had CHOSEN to live in Vulnerable, living the high life on the backs of the good, hardworking citizens of the rest of the land.

They were just glad that the good dragon Osborne had come to save them from the evil citizens of Vulnerable, that he would divert their ill-gotten gains to the rest of the land. They were just thankful that those of Vulnerable would be put to work at long last, why; they’d been enjoying lives of luxury for decades with their Disability Living Allowance and Incapacity Benefits! It was TIME they were made to work like the rest of the land; it was time they learned to contribute instead of stealing and pretending to be sick to fund their lives of wealth, motability cars and 42” televisions. They knew this was true because the good dragon Murdoch with his strangely glittering and avaricial eyes had told them so.

The villagers of Vulnerable grew increasingly afraid as the citizens of the rest of the land grew ever more hostile toward them. For a short time the villagers were too afraid to move, to protest their fate but as Osborne grew ever greedier as he ravaged Vulnerable and added to his nest of gold, tears and charred wood, they began to plan.

The villagers realised that as individuals, they could not be heard or even seen. The other citizens of the land knew of them by rumour but had rarely actually noticed them.

The villagers began to talk and plan, they realised that together, although sometimes broken of body and mind, together they were strong, and together they could be a mighty force.

They were creative, the villagers of Vulnerable, they told their stories, sung their songs and painted their artworks. Although Murdoch’s magic was strong, the message of the villagers of Vulnerable began to penetrate the consciousness of the rest of the land, slowly the citizens of the land began to wake up and the malevolent, hypnotic magic gradually began to lose its grip.

This tale hasn’t yet had its happy ending. Osborne continues to swoop and steal the treasures from the village of Vulnerable. He continues to gather with his cronies and gloat over his loot, his next target is DLA, although this is precious little to Osborne in the grand scheme of things, it is the difference between life and no life for some of the villagers of Vulnerable.

And as the village of Vulnerable becomes an increasingly barren landscape dotted with the smoking ruins of what used to represent lives, of a fashion, to the villagers, Osborne turns his acquisitive eyes to the rest of the land.

You see, the other citizens of the land were content, in their hypnotised state, to believe that it was only the village of Vulnerable that would be targeted. That they, in their neat homes in Suburbia would be spared the dripping fangs of the dragon but once Osborne had finished feasting on Vulnerable, the easiest target………none would be safe………