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Indian arrested, charged with fraud
Formerly a resident of the northeast, but now most often found in the woods by the south river, Runs-With-Scissors has no fixed address and no visible means of support. However, lawyers said that this apparent normality may not be enough to count in his favour when the trial begins next Thursday.
Fantasy residents said they had been suspicious of Runs-With-Scissors for several years, as he appeared to have no knowledge of traditional Indian skills such as hunting and bushcraft. Mr. Bartholomew Fuzzles, a local giant rabbit, described a typical encounter with Scissors last summer. "He was showing me how to shoot, and he caught his tongue in his bowstring while trying to explain. The shock made him put the arrow through his left foot, and then while he was hopping around in agony he fell off a steep bank into a river."
Fuzzles added, "He probably would have been OK if it wasn't for the sharks. It's the only time I've seen them all the way up the river like that."
Investigators believe Runs-With-Scissors has been living for years off the proceeds of fraudulent insurance claims. The case against him is strengthened by the fact that two of his claimed injuries could not be proven to exist, having healed within a medically impossible time frame. After receiving 5,000 gold coins in compensation for a badly cut leg, and 20,000 for a broken arm, he alleged that the former injury was healed by a mysterious wanderer, and the latter by a "magical unicorn." When asked to explain how he managed to sustain an average of thirty-four serious injuries per year while spending most of his time sitting quietly in the open doing nothing, he insisted that he is merely unlucky.
The trial has so far been delayed twice, once last week when Scissors tripped over a bystander's cloak and fell down a flight of stairs while entering the courtroom, and again yesterday when the judge was shuffling some papers and accidentally flicked his gavel across the room, where it struck Scissors heavily on the bridge of the nose. The accused reportedly said to his lawyer, "Id's odly a dosebleed, id doesn't hurt buch," moments before leaning his head backwards to stem the flow of blood, losing his balance, and falling out of an open third-storey window. The potentially fatal drop was fortunately softened by the courthouse's ornamental cactus garden and the clump of poison ivy beneath it.
The trial is expected to resume as soon as the defendant is released from hospital.
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Article by C. Patrick.
