Some nostalgia found on the old Pleasuredome website (c)99

The sign on the gate said

Pleasuredome rest home for the mentally unstable.

Wheels crunched on the gravel path. An old man in an armored wheelchair rolled past, pointing his plastic pulse rifle at invisible aliens and grinning widely. He turned the corner and vanished into a clump of bushes with a cry of “We’re in the pipe 5 by 5!” The visitors walked on.

In the center of the lawn, an old man bounced happily on a double bed in the middle of a small lake. Several nurses were trying to persuade him to come back to shore, but he ignored them, staring longingly at the clouds.

At the edge of the lake, another old man with a grey mustache sat cheerfully in a model hovercraft. He waved at the visitors and offered them one of a number of toy rubber eels which shared the craft with him, but the visitors declined and hurried on.

Further on, a group of old women had set up camp around an oak tree, in which sat a rather worried looking old man. Several of the women were shouting for him to come down and be hugged, but he refused. One of the women, who for some reason had twin Supersoakers strapped to her zimmerframe, was hurling abuse and sarcastic remarks. The visitors took a slight detour to avoid them, and almost ran into an old man with long grey hair who was ignoring all attempts to persuade him to leave his computer and come eat.

Nearer to the house, more and more of the old people were sprawled on the lawn, staring at the screens of various laptop computers. Several power outlets had been set up at convenient intervals on the lawn. One or two of the old folks noticed the visitors and giggled insanely at some private joke.

At last the visitors reached their objective. A tall old man sat hunched over his computer near a clump of willow trees. His gnarled and arthritic old hands tapped patiently on the keyboard. The visitors stood behind him at a respectful distance. Over his shoulder they could make out a login time of 20 years.

One of the visitors coughed politely. “Mr. Rodney?” he asked. The fingers stopped, and the old man turned his head slightly. “Yes?” he asked, at length. The visitor cleared his throat. “Our..er, rooms have been deleted.” he mumbled. Rodney frowned. “You came all the way out here to tell me that?” he asked, puzzled. He turned back to his screen and discovered he had been idle for almost a week. He sighed, and shouted across the lawn to an elderly couple sat facing each other over their laptops.

“Tref!”

The man turned. “What?” he shouted back. Rodney nodded slowly at the visitors. It took almost a minute. “Are you coding something?” he shouted. Tref looked guilty for a minute. Rodney sighed. “Pack it in, would you?” he asked. Tref muttered something and went back to his screen. Rodney grinned and glanced at the visitors. They smiled and thanked him. He waved them away and went back to his mysterious twelve windowed screen.

The visitors returned swiftly the way they had came. Already the sun was setting, and many of the residents had been taken indoors, although several had only just come out, and were sneaking around the long shadows, hissing at people. The man on the bed had been lured to shore with a piece of cheese, and several nurses were struggling to push the hovercraft and its grinning occupant towards the house.

The group of women under the tree had vanished, but the old man remained perched in the branches, warily eying the ground. A little man with streaks of ginger in his long grey hair tottered past, shouting something about a friend list of six hundred.

They reached the gate. Far off, the sound of bickering Welsh voices could be heard. An old man ran past, pursued by another with two blocks of polystyrene in his hands. A third man, wrapped in newspaper, stumbled after them. Gradually the lawn emptied, and only the occasional frustrated cry of “Laaaaaaaaaag!” broke the evenings silence.

The visitors stepped through the gate, and back into the real world. Behind them, the gate clanged shut, metal locks clicking into place. The faint humming of an electric fence could be heard. They got in their car slowly, and paused to glance back. Then the driver started the engine, and they screeched off at full speed, into the gathering night.