Junkmail

Who knows how many? Thousands? When an organisation sends out marketing leaflets, they buy the addresses in bulk from another company. Those addresses are compiled from phonebooks, competition entry forms, mobile phone network providers¦ I don't know how many other sources. Any. Any you can think of. That's why you might get junkmail addressed to your teenage son, or dead father.

Living in rented accommodation, I was odds on to get forewarning; we get junkmail for between five and ten former residents. I send my thanks to Mr. P. Hookery. Without him, I wouldn't be alive today.

The post arrived long before I was awake. I came downstairs in my magnificent dressing gown, and picked it up in one, big sheaf, which I proceeded to rifle through. I was surprised when my name appeared in such large letters. I extracted the leaflet, and immediately dropped the rest of the post.

"Need a better service? Don't want the hassle of filling in loads of forms?

"Kill Jon Stone now.

You might think, from the text, that it was a mistake. The people that design these things are often doing three jobs at a time. The wrong cut and paste could easily see 'Kill Jon Stone' substituted for 'Phone 0800 whatever'. And yes, I probably would have put it down to an error myself, were there not a photograph of my face directly beneath.

I decided instead that it was a practical joke. Someone I knew, with far too much time on their hands, had got up with the birds and, no doubt madly cackling to themselves, slipped this little beauty through my letterbox. 'Is Tim still in Norwich?' I asked myself.

Something worried me though. Why was it addressed to P. Hookery? It was a name I recognised; P. got plenty of other leaflets sent to him at this address. But I'd never mentioned him to anyone, and it seemed marginally over the top for Tim, or whoever, to carry out this kind of research. It must, therefore, be a housemate.

I made coffee. I drained the cup, standing at the kitchen window. A couple of people went past the house. In order to assuage my fear, I pinned the leaflet to the noticeboard, and imagined myself gamely drawing attention to it when the others arrived back from work. It was a pretty good picture. I don't remember it from anywhere. Judging by the hairstyle, it must have been taken some time last summer. In it, I am smiling, and glancing to the right. My eyes are wide, with terrible red-eye, so I look demonesque. I look like that in a lot of photos.

"Need a better service? Don't want the hassle of filling in loads of forms?

"Kill Jon Stone now.

It occurred to me that I had no idea what service the leaflet might be advertising. It could be anything. Everyone needs a better service, and no one wants the hassle of filling in loads of forms. There didn't seem to be any other information. Not even small print.

The instruction didn't even make sense. True, killing me shouldn't, in most cases, require the completion of forms. But it wasn't me providing the bad, or mediocre, service. What little service I provide to the country ' as consumer, and telephone operator ' I do decently enough. I hit my sales target most months, and spend nearly all of my expendable income. I suppose I don't borrow enough.

I went and sat in the lounge. I turned the TV on, not with the intention of watching any of the mid-morning dross, but because I didn't like the great thing sitting so deathly quiet in a corner of the room. My hands scrambled for things to do. In the end, I went upstairs for my pencils, and tried to draw. Couldn't even doodle. Nothing came to mind. So I took a shower.

The stupid thing is, I heard the glass breaking while I was in the shower. But it's a terraced house. I'm used to hearing strange sounds through the walls - I can hear next door's phone ringing. I can hear DIY.

I turned off the shower and stood in the bathroom towelling my hair. Wiped the steam off the mirror a couple of times. Thought about shaving. At that point, I heard the front door open, and assumed that someone was back. A housemate, I mean. I finished kneading my chin, flicked the towel onto my shoulder, and went onto the landing.

The man creeping up the stairs on all fours was a shaven howler monkey, suited and booted, with alert eyes and hairy knuckles. His shirt was freshly ironed. His cuffs were fancy. He might have been there to serenade me, but for the fact he carried a knife, rather than a rose, in his teeth.

I started to speak. "Who the! or some such, but he was already diving for my ankles. I stepped aside and fled up the stairs to the second floor, where my room is situated. Fortunately, the door is fitted with a Yale lock, and made of mahogany. I clothed myself swiftly, as the intruder tried the handle in vain. Then there was pounding. I shook, and my fingers trembled as they fought to unravel my socks. It's impossible to accurately describe the thoughts that were going through my whirligig mind at the time. There was the usual heart like a salmon, palms like butter, mouth like plaster. I knew it was the leaflet. I am paranoid at the best of times. I knew - I was sure - it was the leaflet.

"Need a better service? Don't want the hassle of filling in loads of forms?

"Kill Jon Stone now.

I couldn't go out the door, so I opened the window. I sleep in what is essentially the loft room, with a slanted ceiling. The window leads directly onto the roof. Only then, as I looked out onto the wind-burnished tiles with awkward hesitation - only then did it occur to me to phone the police. As I waited to be connected, I heard muffled voices. My intruder was multiple. With tremulous voice I reported this to the operator, along with my current situation. They advised me that a squad car would be on its way.

There was a great crack from the door. Whoever was out there now - they were wielding something heavy. The impact jarred loose the screw that attached the lock to the door frame; the wood around it broke into splintery lengths. There was now enough of a gap for me to hear the voices clearly ("I can see him moving!), and see the shadows of multiple limbs passing like bats between the door and its frame.

I launched myself out of the window, one hand gripping the pane, and clattered onto the roof tiles. I had just enough time to find my balance, and stumble up, above the window, before a second blow broke the door down. There was no time to cover my escape, and the window was the only way out in any case. I scrambled up to the highest point, and stopped, panting, as my eyes met the scene below.

The road in front of our house as awash with people, all queuing to get through the front door. Pensioners, layabouts, suits, pramfaces, stoolwarmers - the lot. Most were clutching improvised weapons. Some were so unimaginative as to resort to pans. I ducked low so they wouldn't see me, and edged my way along the terrace, while behind me, those that had broken into my bedroom braved the roof themselves. I had an advantage here - I am very light, and relatively agile. I was panicked, but not desperate, and not fighting to be the first among a crowd of equally desperate men and women. I reached the end of the terrace before any of them were even stable. I then slid down to the base of the roof, and lowered myself down onto Number 5's garden wall via the drainpipe.

All I could do was run. There were more armed citizens idling onto the street every second, all of whom knew my face. I suppose word had got around. Once one or two people had tracked me down, the news would have been on the Internet.

"Need a better service? Don't want the hassle of filling in loads of forms?

"Kill Jon Stone now.

The first of them were probably already on their way to kill me while I was still dreaming. Who knows how many more were at that moment searching for a parking space in the station, or at the Riverside multi-storey, unpacking their spanners and poison from the boots of their cars? The numbers - the possibilities - dazzled and jarred me as I dodged assailants, like the last remaining player in a game of British Bulldog. I never would have made it to the end of the road if the police car hadn't pulled up just within sight.

Fortunately for me, advertising doesn't work on everyone. Just more people than you'd think.

There's a TV advert now. Some scene from an old movie; a hero with muscles like giant salamanders dodging the lunges of car-sized Ray Harryhausen stop-motion scorpions. Their claws make the sound of Christmas crackers.

"Tired of fighting off the monsters of debt?

Hero looks desperately around, and his eyes fall on something useful. In the original film, this was probably a spear in the hand of a slumped skeleton, or a strip of material that could be fashioned into a slingshot. But someone has cut the footage so that it shows a picture of me, dressed up as David Bowie in Rebel Rebel for Hallowe'en.

"Kill Jon Stone now.

The scorpions are driven back into the sea, where the giant, bulbous tentacles of a kraken whip out and attack them. Hero puts hands to hips and bares his teeth in a satisfied manner as the monsters duke it out.

"For immediate relief, and an end to all your financial nightmares.

Hero strides away across the sand.