Artwork by Carole Humphreys
Friday morning.
Through my grimy window, I observe the old man shuffle past with his new companion. An aged Alsatian used to accompany him, it had done so every day since I moved into my flat, some five years previously. About a month ago, the old man and his Alsatian ceased to mark my time, and I speculated which one of them had died. Last week the old man reappeared with his new companion, an energetic young Labrador. Today, having urinated against one of the many abandoned cars that lie discarded in the street, the Labrador seems especially vigorous, dragging the old man against his natural pace. He is trying to rein in the dog, looking resentful and aggrieved, and yet, a few days earlier, I saw him kneel before the animal and embrace it with a clear and honest love. He had seemed to whisper into its ear. The animal had wagged its tail gently, rhythmically, as if agreeing with whatever the old man was saying.
Having finished his communion with the dog, the old man had slowly straightened up, huddling into his ancient black greatcoat to escape the blustery chill wind.
There are few trees in the street, but the mass of uncollected litter does a fair impersonation of autumn leaf fall, although gallantly failing to obscure the grey, crumbling flats as it is gusted around. Most of the flats on the other side of my street have boarded up windows and missing slates, while many display evidence of fire damage. A few - mine not included - have satellite dishes sprouting from their walls. Whether they are tuned into the government broadcasts or the increasingly surreal diet of gameshows, I cannot tell.
Whichever one, I sense that the viewers are missing the real show as, like autistic ants, they instead turn inwards upon themselves.
Coughing, I walk slowly to the bookshelf, Chemical by New Order thumping from my hi-fi at almost maximum power, vibrating the bare floor. My large collection of alphabetically arranged science fiction is mute, yet ready to engage at a seconds notice. Most of the authors on my bookshelf are dead now, their vision swirling in and out of their imagined realities and my real one. I imagine that the combined prophesies of these writers has either created or contaminated my timeline, bringing about the nightmare reality that I am trying to escape.
Did they ever imagine what has become, or did they help to create it? I sweep past Heinlein (militaristic fascist), Dick (paranoid visionary) and Disch (subversive poet). I choose Ballard and become enraptured once again by The Concentration City.
Monday afternoon.
Voting day. Up the path towards the school entrance. Four chairs ahead of me, not blocking the entrance, but denying my desire line. In each chair a party acolyte with clipboard and forced smile. The middle-aged man with the red rosette says hello and asks me for my voting number. I know very well why he asks this. It is so that he can delete me from his copy of the electoral register, thereby giving him one less potential voter to hunt towards the close of polling. In the past, this was the standard method of achieving these crucial extra votes. Now, with the military in control, the very idea of voting is completely absurd. I suspect that many people spoil their ballot paper for this reason alone. I certainly intend to spoil mine, but this will not be the first time. I know that I don't have to divulge my voting number, so I ignore the pretend socialist and instead put my mouth close to the ear of the older woman with the blue rosette that signifies her allegiance to the National Party.
"You look like an orang-utan and you smell like a baboon, but don't worry, youll be dead in six months."
She drops her clipboard and looks shocked at my vehement, whispering certainty. I smile, knowing that it is my medication that makes me behave in this manner. Waving gaily at the worker from the Green Alliance Party, I walk over the grass towards the school entrance. Under my feet, worms ceaselessly aerate the soil. Above me, in the pink sky, the curved contrail left by the hypersonic jetliner is beginning to dissipate. By now, the craft will have landed at Woomera Immigration Control. I picture my daughter, disembarking, safe at last from the entropic clutch of the old country. I know there will be other children on that flight too and the thought makes me smile, at least for a second. Entering the empty school hall, I look around. Still stuck to much of the wall space are faded pictures drawn by young children - houses with smoking chimneys, trees, flowers, mothers and fathers, birds in the sky, the sun with a happy face. I stare at these pictures for a moment, breathing in the still present scent of childhood. One of these incredible moments of silence descends, a silence when all external noises simultaneously cease, just for a second or two, before intruding again. Approaching the voting booths, tears run down my cheeks as I hum a tune whose name I cannot remember.
Sunday morning.
The car is mashed into a fabulously un-carlike shape, glinting in the weak morning sun. Minutes earlier, I was crossing the road after purchasing a newspaper, its front page plastered with the usual crude, nationalistic nonsense. I ignored this and anticipated solving the crossword back in the relative warmth of my flat - my real reason for the visiting the newsagent. Hearing a squeal of tyres, I turned as quickly as my leaden feet would allow, to see the car take the corner too fast. The driver over corrected, causing the back wheels to lose their grip. Clipping the advertising pillar, the car was spun and flipped onto its roof, before rolling several times down the middle of the empty road with a thudding screech. As always, the military are not bothering to free the driver, instead, the ironically termed rescue appliance is completing the transformation from car to coffin by crushing the wreck into a steel cube with its compressor ram. Conversion completed, a hydraulic grab lifts the cube onto the storage rack, where it is secured by metal clasps. Arriving at siren enriched speed, the rescue appliance now glides silently away from the scene like a scarlet hearse. Across the city, other crashed cars are being thus converted with their occupants.
Tuesday night.
I hear a scream from outside. Through my window I see a woman - my neighbour Sarah - being assaulted in the street by a man, the scene harshly illuminated by the orange sodium glow of the streetlamp. I stare at the weapon laying on my bed. It is an automatic shotgun, shortbarrelled, lightweight, mostly plastic, good for close range work. I think it is a Ruger, or maybe a Luger.
No, a Ruger - I remember that the Luger was a pistol used by German officers, many years ago. Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. The weapon was acquired last week, to deal with either myself or the renegades, whichever came first. My time in the army had taught me much about guns, and I had been useful for a while. During the Central African disaster, I suffered a nervous breakdown, caused in part by the massacres that I was often witness and occasionally party to. Flown home, my mental collapse was swiftly followed by that of the government, its fall blamed on that insane overseas adventure and the subsequent fuel and food crisis back home. Anarchy, already in progress, had escalated to frighteningly violent levels. Within days, thousands were dead and the military had taken over. Many suspected that they had been behind these machinations all along. I knew they had. I took little notice of the violence itself, the rapidly worsening situation instead propelled me into my final mission - to convert my considerable savings into a one way hypersonic flight for my daughter. I had already contacted my sister in Townsville and she was ready to take on the role of surrogate. Sarah screams as the man punches her again - I think he may be her husband, or lover or something - I cant really be sure.
Through the glass, I know he can see me, even though to him I must present only a silhouette. His mouth is twisted, distorted as he shouts something in my direction. A tiresome clich, I am sure. I return his rage with a calm stare.
He strikes Sarah again and she falls to the ground. Abruptly, I pick up the Ruger and walk out into the street. Sarah is curled into a ball, the man kicking her, swearing violently, screaming at her to give him the keys to the car. I fire two shots at the streetlamp, and it explodes into fragments. The sound of this contrasts oddly with the hollow double boom of the Ruger, but the combined noise is absolutely deafening, and the man jumps backwards from Sarah as if electrocuted, transparent shards from the extinguished streetlamp falling around him. A dog is barking hysterically somewhere in the darkness. I feel completely insane with rage, my adrenaline pumping furiously. The noise of the Ruger going off is still ringing in my ears as I address the man.
"Walk away", I snarl at him, "don't look back, don't come back. If you do, Ill shoot your fucking legs off."
There is no argument. The man does almost exactly as I command, except that that he runs instead of walking. Imagining him trying to run with no legs, I kneel at Sarahs side. She seems more shocked than hurt, her face bruised and bloodied, but not - as far as I can tell - broken. Helping her upright, I ask if shed like a cup of tea. She mumbles yes and then starts weeping.
I embrace her awkwardly, yet with real feeling, wishing that I could do more than just offer tea at this moment. Holding her tightly to me, I look up at The Plough. Ten years ago in France, on a camping holiday in the Vendee, I remember soothing my crying baby daughter back to sleep - a nightmare had awakened her - then stepping outside the tent to gaze at the night sky. The Plough had looked down on me then, as it does now, a familiar pattern in the chaotic vastness of time and space. An immense and aching sadness surges through me at this moment, the pain of it causing me to stagger. I collect myself with an effort and help Sarah across the street, towards my filthy decaying flat, the only one in my block not boarded up. Inside my head, a clock is ticking. In the distance, a car alarm begins to wail.
Copyright ©2001 Dan McNeil