In the last fortnight, 3 hugely unpleasant murder cases (as opposed to those happy-go-lucky murders…) have been concluded in the UK. 2 serial killers and 1 stultifyingly sick fuck found themselves convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The two serial killers (Levi Bellfield and Steve Wright) were told that they will never be released. The aforementioned sick fuck, possible serial killer Mark Dixie, will serve at least 34 years. (Why do I call him sick and not the serial killers? Because his defence against the murder of Sally Anne Bowman, whose raped and brutalised corpse was pretty much hosed with his DNA, was that he’d not murdered her but happened upon her body and had sex with it. Speaking as a former solicitor, I would imagine his defence team will have been almost sexually excited themselves when they dreamt that up).
This trio of charmers sparked off 2 debates in this country. The first, that of the death penalty, is something I’ve discussed before. My opinion, for what it’s worth, hasn’t changed; baying for the blood of somebody (no matter what kind of repugnant scum they are) is, unless one is a family member of the victim, indicative of a stupid and cruel person to whom empathy has become a foreign feeling. Whether they’re assuaging some vague sense of guilt (Jamie Bulger’s killers are regularly mentioned in internet petitions demanding medieval justice. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that his killers walked him, crying and visibly scared, past dozens of people who did nothing to help him), or simply wallowing in grief and anger that has nothing to do with them, I have no time for anyone who belligerently insists on the death of another human being. The taking of a life should always be a matter of regret. Regretfully, I would agree that all three of these gentlemen need to be studied in some detail to find out just what makes them tick before being quietly put to sleep.
The other debate is one that, as someone whose job title is to all intents and purposes “Database geek”, holds quite a lot of interest for me. All of these men were convicted with the help of DNA evidence. In the case of Dixie and Bellfield, DNA samples were taken by the police on unrelated matters, and when DNA from their murders was checked against the DNA database, voila; the police had strong evidence that they had their murderer. The debate that has been forming on the basis of this is “Shouldn’t the state have a DNA database of every person in the UK to make it easier to catch people like this?”
Broadly speaking, 2 sides seem to have formed (well…3 sides; these days, in any debate and no matter how emotive it may be, there is always a good sized contingent who would vote “I really don’t care”); on the one hand we have people who say “Yes, of course we should because DNA is 99.99% reliable, and anything that helps society catch and rid itself of monsters like these 3 men is a good idea”. On the other, there are the people who say “Why exactly should we trust the state, which doesn’t exactly have a good record of looking after confidential information on its citizens, with a database containing DNA records? And in any case, we are not a nation of suspects; I resent being treated like one by having to provide a DNA sample.”
Both of these views have their relative merits, and it’s worth taking the time to look at both of them before making up ones mind.
First of all, what are the arguments in favour of a national DNA database? It seems to me that quite a lot of the support for the database is predicated on a false notion; that DNA evidence cannot lie, that because of the cold science behind it, it is therefore incapable of being biased or irrational. Therefore, no-one has anything to fear from a DNA database because it cannot be mis-used.
Well now, here’s a thing; whenever I’m working in a database, all of the information in there is just as cold and factual as the sequence of an individual’s DNA. However, I can manipulate that information in pretty much any way I choose to provide evidence of whatever it is I want to say. What’s more, because I’m good at my job (and oh so bashful about it), I can do so in a way that could not actually be called “lying”. What I get out of the database will be 100% factually accurate, yet on several occasions I would shy away from calling it “the truth”. More often than not, it simply provides evidence to back up my point of view in a discussion (or argument) with my boss.
What I’m trying to say here is that context is everything. We’re told that DNA is an infallible, unfailingly accurate method of identification? Well…so are fingerprints. We don’t have a national fingerprint database (yet…), but wouldn’t this help the detection of crimes? We’ve had fingerprinting as a technique for identifying suspects for over a century, yet we’ve gotten on rather well without trying to set up a monolithic database with everyone’s prints on there. As for being always accurate…well, I’m not going to pretend to understand all of the science behind matching DNA samples. However, I do find myself wondering; how exactly do they collect the DNA from the scene of the crime? What are the risks of contamination and a correspondingly lower chance of the DNA from the scene being a “pure” sample? On a more paranoid note, how easy would it be for someone to introduce a DNA sample taken from the database to the scene of a crime in order to make someone a suspect? Particularly if someone is already strongly suspected but their DNA has not made an appearance in the crime scene; how tempted would you be as a policeman to do that in order to try and get a conviction?
Personally, I feel that relying on DNA evidence alone can be a dangerous thing. In fact, reliance on a single piece of evidence is regarded as dangerous by the entire legal system. There used to be rules on how a judge had to direct the jury if a case relied on a piece of evidence uncorroborated by anything else. Although the legislation that set out those rules was wiped out by section 34 of the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, they lived on in the form of a discretionary warning given to juries by judges which is called a Makanjuola Warning (named after a case in the court of appeal). If such a warning was issued to juries in every such case, then I personally would have my main objection to DNA evidence wiped out in one stroke. I’m not entirely sure that it is at present, although Barry George winning his appeal against his conviction for shooting Jill Dando (based entirely on forensic and DNA evidence) might lead to a change there; I’ll certainly be interested to see the result of his retrial.
I haven’t yet addressed the more widespread fear that a police force with a database of the DNA of every citizen is a bad thing. I have that same feeling, though I’ve got difficulty articulating just why it makes me uneasy. Perhaps the fact that I’ve never had anything but good experiences of the police has kept my view in this regard from hardening (my DNA is nestling in the current database of people who’ve been arrested whether they were subsequently charged or not, and I find I don’t really care). In other words, I accept that I don’t fully buy into the argument for completely personal reasons. Therefore I can’t dismiss it as a load of old mungbeans, nor can I support it wholeheartedly. Suffice to say that I believe it should be up to the Police to convince us why we have to have such a database, rather than for us to give reason why we shouldn’t.
We do, at the opposite extreme, have some people who feel that DNA evidence doesn’t have a place in investigation of a crime. Not unreasonably, they feel that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime should have their DNA sample destroyed.
I think this view comes from two wellsprings. The first is something we’ve just looked at; that uneasy fears that it will somehow be used against us, or at least our awareness of the potential for that to happen. The second is a rather more traditional form of pride; if I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m innocent. And if I’m innocent, why are you keeping hold of my DNA? It’s been used in the solving of this crime, and I resent the implication that I may decide to commit future crimes. It’s like you’re using my DNA as a deposit to ensure my future good behaviour.
This viewpoint, whilst opposing the “DNA Database helps catch murderers” opinion, is just as valid. And when we are left with two equally valid attitudes, how do we reconcile them? If our government’s track record is anything to go by, they’ll do so by either ignoring both until the furore dies down, or making a cack handed compromise that manages to please no one unite both sides in their anger at the government for being so inept.
Perhaps I’m being unfair, because such balancing acts are what governments are meant to do on a daily basis and with every issue imaginable. But hey, that’s what they say they’re going to do when they’re elected, so fuck ‘em. They have deliberately tried to get to the top rung of society’s ladder, and they get whatever privilege that entails. I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in asking them to discharge their duties too.
Which brings us back to “how do we settle this argument?”. I’m buggered if I know, but I think I know why it arose in the first place. We live in a democratic society, and one of the definitions of that society is that we as individuals give up certain rights and have certain duties we should perform in order to enjoy the protections of that society. However, these days we have the perception that those at the top couldn’t give a shit about our rights and are only concerned with adding to our duties. And that society itself is sick and broken, so we are resentful of doing anything to benefit it. With that backdrop, is it any wonder that a measure that has unquestionably stopped 3 remarkably vile men from committing further atrocities is facing such a groundswell of justifiable opposition?
Wednesday, 27 February 2008
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
It Couldn't Happen Here
Kenya is a fabulous country. Whilst I can’t claim to know a huge amount about it on the basis of a 2 week holiday and some friendships with Kenyans dating back to university, I can sing its praises. It seemed to be filled to the brim with confident, humble, entirely gorgeous people (seriously, I have never met a Kenyan who was not physically gorgeous. Even the men. Which, what with homosexuality being illegal in Kenya, could lead to a lot of sexual frustration for those people who are good with colours).
So when the whole country seemed to turn to shit a few weeks ago, I was more than a little surprised. After all, this is a nation with a mix of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Pagan believers. In other countries (Sudan for example, or Somalia which borders Kenya) this has been a sure-fire recipe for bigotry, intolerance, and civil war. In a moment of drunken candour, I asked a Kenyan gentleman named Bough to explain just why Kenya boasted such stability when other African countries were degenerating into civil wars fought by followers of Religions that battle in the name of peace and brotherhood. Bough told me that any disagreements were regarded as either personal or family affairs. Religion didn’t enter into it, and was universally regarded as a private matter. For someone brought up in a family who loudly proclaimed Africa to be a continent full of savages, this was a pleasing confirmation that everything I had been told by my parents was horseshit.
And even now, as we’re told that Kenya has turned into a land where children are thrown back into a fire to die because they are of the wrong ethnic group, religion doesn’t seem to be the divisive force behind such horrors. Rather, we are told, the divisions run along tribal lines. Though it’s not yet been said directly by the media, the implication of “Bloody Africans; always ethnically cleansing each other for belonging to the wrong tribe” has been fairly strong; Rwanda and Sudan keep getting mentioned in the same breath and we’re invited to draw our own conclusions.
For those of you who haven’t been following this story, Kenya had an election in December of last year. The incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, seemed to be heading for defeat at the hands of Raila Odinga. I’m not totally sure, but I think this would have represented the first time an incumbent president lost a contested election. It seems Kibaki was uncomfortably aware of this too, and at the last minute there was a sudden and not-at-all suspicious surge in the number of votes for Kibaki. Pressure was also put on the Kenyan electoral commission to declare Kibaki the winner, even though the result was still uncertain. Unsurprisingly, Odinga was less than pleased with this and accused Kibaki of rigging the election. It seems that Kibaki regards the presidency as his right, and Odinga has responded with populism and demagoguery. Chaos and death then ensued, although a semblance of normality now seems to be resuming.
Now maybe this is just my left-wing sensibilities talking here, but I get the overwhelming sense from most reports that we should be viewing this through colonial eyes; in other words, what can one expect from a country that haven’t yet learned how to do democracy properly. It’s not that long ago that Kenya was run by a hugely unpleasant dictator, Daniel Arap-Moi. So who is surprised that a tin-pot nation has a tin-pot election which has led to political stalemate and (rather more importantly) rioting and death?
Yet it’s not so long ago that we saw another disputed election where supporters of the gentleman who lost waged a bitter battle to reclaim what they said was a stolen and unfair vote. It was an election that resulted in a polarised and divided nation. Although it didn’t lead to the rioting we’ve seen in Kenya, it had exactly the same effect on the politics of that country; everything came to a grinding halt. I am of course talking about the election of pretzel swallowing, speech mangling half-man half-chimp gruppenfuhrer, Dubya.
In the coverage of the Kenyan election, we are hearing a lot about tribes. “The dispute is basically on a tribal basis” we are told. “The Kikuyu tribe have done well under successive Presidents, and the other tribes feel oppressed by this”. And with that, we can safely dismiss the whole sorry and sordid business as an inevitability in the land of White Mischief. Yet I didn’t read a single report on the US election discussing the tribal differences between the people of Florida and the people of Ohio. We heard no discussion about the Hispanic, Black, Asian, and White “tribes” of the USA and their different viewpoints. What we did hear about were “communities”. Of how the different communities in America voted, and what those communities wanted from a President.
So what’s the difference? I’d hope it’s obvious, but for the sake of clarity…we, like most Western nations, are a country with an imperial past (or, if you’re a septic, an imperial present). It is a past where the word “tribe” has developed negative connotations of savagery and barbarism (due mainly to European subjugation of Africa and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries). When the media use that word to describe the basis of the divisions in Kenya now, I would contend that a lot of the white, middle class tribes of the UK conjure up a picture involving the film Zulu, Michael Caine, and the phrase “…’fousands of ‘em!”. Had the word “tribe” been used to describe the different communities in the USA, does anyone doubt that there would have been bewilderment at the use of the term at best, howls of outrage at worst?
I am loathe to characterise this as racism, if only because I find the tendency to overuse that label has devalued it. It’s perhaps more accurate to describe it as parochialism on our part. We use language that helps distance ourselves from what is happening in Kenya, and assure ourselves that we’re far more civilised. This also helps us to forget about the fact that exactly the same sort of thing has happened in the nation that boasts of its democracy (and tries to impose it on strategically unimportant countries). Or that we in the UK are no strangers to vote-rigging scandals (from the 1987 vote-buying allegations in Westminster to the rather more recent Olympic vote-buying storm), allegations of corruption (the Little London PFI scandal in Leeds in 2006) or politics and violence mixing queasily together (a Solihull counsellor was doused in petrol and set on fire back in the late 90’s).
What is happening right now in Kenya is abhorrent. But let’s not kid ourselves that it can be explained away by tossing in a few sentences about savagery and tribalism. And let’s never think, as a friend of mine in Kenya told me she did, that it could never happen here. It already is. It’s just we’re better at keeping our political catastrophes cosier.
So when the whole country seemed to turn to shit a few weeks ago, I was more than a little surprised. After all, this is a nation with a mix of Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and Pagan believers. In other countries (Sudan for example, or Somalia which borders Kenya) this has been a sure-fire recipe for bigotry, intolerance, and civil war. In a moment of drunken candour, I asked a Kenyan gentleman named Bough to explain just why Kenya boasted such stability when other African countries were degenerating into civil wars fought by followers of Religions that battle in the name of peace and brotherhood. Bough told me that any disagreements were regarded as either personal or family affairs. Religion didn’t enter into it, and was universally regarded as a private matter. For someone brought up in a family who loudly proclaimed Africa to be a continent full of savages, this was a pleasing confirmation that everything I had been told by my parents was horseshit.
And even now, as we’re told that Kenya has turned into a land where children are thrown back into a fire to die because they are of the wrong ethnic group, religion doesn’t seem to be the divisive force behind such horrors. Rather, we are told, the divisions run along tribal lines. Though it’s not yet been said directly by the media, the implication of “Bloody Africans; always ethnically cleansing each other for belonging to the wrong tribe” has been fairly strong; Rwanda and Sudan keep getting mentioned in the same breath and we’re invited to draw our own conclusions.
For those of you who haven’t been following this story, Kenya had an election in December of last year. The incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, seemed to be heading for defeat at the hands of Raila Odinga. I’m not totally sure, but I think this would have represented the first time an incumbent president lost a contested election. It seems Kibaki was uncomfortably aware of this too, and at the last minute there was a sudden and not-at-all suspicious surge in the number of votes for Kibaki. Pressure was also put on the Kenyan electoral commission to declare Kibaki the winner, even though the result was still uncertain. Unsurprisingly, Odinga was less than pleased with this and accused Kibaki of rigging the election. It seems that Kibaki regards the presidency as his right, and Odinga has responded with populism and demagoguery. Chaos and death then ensued, although a semblance of normality now seems to be resuming.
Now maybe this is just my left-wing sensibilities talking here, but I get the overwhelming sense from most reports that we should be viewing this through colonial eyes; in other words, what can one expect from a country that haven’t yet learned how to do democracy properly. It’s not that long ago that Kenya was run by a hugely unpleasant dictator, Daniel Arap-Moi. So who is surprised that a tin-pot nation has a tin-pot election which has led to political stalemate and (rather more importantly) rioting and death?
Yet it’s not so long ago that we saw another disputed election where supporters of the gentleman who lost waged a bitter battle to reclaim what they said was a stolen and unfair vote. It was an election that resulted in a polarised and divided nation. Although it didn’t lead to the rioting we’ve seen in Kenya, it had exactly the same effect on the politics of that country; everything came to a grinding halt. I am of course talking about the election of pretzel swallowing, speech mangling half-man half-chimp gruppenfuhrer, Dubya.
In the coverage of the Kenyan election, we are hearing a lot about tribes. “The dispute is basically on a tribal basis” we are told. “The Kikuyu tribe have done well under successive Presidents, and the other tribes feel oppressed by this”. And with that, we can safely dismiss the whole sorry and sordid business as an inevitability in the land of White Mischief. Yet I didn’t read a single report on the US election discussing the tribal differences between the people of Florida and the people of Ohio. We heard no discussion about the Hispanic, Black, Asian, and White “tribes” of the USA and their different viewpoints. What we did hear about were “communities”. Of how the different communities in America voted, and what those communities wanted from a President.
So what’s the difference? I’d hope it’s obvious, but for the sake of clarity…we, like most Western nations, are a country with an imperial past (or, if you’re a septic, an imperial present). It is a past where the word “tribe” has developed negative connotations of savagery and barbarism (due mainly to European subjugation of Africa and Asia in the 18th and 19th centuries). When the media use that word to describe the basis of the divisions in Kenya now, I would contend that a lot of the white, middle class tribes of the UK conjure up a picture involving the film Zulu, Michael Caine, and the phrase “…’fousands of ‘em!”. Had the word “tribe” been used to describe the different communities in the USA, does anyone doubt that there would have been bewilderment at the use of the term at best, howls of outrage at worst?
I am loathe to characterise this as racism, if only because I find the tendency to overuse that label has devalued it. It’s perhaps more accurate to describe it as parochialism on our part. We use language that helps distance ourselves from what is happening in Kenya, and assure ourselves that we’re far more civilised. This also helps us to forget about the fact that exactly the same sort of thing has happened in the nation that boasts of its democracy (and tries to impose it on strategically unimportant countries). Or that we in the UK are no strangers to vote-rigging scandals (from the 1987 vote-buying allegations in Westminster to the rather more recent Olympic vote-buying storm), allegations of corruption (the Little London PFI scandal in Leeds in 2006) or politics and violence mixing queasily together (a Solihull counsellor was doused in petrol and set on fire back in the late 90’s).
What is happening right now in Kenya is abhorrent. But let’s not kid ourselves that it can be explained away by tossing in a few sentences about savagery and tribalism. And let’s never think, as a friend of mine in Kenya told me she did, that it could never happen here. It already is. It’s just we’re better at keeping our political catastrophes cosier.
Thursday, 22 November 2007
A Matter of Trust
There has been something of a fuss lately about public trust in the media. For those of you who have been living in a cave for the last 8 months, and for those of you who are foreign (one and the same thing to an Englishman), there has been hand-wringing and soul-searching aplenty about the cavalcade of lies that the tellybox spews out on a daily basis. This has led to the print media doling out "TV Lies!" exclusives like a mad paedophile throwing sweets in a playground. Which has in turn caused the BBC to behave like a 12th century flagellant, so keen are they to reassure the braying herd that the Beeb is really sorry and can be trusted.
My initial thoughts about this were, it would appear, much the same as the initial thoughts of anyone who tries to project an image of themselves as cynical, world weary, and unsurprised by anything (i.e. anyone with a pair of testicles): "God, everyone knows that the media lie! What kind of loser doesn't realise that the information we're presented is manipulated with more skill than a Thai masseuse manipulates a lonely man to a happy ending?” Possibly you found that seam of thought was shot through with streaks of "Who cares if some mouthbreathing dolescum spunk all their coins on Richard and Judy phone in quizzes". Maybe that was just me.
That is all well and good, and I'm guessing that it's the best response that the Shitbox Overlords could hope for. In fact, judging by the recent "TV lies!" exclusives we've been seeing (does anyone really think that a children’s program calling a kitten by a name that wasn't voted for by all the sweet kiddies is an abuse of our trust?) one would be forgiven for thinking that we're being manipulated into thinking "Who gives a shit?" about the whole debacle.
But as I've thought about it a little more, I've found myself a little puzzled. Our reaction as a society to the notion that the people whom we rely on to bring us the facts about the world we live in are liars is something of a strange one. Rather than displaying the outrage that the print media has so desperately tried to manufacture, we've responded with breathtaking insouciance. We're all, it seems, at pains to point out that we were never so stupid as to believe what we were told by any media. We're all too clever and independent minded for that. Nobody has pointed out the very legitimate concern that if we cannot trust the media to deliver the facts about what is going on in the world, then none of us will actually know what is going on in the world. And in our ignorance, we'll be that much easier to render frightened and impotent.
Okay, I should explain myself before I'm written off as unduly paranoid. What I'm saying is that our collective reaction to the Media Lies To The Plebs shitstorm is not a healthy one for society. The role of the media in society should be to present us with the facts, perhaps with some basic analysis to help make complexities clearer, and allow us to make up our own mind. The role that it actually plays is to give us a version of events so skewed by subjectivity as to render it almost worthless. For example, any report on Fox News is going to present the right wing view of that event. The Guardian will always present a left wing view. So the same story will be presented with a totally different emphasis. We, the people, are (despite my more misanthropic moments) not that stupid, and so we will notice the disparity.
The logical conclusion to draw when presented with such disparities on a daily basis is "Sections of the media are lying to us". We can then either decide that the media that represents the political faction we agree with are telling the truth and condemn those opposing. Or (and this is the approach I suspect most of us take) we get so frustrated at being force fed conflicting viewpoints, each one presented as the unvarnished truth, that we decide that nothing in the media can be trusted and so grow apathetic about it. Thus when actual media lies are uncovered we simply sigh in amused detachment rather than reacting with the boiling fury that it warrants.
I think one of the reasons that this apathy is so terrifying to me is that it indicates that we don't actually care about the world around us any more. We don't care that we're lied to on a daily basis. All we seem to be fussed about is being made to look stupid or ill informed. But as it's the media who we rely on to keep us informed, we end up with the paradoxical situation where we don't listen to what they tell us (because we know they're lying, and we don’t want to be laughed at for believing their lies), but neither do we know what is actually happening because we have no easy alternative way to get the information. In other words we carefully maintain our own ignorance in order to avoid being mocked for our ignorance.
Some might say that the breakdown of trust in the media is no bad thing. We live in the Internet age and so we can avail ourselves of any information in an instant. Well yes, we can. However, being as any old yahoo can produce the information one finds in the self-professed Independent Internet Media, it's often of less value than the subjective news acquired from traditional media sources. An over-reliance on such sources leads inevitably to a Legion of Ottos (Otto being a fantastically stupid character from A Fish Called Wanda who insists, in the face of all available evidence, that he isn't stupid) who will make dunce-like proclamations of Oil being an inexhaustible natural resource that is produced by the earth's core, or that a high school shooter was being mind controlled by the government because "I saw it on the Manchurian Candidate" (I have talked to people who genuinely believe both of these things, and go so far as to take the piss out of anyone who doesn't go along with them. And people wonder why I have such a low opinion of humanity…).
So we find ourselves in a position where we cannot trust what we are told by the traditional media. Nor can we believe the reams of shite on the Internet. And because we cannot trust those sources, we have to make our minds up based on…well, based on nothing more than whatever our gut instincts might be. We have absolutely no frame of reference to help us come to an opinion. About the only news items that we can guarantee are not lies are those increasingly popular sections where once-respected journalists mindlessly read out the texted opinions of a public that, as members of, we know to be as ignorant as us. It seems that the media has seamlessly shifted from providing facts to recycling public stupidity.
So why do I find that so terrifying? Why am I, noted by all who know me as an anti-social despiser of people, so thoroughly pissed off at the willful ignorance of my fellow man? Jesus, isn't it obvious? The apathy generated by an endlessly lying media isn't just confined to our opinions of what is in the news. That apathy seeps into every aspect of our lives, because our lives are the news. We all know that governments are lying, self-serving, authoritarian drinkers of Lucifer’s jism. But rather than get annoyed, we tell a few ironic jokes. We're well aware that our working hours and conditions are causing health problems across the land, but we content ourselves with some blackly humorous grumbling. Because of our apathy, we're unconcerned at starting a war on terror that will last longer than the precious oil that is its root cause. And we dismiss anyone who points out that perhaps we might want to take better care of the only planet we have, or that our loss of civil liberties is a dark and terrible thing as someone who is just taking it all too seriously and should just relax because, hey, everyone knows the media are lying to us when they talk about global warming/terrorism/whatever.
And because of our apathy we're allowing people in positions of authority to abuse that trust with impunity. I don't wish to sound smugger than usual, but I'm no longer content to reassure myself that I'm still independent minded and clever enough to realise that we're fed daily doses of bullshit to keep up ignorant and compliant. I am, as the film says, as mad as hell. And I'm not going to take it any more.
My initial thoughts about this were, it would appear, much the same as the initial thoughts of anyone who tries to project an image of themselves as cynical, world weary, and unsurprised by anything (i.e. anyone with a pair of testicles): "God, everyone knows that the media lie! What kind of loser doesn't realise that the information we're presented is manipulated with more skill than a Thai masseuse manipulates a lonely man to a happy ending?” Possibly you found that seam of thought was shot through with streaks of "Who cares if some mouthbreathing dolescum spunk all their coins on Richard and Judy phone in quizzes". Maybe that was just me.
That is all well and good, and I'm guessing that it's the best response that the Shitbox Overlords could hope for. In fact, judging by the recent "TV lies!" exclusives we've been seeing (does anyone really think that a children’s program calling a kitten by a name that wasn't voted for by all the sweet kiddies is an abuse of our trust?) one would be forgiven for thinking that we're being manipulated into thinking "Who gives a shit?" about the whole debacle.
But as I've thought about it a little more, I've found myself a little puzzled. Our reaction as a society to the notion that the people whom we rely on to bring us the facts about the world we live in are liars is something of a strange one. Rather than displaying the outrage that the print media has so desperately tried to manufacture, we've responded with breathtaking insouciance. We're all, it seems, at pains to point out that we were never so stupid as to believe what we were told by any media. We're all too clever and independent minded for that. Nobody has pointed out the very legitimate concern that if we cannot trust the media to deliver the facts about what is going on in the world, then none of us will actually know what is going on in the world. And in our ignorance, we'll be that much easier to render frightened and impotent.
Okay, I should explain myself before I'm written off as unduly paranoid. What I'm saying is that our collective reaction to the Media Lies To The Plebs shitstorm is not a healthy one for society. The role of the media in society should be to present us with the facts, perhaps with some basic analysis to help make complexities clearer, and allow us to make up our own mind. The role that it actually plays is to give us a version of events so skewed by subjectivity as to render it almost worthless. For example, any report on Fox News is going to present the right wing view of that event. The Guardian will always present a left wing view. So the same story will be presented with a totally different emphasis. We, the people, are (despite my more misanthropic moments) not that stupid, and so we will notice the disparity.
The logical conclusion to draw when presented with such disparities on a daily basis is "Sections of the media are lying to us". We can then either decide that the media that represents the political faction we agree with are telling the truth and condemn those opposing. Or (and this is the approach I suspect most of us take) we get so frustrated at being force fed conflicting viewpoints, each one presented as the unvarnished truth, that we decide that nothing in the media can be trusted and so grow apathetic about it. Thus when actual media lies are uncovered we simply sigh in amused detachment rather than reacting with the boiling fury that it warrants.
I think one of the reasons that this apathy is so terrifying to me is that it indicates that we don't actually care about the world around us any more. We don't care that we're lied to on a daily basis. All we seem to be fussed about is being made to look stupid or ill informed. But as it's the media who we rely on to keep us informed, we end up with the paradoxical situation where we don't listen to what they tell us (because we know they're lying, and we don’t want to be laughed at for believing their lies), but neither do we know what is actually happening because we have no easy alternative way to get the information. In other words we carefully maintain our own ignorance in order to avoid being mocked for our ignorance.
Some might say that the breakdown of trust in the media is no bad thing. We live in the Internet age and so we can avail ourselves of any information in an instant. Well yes, we can. However, being as any old yahoo can produce the information one finds in the self-professed Independent Internet Media, it's often of less value than the subjective news acquired from traditional media sources. An over-reliance on such sources leads inevitably to a Legion of Ottos (Otto being a fantastically stupid character from A Fish Called Wanda who insists, in the face of all available evidence, that he isn't stupid) who will make dunce-like proclamations of Oil being an inexhaustible natural resource that is produced by the earth's core, or that a high school shooter was being mind controlled by the government because "I saw it on the Manchurian Candidate" (I have talked to people who genuinely believe both of these things, and go so far as to take the piss out of anyone who doesn't go along with them. And people wonder why I have such a low opinion of humanity…).
So we find ourselves in a position where we cannot trust what we are told by the traditional media. Nor can we believe the reams of shite on the Internet. And because we cannot trust those sources, we have to make our minds up based on…well, based on nothing more than whatever our gut instincts might be. We have absolutely no frame of reference to help us come to an opinion. About the only news items that we can guarantee are not lies are those increasingly popular sections where once-respected journalists mindlessly read out the texted opinions of a public that, as members of, we know to be as ignorant as us. It seems that the media has seamlessly shifted from providing facts to recycling public stupidity.
So why do I find that so terrifying? Why am I, noted by all who know me as an anti-social despiser of people, so thoroughly pissed off at the willful ignorance of my fellow man? Jesus, isn't it obvious? The apathy generated by an endlessly lying media isn't just confined to our opinions of what is in the news. That apathy seeps into every aspect of our lives, because our lives are the news. We all know that governments are lying, self-serving, authoritarian drinkers of Lucifer’s jism. But rather than get annoyed, we tell a few ironic jokes. We're well aware that our working hours and conditions are causing health problems across the land, but we content ourselves with some blackly humorous grumbling. Because of our apathy, we're unconcerned at starting a war on terror that will last longer than the precious oil that is its root cause. And we dismiss anyone who points out that perhaps we might want to take better care of the only planet we have, or that our loss of civil liberties is a dark and terrible thing as someone who is just taking it all too seriously and should just relax because, hey, everyone knows the media are lying to us when they talk about global warming/terrorism/whatever.
And because of our apathy we're allowing people in positions of authority to abuse that trust with impunity. I don't wish to sound smugger than usual, but I'm no longer content to reassure myself that I'm still independent minded and clever enough to realise that we're fed daily doses of bullshit to keep up ignorant and compliant. I am, as the film says, as mad as hell. And I'm not going to take it any more.
Friday, 5 October 2007
Short Story: The Female of the Species
She checked her watch again; T minus 20 seconds. She’d been in place for six minutes and she was impatient to begin. There was no thought of whether the other three were in position; she had enough faith in them to expect nothing less than complete success on this mission. Nevertheless, she had enough experience to beware overconfidence. Once they moved in, they would only have a few minutes to take down the few perimeter guards and get Cassie inside, to the nearest terminal. That was going to be the biggest challenge; if a single guard managed to raise the alarm…well, then they’d have the whole base to deal with. And not on the terms she’d like either. Extraction was not an option unless the mission had been completed. As with so many previous missions, they all had to be perfect. Anything less would get them killed. Or worse, captured.
At exactly 26 minutes past 3 in the morning, the power for the electrified fence went down, and 3 grey clad figures emerged from the darkness and made their separate ways to the perimeter fence. They stealthily made their climb over the perimeter wall and were inside the facility by 26 minutes and 54 seconds past 3. At 27 minutes past, a soft crackling noise indicated that the fence’s power was back on. Though the three women had no reason to doubt Cassie’s ability to take down the power and delay the alarm, they all breathed a sigh of relief that the first phase had gone off without a hitch.
There were eight guards to deal with before the three women could send the signal for Cassie to join them. They had chosen their points of entry with the split of the guards in mind; both Lucy and Clare were to take down two guards apiece. This left Amanda to deal with the remaining four; one patroller and three gate guards. The Captain had been insistent that Amanda do the lion’s share in phase 2. This had annoyed Lucy to an extent; so Amanda had screwed up on the last mission. Everyone made mistakes, but as far as the rest of the team were concerned, Amanda atoned for hers by making sure all 6 of them got out alive. Yes, Nicky was still in hospital but in a few months she’d be back and good as new.
The Captain, though impressed with Amanda’s initiative subsequent to that (admittedly horrendous) cock-up was furious at the lapse in protocol that had led to it. This, Lucy reasoned, was her way of making Amanda prove her professionalism. “And if she doesn’t and winds up dead, will the Captain be sorry? Or will she just shrug and take on another team member?” Lucy, annoyed at herself for the distracting thought, shook her head to clear it. Amanda was one of the best Special Ops soldiers that Lucy had ever worked with. They could have told her to take down all eight and she’d probably still manage it quicker than with all five of them working together. But Nicky wasn’t here, and the Captain was co-ordinating this from the Eyrie. And so the three would have to do their tasks without the additional support. So be it.
Despite Lucy’s faith in Amanda’s ability, it was Clare who made the first contact. As the fence’s power had returned, one of her two guards had heard the crackle and made his way to the fence. Clare froze into perfect stillness as he passed her by without noticing, his eyes fixed on the fence. With a sweep of her arm executed with a ballerina’s grace, she took her Glock from it’s holster on her shoulder, brought it to bear and fired a single shot. She was close enough that the silencer had minimal effect on her aim, and the guard dropped to the ground. Working quickly in case anyone else had heard him hit the floor, she moved him into the shadows of one of the outlying facility buildings. She whispered “First contact, complete” into the microphone under her ski-mask.
Amanda smiled as Clare’s voice came through her earpiece. The others tended to write Clare off as lacking the killer instinct. “Too methodical and too damn slow” was the main complaint. Amanda on the other hand, never doubted Clare’s ability for a second. So she was methodical? Then she made fewer mistakes. And Amanda had recently had cause to really appreciate getting it right without any errors. Now Clare had just proved that she could be as good as making snap decisions as she was making them with the luxury of time on her side. All Amanda had to do was the work of two women against four Spetznaz trained guards. Simple, right?
She dealt with the patroller first. For all his Special Forces background, weeks of idly patrolling what had become the world’s most boring perimeter must have dulled his edge. She had gotten both arms into place before he even registered her presence, and the compression of his carotid artery made for a silent death. As she lowered him to the floor, she whispered “Second contact complete”. Almost instantaneously, Clare’s voice was heard “Se…third contact complete”.
In spite of herself, Lucy was impressed. She’d always regarded Clare as being fundamentally unsuited to field ops. As Intel, she was second to none but Lucy had misgiving about trusting her with the simple task of killing. It seemed her doubts had been misplaced. Once again, the Captain’s decisions were the right ones. The Captain was always right it seemed, and that fact provoked a faint, nebulous sense of irritation in Lucy.
Happily, she had an immediate opportunity to deal with it; both of her patrollers had met on their circuitous route. Amanda and Clare’s kills had made it imperative that these two not live to walk their patrol again. Rather unprofessionally, both had stopped to exchange a few words. This gave her a couple of seconds to decide on how she was going to do this. She couldn’t give either man a chance to shout or raise any sort of alarm that would lead to the alarm going off. And good as she was, it would be arrogant in the extreme to assume that she could get two perfect shots off in the short time it would take either man to draw breath and make a noise.
With the speed and grace that was her norm, she set a simple trip-trap. A volley of darts, loaded with Ketamine, would launch from the small box she positioned at chest height and at least one would hit the target’s flesh. She retreated back to the few shadows that the numerous floodlights in the facility grounds allowed, and waited.
The men finished their final chat, and made their way onwards. Their pace was maddeningly uneven; by the time that the first guard had triggered the trap, the second was at the very edge of her vision. Though they generally worked without night sights, Lucy found herself wishing for one as she fired the shot simultaneously with the darts finding their target.
She should have spared her wish for another time; a red Rorschach blot blossomed on the ground in front of the man as he fell, looking for all the world like a man who had drunkenly stumbled and fell. When she was satisfied that he wasn’t getting back up, she made her way over to the prone, pin-cushioned, and heavily drugged guard. She placed her gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. A quick spasm marked the end of his life. Lucy checked both guards for a pulse. As she dismantled the trip trap, she muttered “Contacts four and five complete”.
Amanda had just finished getting the dead man’s fatigues on over her own grey combat suit when she heard Lucy’s voice. The final three contacts were all down to her, and it had to be done quickly. She tried to remember how the guard had walked, silently cursing herself for not allowing him a few more moments of life so that she could better observe how he moved. Not bothering to hide the body now that all the patrollers were dead, she took a deep breath and advanced on the gate.
One of the guards sat in the booth flipping idly through the worn pages of a magazine. The other two, a man and a woman, were at the gate itself. The man turned and nodded an acknowledgement to Amanda, confirming that her disguise was good enough for what was required of it. She nodded back and, head down, approached the booth. She walked around it to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and turned to face the guard who looked up from his magazine
The report of the rifle rang out at an almost painful volume in the cramped booth. Although it muffled the shot to the outside world, it didn’t muffle it nearly enough to hide the sound from the two guards on the gate. The door was kicked open just as Amanda had turned to face it. Three shots sent him staggering back, and Amanda followed him, training her gun on the momentarily startled woman. Her life ended in that moment. The echo of the final shot faded away.
“Contacts six through eight complete. Cassie, in you come.”
Lucy and Clare joined Amanda at the booth.
- “No silencer?” Clare’s tone neutral, not implying any fault.
- “No need. All the other contacts were done. There’s no way the noise will have been heard in the facility.”
Lucy nodded in agreement with Amanda’s assessment, as did Clare. They waited for Cassie to join them. She was there in just over two minutes, her cheerful face red with exertion and perched on her stocky frame. She smiled at all three of her colleagues, then made her way to the terminal within the booth. From a pocket came a flash drive, filled with all manner of beautifully coded pieces of poison, which was inserted into a dock in the terminal.
“O-kay…lockdown is easy enough to initiate, but there’s a bitch of a failsafe to ensure that the main alarm goes off. The Captain says that there are 3 people in there who have the authorisation code to disarm the Suppression measures, and if they hear that alarm you can be damn sure that’s what they’ll do.”
Lucy sighed inwardly, knowing exactly where this was going. Amanda gamely played her part; “Can you deal with it Cass?”
Cassie’s grin broadened. “What do you think? Give me 10 minutes to bypass it and get the lockdown started. Unless one of them decides to come out for some air, the first they’ll know of it is when they hear the gas vents. At which point, they’re fucked. The corporation chiefs are so shit-scared of any of the fun that they’re researching finding it’s way out of that facility that the Suppression won’t leave fleas alive, let alone people.”
Lucy nodded. She hadn’t been happy at the unknown factor; what if one of them did decide to come out for air? She would have to trust Cassie to make sure that any disarm codes’ binary scream went unheard. Again though, she needn’t have worried. It was seven minutes later when Cassie said “Okay, we’re on.”
It would be three minutes before the Suppression measures began, and Cassie had hacked the facilities internal cameras to monitor things. The women clustered around the terminal and watched anxiously. The three minutes passed without incident. The majority of the people were sleeping in their bunks; the entire Research team were in bed. Only a few insomniacs and security staff were out of their beds.
The cameras showed those facility staff that were still awake reacting with puzzlement to the hissing noise from the walls. That soon gave way to shock, and then fear. Whatever that stuff was, it was effective. The twenty or so people who had been awake were unconscious within twenty seconds and dead in another twenty. Those who had been sleeping died quietly and without fuss.
Cassie touched a button and the monitor went dead. She retrieved her flash drive, and left the booth with the others. As they made their way from the facility gates, Lucy spoke into her face-mic.
“Facility staff neutralised. Lockdown complete. ETA at extraction point, 5 minutes”
A mellifluous voice answered. “Good work. See you all back at the Eyrie.”
From the Captain, that counted as the ringing praises of a choir of angels. Satisfied with a job executed professionally, the women made their way to the extraction point and from thence, home.
At exactly 26 minutes past 3 in the morning, the power for the electrified fence went down, and 3 grey clad figures emerged from the darkness and made their separate ways to the perimeter fence. They stealthily made their climb over the perimeter wall and were inside the facility by 26 minutes and 54 seconds past 3. At 27 minutes past, a soft crackling noise indicated that the fence’s power was back on. Though the three women had no reason to doubt Cassie’s ability to take down the power and delay the alarm, they all breathed a sigh of relief that the first phase had gone off without a hitch.
There were eight guards to deal with before the three women could send the signal for Cassie to join them. They had chosen their points of entry with the split of the guards in mind; both Lucy and Clare were to take down two guards apiece. This left Amanda to deal with the remaining four; one patroller and three gate guards. The Captain had been insistent that Amanda do the lion’s share in phase 2. This had annoyed Lucy to an extent; so Amanda had screwed up on the last mission. Everyone made mistakes, but as far as the rest of the team were concerned, Amanda atoned for hers by making sure all 6 of them got out alive. Yes, Nicky was still in hospital but in a few months she’d be back and good as new.
The Captain, though impressed with Amanda’s initiative subsequent to that (admittedly horrendous) cock-up was furious at the lapse in protocol that had led to it. This, Lucy reasoned, was her way of making Amanda prove her professionalism. “And if she doesn’t and winds up dead, will the Captain be sorry? Or will she just shrug and take on another team member?” Lucy, annoyed at herself for the distracting thought, shook her head to clear it. Amanda was one of the best Special Ops soldiers that Lucy had ever worked with. They could have told her to take down all eight and she’d probably still manage it quicker than with all five of them working together. But Nicky wasn’t here, and the Captain was co-ordinating this from the Eyrie. And so the three would have to do their tasks without the additional support. So be it.
Despite Lucy’s faith in Amanda’s ability, it was Clare who made the first contact. As the fence’s power had returned, one of her two guards had heard the crackle and made his way to the fence. Clare froze into perfect stillness as he passed her by without noticing, his eyes fixed on the fence. With a sweep of her arm executed with a ballerina’s grace, she took her Glock from it’s holster on her shoulder, brought it to bear and fired a single shot. She was close enough that the silencer had minimal effect on her aim, and the guard dropped to the ground. Working quickly in case anyone else had heard him hit the floor, she moved him into the shadows of one of the outlying facility buildings. She whispered “First contact, complete” into the microphone under her ski-mask.
Amanda smiled as Clare’s voice came through her earpiece. The others tended to write Clare off as lacking the killer instinct. “Too methodical and too damn slow” was the main complaint. Amanda on the other hand, never doubted Clare’s ability for a second. So she was methodical? Then she made fewer mistakes. And Amanda had recently had cause to really appreciate getting it right without any errors. Now Clare had just proved that she could be as good as making snap decisions as she was making them with the luxury of time on her side. All Amanda had to do was the work of two women against four Spetznaz trained guards. Simple, right?
She dealt with the patroller first. For all his Special Forces background, weeks of idly patrolling what had become the world’s most boring perimeter must have dulled his edge. She had gotten both arms into place before he even registered her presence, and the compression of his carotid artery made for a silent death. As she lowered him to the floor, she whispered “Second contact complete”. Almost instantaneously, Clare’s voice was heard “Se…third contact complete”.
In spite of herself, Lucy was impressed. She’d always regarded Clare as being fundamentally unsuited to field ops. As Intel, she was second to none but Lucy had misgiving about trusting her with the simple task of killing. It seemed her doubts had been misplaced. Once again, the Captain’s decisions were the right ones. The Captain was always right it seemed, and that fact provoked a faint, nebulous sense of irritation in Lucy.
Happily, she had an immediate opportunity to deal with it; both of her patrollers had met on their circuitous route. Amanda and Clare’s kills had made it imperative that these two not live to walk their patrol again. Rather unprofessionally, both had stopped to exchange a few words. This gave her a couple of seconds to decide on how she was going to do this. She couldn’t give either man a chance to shout or raise any sort of alarm that would lead to the alarm going off. And good as she was, it would be arrogant in the extreme to assume that she could get two perfect shots off in the short time it would take either man to draw breath and make a noise.
With the speed and grace that was her norm, she set a simple trip-trap. A volley of darts, loaded with Ketamine, would launch from the small box she positioned at chest height and at least one would hit the target’s flesh. She retreated back to the few shadows that the numerous floodlights in the facility grounds allowed, and waited.
The men finished their final chat, and made their way onwards. Their pace was maddeningly uneven; by the time that the first guard had triggered the trap, the second was at the very edge of her vision. Though they generally worked without night sights, Lucy found herself wishing for one as she fired the shot simultaneously with the darts finding their target.
She should have spared her wish for another time; a red Rorschach blot blossomed on the ground in front of the man as he fell, looking for all the world like a man who had drunkenly stumbled and fell. When she was satisfied that he wasn’t getting back up, she made her way over to the prone, pin-cushioned, and heavily drugged guard. She placed her gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. A quick spasm marked the end of his life. Lucy checked both guards for a pulse. As she dismantled the trip trap, she muttered “Contacts four and five complete”.
Amanda had just finished getting the dead man’s fatigues on over her own grey combat suit when she heard Lucy’s voice. The final three contacts were all down to her, and it had to be done quickly. She tried to remember how the guard had walked, silently cursing herself for not allowing him a few more moments of life so that she could better observe how he moved. Not bothering to hide the body now that all the patrollers were dead, she took a deep breath and advanced on the gate.
One of the guards sat in the booth flipping idly through the worn pages of a magazine. The other two, a man and a woman, were at the gate itself. The man turned and nodded an acknowledgement to Amanda, confirming that her disguise was good enough for what was required of it. She nodded back and, head down, approached the booth. She walked around it to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and turned to face the guard who looked up from his magazine
The report of the rifle rang out at an almost painful volume in the cramped booth. Although it muffled the shot to the outside world, it didn’t muffle it nearly enough to hide the sound from the two guards on the gate. The door was kicked open just as Amanda had turned to face it. Three shots sent him staggering back, and Amanda followed him, training her gun on the momentarily startled woman. Her life ended in that moment. The echo of the final shot faded away.
“Contacts six through eight complete. Cassie, in you come.”
Lucy and Clare joined Amanda at the booth.
- “No silencer?” Clare’s tone neutral, not implying any fault.
- “No need. All the other contacts were done. There’s no way the noise will have been heard in the facility.”
Lucy nodded in agreement with Amanda’s assessment, as did Clare. They waited for Cassie to join them. She was there in just over two minutes, her cheerful face red with exertion and perched on her stocky frame. She smiled at all three of her colleagues, then made her way to the terminal within the booth. From a pocket came a flash drive, filled with all manner of beautifully coded pieces of poison, which was inserted into a dock in the terminal.
“O-kay…lockdown is easy enough to initiate, but there’s a bitch of a failsafe to ensure that the main alarm goes off. The Captain says that there are 3 people in there who have the authorisation code to disarm the Suppression measures, and if they hear that alarm you can be damn sure that’s what they’ll do.”
Lucy sighed inwardly, knowing exactly where this was going. Amanda gamely played her part; “Can you deal with it Cass?”
Cassie’s grin broadened. “What do you think? Give me 10 minutes to bypass it and get the lockdown started. Unless one of them decides to come out for some air, the first they’ll know of it is when they hear the gas vents. At which point, they’re fucked. The corporation chiefs are so shit-scared of any of the fun that they’re researching finding it’s way out of that facility that the Suppression won’t leave fleas alive, let alone people.”
Lucy nodded. She hadn’t been happy at the unknown factor; what if one of them did decide to come out for air? She would have to trust Cassie to make sure that any disarm codes’ binary scream went unheard. Again though, she needn’t have worried. It was seven minutes later when Cassie said “Okay, we’re on.”
It would be three minutes before the Suppression measures began, and Cassie had hacked the facilities internal cameras to monitor things. The women clustered around the terminal and watched anxiously. The three minutes passed without incident. The majority of the people were sleeping in their bunks; the entire Research team were in bed. Only a few insomniacs and security staff were out of their beds.
The cameras showed those facility staff that were still awake reacting with puzzlement to the hissing noise from the walls. That soon gave way to shock, and then fear. Whatever that stuff was, it was effective. The twenty or so people who had been awake were unconscious within twenty seconds and dead in another twenty. Those who had been sleeping died quietly and without fuss.
Cassie touched a button and the monitor went dead. She retrieved her flash drive, and left the booth with the others. As they made their way from the facility gates, Lucy spoke into her face-mic.
“Facility staff neutralised. Lockdown complete. ETA at extraction point, 5 minutes”
A mellifluous voice answered. “Good work. See you all back at the Eyrie.”
From the Captain, that counted as the ringing praises of a choir of angels. Satisfied with a job executed professionally, the women made their way to the extraction point and from thence, home.
Friday, 28 September 2007
Short Story: Any Regrets?
If I were to be allowed just one regret in my long life, it would be that I haven’t been an honourable man. That may surprise you, but I imagine it would surprise you more to know that it is an honest and heartfelt truth.
Everything started out so simply and without any guile. Much has been said about my humble beginnings. My early life in the army, that of an unspectacular Second Lieutenant who did the job that was in front of him and nothing more. Of my subsequent fledgling career as a journalist and all that stolidly written, workmanlike copy. What is all the louder for being unsaid is the bafflement at how someone whose ambition seemed limited to doing what he was told and doing it competently got to where he is. What you have to understand is that nothing was planned. I didn’t have any Caesar like machinations to get where I am. Things just happened.
I have a second surprise for you; those first few weeks were terrifying for me. Have you ever experienced the fear that comes from knowing you’ve done the wrong thing and are just waiting to be caught? I had the dread borne of knowing I’d done the right thing and only having my conscience to answer to. Although I suppose that realisation only hit me fully his wife wanted to speak to me.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself I suppose, but you’ll allow an old man his meandering thoughts, won’t you? The part that you all know about is the kidnap and the subsequent murder. That’s all a matter of public record, the Home Secretary kidnapped along with the hack interviewing him. The killing of all his bodyguards. The three days before anything was heard, and what was heard being far from what was expected. Trust me, if you’d heard what had really happened…but that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? The last words of the Peacemaker. When I do move on to the next life, I expect Orwell to punch me squarely in the face for that title.
All I knew was that we were in van, we were hooded, and we were travelling at speed. Our captors spoke in harsh, barked commands in a language I recognised as Farsi. “Al-Qaeda!” was the blindingly obvious conclusion I had drawn, and I assumed the Home Sec would draw the same one. Then I heard his familiar voice calmly stating “All right Michael, I think we can drop that now.”
Then silence for a moment. There was a rustling noise, then “Ah, Christ that’s better! Okay, could you give me our status please Michael?”
My initial fears of terrorists allayed, I assumed I was taking part in some sort of exercise, a demonstration of the vulnerability of a senior minister with a view to building support for the current raft of security legislation that had caused rioting when first announced. And here was I, the tame and unimaginative hack to write the exclusive.
“What? Oh him. I wouldn’t worry about Christian names Michael; I rather doubt it will matter very much to him in a few days. Now come on, status report.” The smooth voiced politico voice was gradually faded to be replaced with that of a man dealing with his subordinates. The next voice to make itself heard was a deep Scots burr.
“Very well sir. The kidnap itself went exactly as planned. The grab has resulted in the deaths of your bodyguard, and 3 civilians were unfortunately caught in the crossfire. Our contacts in the Met have ensured that only the false information concerning our vehicle and whereabouts is acted on, and we’ve made sure the usual sources are already disseminating misinformation over the media and internet. Our ETA is 15 minutes. We need to get you made up and him beaten up before we start filming. If we keep on schedule, we’ll be out of their by 2pm and travel in a rented car to the safe house. We’ll keep you both out of sight for 2 days, wait for the media frenzy to build. Them we’ll release both video and body. Any questions sir?”
“No…no, thank you Michael. Very good. Now, as our friend here appears to have soiled himself, do you think we could do something about the smell?”
I didn’t know what was going on, but what I did know was not good news for me. I few (very very un-Islamic) voices started a groaning, mocking chorus.
- What fucking unit was this wanker in?
- To shit himself like that? Probably the marines Geordie!
- Yeah yeah, fuck off Rich. Well done, you’ve just won first prize in the Cleaning up the Shitty Journalist competition. We're going to be working on him, and I don’t want shit sprayed around the place while we’re working.”
A cacophony of laughter almost obscured the litany of complaints from whomever Rich was. No one else said anything for the rest of the journey. I was left to myself, head in a hood and shit in my trousers. I didn’t think it was worthwhile offering that I’d been no more than a glorified clerk in the army. To be honest, I had other things on my mind.
When we arrived, I was stripped but for the hood. Cold water blasted my indignity clean before fists and feet inflicted it afresh. I still didn’t know who these people were and what they wanted, but they clearly enjoyed a good time at someone else’s expense; I was beaten so badly that I wished I could’ve died, then paraded in front of a camera in a room draped with black flags and golden Arabic script. This was the first time they’d even taken the hood off me, and the first time I saw any of my dark haired, olive skinned captors. When they took it off, a blurred figure in front of me spoke in that same Scots voice I had heard in the van.
“Jesus…Heh, you boys had fun then? Alright, can you speak son? CAN YOU SPEAK?”
A blow to the jaw followed. I tried to say something, a plea perhaps. My word came out as a slurred string of nonsense.
“Okay, let’s get started. We’ve got 10 minutes while that prick is still in makeup so let’s try to go for one take. Ready? On my mark…mark”
The brogue vanished in a flash leaving a screaming, ranting Farsi in it’s wake. I’ve no idea what was being said; I was broken and resigned to death by this point. I just wanted it all to end.
We must’ve got what was desired, because we did get it in one take according to an audibly satisfied Michael. The hood went back on, and a volley of punches and kicks drove me to the floor, with some more of the same to keep me there.
As I regained consciousness, I was aware of hearing the Home Sec’s scared but measured voice.
“…are serious. They wish me to tell you that the body that came with this message is the first of 2 if their…please. Please I have a wife, I have children! Please! I…okay okay, stop! Please don’t hit me any more, I’m sorry!
If their demands are not met then there will be another body to follow the first. Be brave Sarah, and tell Ka…no, please let me say something to my wife!”
- It’s alright sir, the camera has stopped running
- Oh, righto. How was that?
- Yeah, that was good. The makeup looks excellent. You’d think you’d got the worst of the beating.
These two voices chuckled at that, just two people sharing a joke. I’m not sure why, but that’s what set off the fuse in my mind. “You’re going to die, and it’s just a joke.” That was the first thought.
I was picked up and dumped in a van, hands still tied in front of me. After we arrived at our destination, I was taken indoors and down some stairs. My hood was taken off my head a second time and I was face to face with one of my captors. He put something down next to me, and stood to leave. “Call it a last drink mate” came the genial voice, and the door closed on me.
The room was small and windowless, bare of everything but walls, ceiling, floor and door. Next to me was a half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniels. It took me an hour to make out the label; I later found out that the beating had almost caused one of my retinas to detach.
The next few hours should have been a lonely hell made bearable by whisky. Instead, the fuse that a poor joke had lit began to burn away in my brain. They were going to kill me in the morning. I was a prop in a performance, nothing else. I didn’t matter. I was inconsequential. My only value in them lay as way of drawing attention to a fake message. I wanted to stay alive.
By the time the same man arrived in the morning to take me to my end, he looked into the room and saw an empty bottle and a glazed expression on my face. He came in the room and squatted down beside me.
It’s safe to say that he didn’t expect to find himself lying on the floor, groaning in surprise as his brain tried to process exactly how the semi-comatose drunk had managed to snatch the bottle from the floor and smash it into the side of his head in a single, sweeping motion. Had he the time to consider it, I’m sure he would have expected to find hand scrabbling at his holster to get his pistol. That time was cut short by an almost certainly unexpected click of the safety catch and the following explosion of the bullet through the back of his skull before it tore into the greyness that made him what he was.
Maybe I should've told him I'd poured the whisky onto the floor and watched it seep away into the boards?
I had heard people like them before when I was the glorified army clerk. Big boys with dangerous toys and letting the whole world what big, swinging dicks they are. They’d already relegated me to the status of body, and I will treasure the look of surprise on the faces of the two men who came bundling into the room as I shot them both.
I had no idea how many there were you know. I didn’t much care about anything at that point. I didn’t expect to escape, and I didn’t expect to live. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t die a joke. Can you understand that? It wasn’t my military training, as some of the more entertaining conspiracy theorists have hinted at. And it wasn’t the desire to be the hero of the hour that the media painted it to be. I didn’t have a wife and children to get away to, and my parents were long dead. The only regret I had right then was that no-one would feed my cat Miette when I was gone. 3 of them were dead because they thought I was a joke, and I wanted to kill more until I stopped being funny.
One of them had a semi-automatic rifle, which relegated the pistol to getting tucked into the back of the green combat fatigues I’d been given to replace my brown crusted jeans.
There was no look of surprise on the man I encountered on leaving that room, simply a gunshot that was answered with 8 of my own. I stepped over the contorted, bloodied, and extravagantly dead man and continued to the foot of the stairs. It looked like I was being held in a cellar of some kind. I decided not to chance peering up through the trap door, preferring to let another 5 bullets precede me. A thump followed by a panicked shout and a door slamming seemed to confirm the wisdom in those bullets, so I pushed up and out. Michael’s vacant eyes greeted me.
That was the first thing that even gave me pause. It was perhaps just over a minute since I’d fired the first shot and 5 people were dead. Dead by my hand. I may sound regretful as I say that now, but at the time…at the time I had less compassion toward the men who’d placed me in that situation. And I’d heard a door slam, probably the one on the wall less than 10 feet away.
I stood for a moment longer, staring back into Michael’s dead eyes. The door flew open, and the minister burst into the room holding a gun in shaking hands whilst he stared at me with wild eyes.
His shots all went wild. Every one. The click-clicking of the empty gun went on for a long time before I spoke.
“Why?”
The impotent gun ceased it’s noise and dropped from his hands as he sank to his knees.
“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me! I’ve got a wife, I’ve got children I…”
As I advanced on him he cowered and received the rifle butt in his face for his trouble.
“WHY!?”
It was difficult to make out any coherent narrative in the whimpering and mewling that followed. And to be fair, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to have what seemed a turgid little power-play explained to me. But I learned that the 5 men I had killed were ex army, all of whom had been employed by the Home Office whenever MI5 needed to be kept out of matters that might cause them any dismay. And I would guess that killing 5 British Muslims and storing their bodies in this safe house to be found when the crack 5 man military unit save the Home Sec and kill the 5 radicals who kidnapped him and killed the journalist with him would cause significant dismay.
What dismayed the Home Secretary was the amount of money he stood to lose if the Security legislation did not see the light of day. I’m afraid he wasn’t very clear on the specifics of that; he was babbling and crying a lot, and I’m happy to say that he’d shat himself too.
Then he started crying for his wife and children again so I shot him. I’ve always hated hypocrites.
We were in an isolated enough place that the gunshots caused no alarm. I was left in a house with 6 dead men for company. What started as an angry attempt to win back some dignity had ended in blood, tears, and freedom. And I now had to cope with the reality of what I’d just done.
From there, we enter the wonderful world of public record again. My heroic attempt to save the Home Sec from a rogue element of the Security Services who wanted to stoke the fear of the Islamic world for their own benefit became a very popular story for a while, and everyone wanted a piece of me.
But I was scared. There was no way that he could have planned this alone, without the knowledge of anyone in government. I was terrified of having an “accident”, though my paranoia was diagnosed and dismissed as post-traumatic stress.
When his wife came to see me, cameras blazing in the ward, I was practically hallucinating with the fear. I’d barely slept in days, and I didn’t know who was going to get me or how. Maybe she would be the one to kill me? Revenge for her husband? Stupid of course; she was a nice enough lady and gave no indication she’d ever had much interest in politics. But she must have adored her husband. The pain in her eyes as she asked me if her husband had suffered much at the hands of the Faked Five was…well, I don’t like to think too much about it. I didn’t answer her, and the nurses said I was too doped up. But I never made any effort to speak to her later. I couldn’t bear facing her and shattering her illusions or trying to maintain mine.
And so I got myself into politics. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? There was enough goodwill toward me that getting elected wasn’t a problem. And you know all about how the cabinet at the time made good use of me as an example to get some of that Security legislation brought in to fanfare and cheers later on. I really didn’t care; the fuse was still burning; they’re going to kill you. You need to stay alive. And I did it by being their poster boy. They got what they wanted, and I got to smile for the cameras and help them get rich.
You know, I don’t know whether them naming the final Act after me when it became law was a stunt for the public or a joke on me. But I didn’t care. I was the Peacemaker, the man who brought about the laws that ensure security for the public.
Even after those laws bit them on the backside, even after the majority of that cabinet had been shot after show trials, and even after that new breed of bastards got on the scene, the ones that don’t even kid themselves about their greed, I’ve stayed sacrosanct as the Peacemaker. And more importantly, alive.
Now isn’t the best time to decide whether a noble death would have been better than this longevity at the price of liberty. But it’s death that’s coming for me soon, and I suppose I’ll find out afterwards whether it was worth it. But I hope that regret counts for something.
Everything started out so simply and without any guile. Much has been said about my humble beginnings. My early life in the army, that of an unspectacular Second Lieutenant who did the job that was in front of him and nothing more. Of my subsequent fledgling career as a journalist and all that stolidly written, workmanlike copy. What is all the louder for being unsaid is the bafflement at how someone whose ambition seemed limited to doing what he was told and doing it competently got to where he is. What you have to understand is that nothing was planned. I didn’t have any Caesar like machinations to get where I am. Things just happened.
I have a second surprise for you; those first few weeks were terrifying for me. Have you ever experienced the fear that comes from knowing you’ve done the wrong thing and are just waiting to be caught? I had the dread borne of knowing I’d done the right thing and only having my conscience to answer to. Although I suppose that realisation only hit me fully his wife wanted to speak to me.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself I suppose, but you’ll allow an old man his meandering thoughts, won’t you? The part that you all know about is the kidnap and the subsequent murder. That’s all a matter of public record, the Home Secretary kidnapped along with the hack interviewing him. The killing of all his bodyguards. The three days before anything was heard, and what was heard being far from what was expected. Trust me, if you’d heard what had really happened…but that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? The last words of the Peacemaker. When I do move on to the next life, I expect Orwell to punch me squarely in the face for that title.
All I knew was that we were in van, we were hooded, and we were travelling at speed. Our captors spoke in harsh, barked commands in a language I recognised as Farsi. “Al-Qaeda!” was the blindingly obvious conclusion I had drawn, and I assumed the Home Sec would draw the same one. Then I heard his familiar voice calmly stating “All right Michael, I think we can drop that now.”
Then silence for a moment. There was a rustling noise, then “Ah, Christ that’s better! Okay, could you give me our status please Michael?”
My initial fears of terrorists allayed, I assumed I was taking part in some sort of exercise, a demonstration of the vulnerability of a senior minister with a view to building support for the current raft of security legislation that had caused rioting when first announced. And here was I, the tame and unimaginative hack to write the exclusive.
“What? Oh him. I wouldn’t worry about Christian names Michael; I rather doubt it will matter very much to him in a few days. Now come on, status report.” The smooth voiced politico voice was gradually faded to be replaced with that of a man dealing with his subordinates. The next voice to make itself heard was a deep Scots burr.
“Very well sir. The kidnap itself went exactly as planned. The grab has resulted in the deaths of your bodyguard, and 3 civilians were unfortunately caught in the crossfire. Our contacts in the Met have ensured that only the false information concerning our vehicle and whereabouts is acted on, and we’ve made sure the usual sources are already disseminating misinformation over the media and internet. Our ETA is 15 minutes. We need to get you made up and him beaten up before we start filming. If we keep on schedule, we’ll be out of their by 2pm and travel in a rented car to the safe house. We’ll keep you both out of sight for 2 days, wait for the media frenzy to build. Them we’ll release both video and body. Any questions sir?”
“No…no, thank you Michael. Very good. Now, as our friend here appears to have soiled himself, do you think we could do something about the smell?”
I didn’t know what was going on, but what I did know was not good news for me. I few (very very un-Islamic) voices started a groaning, mocking chorus.
- What fucking unit was this wanker in?
- To shit himself like that? Probably the marines Geordie!
- Yeah yeah, fuck off Rich. Well done, you’ve just won first prize in the Cleaning up the Shitty Journalist competition. We're going to be working on him, and I don’t want shit sprayed around the place while we’re working.”
A cacophony of laughter almost obscured the litany of complaints from whomever Rich was. No one else said anything for the rest of the journey. I was left to myself, head in a hood and shit in my trousers. I didn’t think it was worthwhile offering that I’d been no more than a glorified clerk in the army. To be honest, I had other things on my mind.
When we arrived, I was stripped but for the hood. Cold water blasted my indignity clean before fists and feet inflicted it afresh. I still didn’t know who these people were and what they wanted, but they clearly enjoyed a good time at someone else’s expense; I was beaten so badly that I wished I could’ve died, then paraded in front of a camera in a room draped with black flags and golden Arabic script. This was the first time they’d even taken the hood off me, and the first time I saw any of my dark haired, olive skinned captors. When they took it off, a blurred figure in front of me spoke in that same Scots voice I had heard in the van.
“Jesus…Heh, you boys had fun then? Alright, can you speak son? CAN YOU SPEAK?”
A blow to the jaw followed. I tried to say something, a plea perhaps. My word came out as a slurred string of nonsense.
“Okay, let’s get started. We’ve got 10 minutes while that prick is still in makeup so let’s try to go for one take. Ready? On my mark…mark”
The brogue vanished in a flash leaving a screaming, ranting Farsi in it’s wake. I’ve no idea what was being said; I was broken and resigned to death by this point. I just wanted it all to end.
We must’ve got what was desired, because we did get it in one take according to an audibly satisfied Michael. The hood went back on, and a volley of punches and kicks drove me to the floor, with some more of the same to keep me there.
As I regained consciousness, I was aware of hearing the Home Sec’s scared but measured voice.
“…are serious. They wish me to tell you that the body that came with this message is the first of 2 if their…please. Please I have a wife, I have children! Please! I…okay okay, stop! Please don’t hit me any more, I’m sorry!
If their demands are not met then there will be another body to follow the first. Be brave Sarah, and tell Ka…no, please let me say something to my wife!”
- It’s alright sir, the camera has stopped running
- Oh, righto. How was that?
- Yeah, that was good. The makeup looks excellent. You’d think you’d got the worst of the beating.
These two voices chuckled at that, just two people sharing a joke. I’m not sure why, but that’s what set off the fuse in my mind. “You’re going to die, and it’s just a joke.” That was the first thought.
I was picked up and dumped in a van, hands still tied in front of me. After we arrived at our destination, I was taken indoors and down some stairs. My hood was taken off my head a second time and I was face to face with one of my captors. He put something down next to me, and stood to leave. “Call it a last drink mate” came the genial voice, and the door closed on me.
The room was small and windowless, bare of everything but walls, ceiling, floor and door. Next to me was a half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniels. It took me an hour to make out the label; I later found out that the beating had almost caused one of my retinas to detach.
The next few hours should have been a lonely hell made bearable by whisky. Instead, the fuse that a poor joke had lit began to burn away in my brain. They were going to kill me in the morning. I was a prop in a performance, nothing else. I didn’t matter. I was inconsequential. My only value in them lay as way of drawing attention to a fake message. I wanted to stay alive.
By the time the same man arrived in the morning to take me to my end, he looked into the room and saw an empty bottle and a glazed expression on my face. He came in the room and squatted down beside me.
It’s safe to say that he didn’t expect to find himself lying on the floor, groaning in surprise as his brain tried to process exactly how the semi-comatose drunk had managed to snatch the bottle from the floor and smash it into the side of his head in a single, sweeping motion. Had he the time to consider it, I’m sure he would have expected to find hand scrabbling at his holster to get his pistol. That time was cut short by an almost certainly unexpected click of the safety catch and the following explosion of the bullet through the back of his skull before it tore into the greyness that made him what he was.
Maybe I should've told him I'd poured the whisky onto the floor and watched it seep away into the boards?
I had heard people like them before when I was the glorified army clerk. Big boys with dangerous toys and letting the whole world what big, swinging dicks they are. They’d already relegated me to the status of body, and I will treasure the look of surprise on the faces of the two men who came bundling into the room as I shot them both.
I had no idea how many there were you know. I didn’t much care about anything at that point. I didn’t expect to escape, and I didn’t expect to live. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t die a joke. Can you understand that? It wasn’t my military training, as some of the more entertaining conspiracy theorists have hinted at. And it wasn’t the desire to be the hero of the hour that the media painted it to be. I didn’t have a wife and children to get away to, and my parents were long dead. The only regret I had right then was that no-one would feed my cat Miette when I was gone. 3 of them were dead because they thought I was a joke, and I wanted to kill more until I stopped being funny.
One of them had a semi-automatic rifle, which relegated the pistol to getting tucked into the back of the green combat fatigues I’d been given to replace my brown crusted jeans.
There was no look of surprise on the man I encountered on leaving that room, simply a gunshot that was answered with 8 of my own. I stepped over the contorted, bloodied, and extravagantly dead man and continued to the foot of the stairs. It looked like I was being held in a cellar of some kind. I decided not to chance peering up through the trap door, preferring to let another 5 bullets precede me. A thump followed by a panicked shout and a door slamming seemed to confirm the wisdom in those bullets, so I pushed up and out. Michael’s vacant eyes greeted me.
That was the first thing that even gave me pause. It was perhaps just over a minute since I’d fired the first shot and 5 people were dead. Dead by my hand. I may sound regretful as I say that now, but at the time…at the time I had less compassion toward the men who’d placed me in that situation. And I’d heard a door slam, probably the one on the wall less than 10 feet away.
I stood for a moment longer, staring back into Michael’s dead eyes. The door flew open, and the minister burst into the room holding a gun in shaking hands whilst he stared at me with wild eyes.
His shots all went wild. Every one. The click-clicking of the empty gun went on for a long time before I spoke.
“Why?”
The impotent gun ceased it’s noise and dropped from his hands as he sank to his knees.
“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me! I’ve got a wife, I’ve got children I…”
As I advanced on him he cowered and received the rifle butt in his face for his trouble.
“WHY!?”
It was difficult to make out any coherent narrative in the whimpering and mewling that followed. And to be fair, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to have what seemed a turgid little power-play explained to me. But I learned that the 5 men I had killed were ex army, all of whom had been employed by the Home Office whenever MI5 needed to be kept out of matters that might cause them any dismay. And I would guess that killing 5 British Muslims and storing their bodies in this safe house to be found when the crack 5 man military unit save the Home Sec and kill the 5 radicals who kidnapped him and killed the journalist with him would cause significant dismay.
What dismayed the Home Secretary was the amount of money he stood to lose if the Security legislation did not see the light of day. I’m afraid he wasn’t very clear on the specifics of that; he was babbling and crying a lot, and I’m happy to say that he’d shat himself too.
Then he started crying for his wife and children again so I shot him. I’ve always hated hypocrites.
We were in an isolated enough place that the gunshots caused no alarm. I was left in a house with 6 dead men for company. What started as an angry attempt to win back some dignity had ended in blood, tears, and freedom. And I now had to cope with the reality of what I’d just done.
From there, we enter the wonderful world of public record again. My heroic attempt to save the Home Sec from a rogue element of the Security Services who wanted to stoke the fear of the Islamic world for their own benefit became a very popular story for a while, and everyone wanted a piece of me.
But I was scared. There was no way that he could have planned this alone, without the knowledge of anyone in government. I was terrified of having an “accident”, though my paranoia was diagnosed and dismissed as post-traumatic stress.
When his wife came to see me, cameras blazing in the ward, I was practically hallucinating with the fear. I’d barely slept in days, and I didn’t know who was going to get me or how. Maybe she would be the one to kill me? Revenge for her husband? Stupid of course; she was a nice enough lady and gave no indication she’d ever had much interest in politics. But she must have adored her husband. The pain in her eyes as she asked me if her husband had suffered much at the hands of the Faked Five was…well, I don’t like to think too much about it. I didn’t answer her, and the nurses said I was too doped up. But I never made any effort to speak to her later. I couldn’t bear facing her and shattering her illusions or trying to maintain mine.
And so I got myself into politics. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? There was enough goodwill toward me that getting elected wasn’t a problem. And you know all about how the cabinet at the time made good use of me as an example to get some of that Security legislation brought in to fanfare and cheers later on. I really didn’t care; the fuse was still burning; they’re going to kill you. You need to stay alive. And I did it by being their poster boy. They got what they wanted, and I got to smile for the cameras and help them get rich.
You know, I don’t know whether them naming the final Act after me when it became law was a stunt for the public or a joke on me. But I didn’t care. I was the Peacemaker, the man who brought about the laws that ensure security for the public.
Even after those laws bit them on the backside, even after the majority of that cabinet had been shot after show trials, and even after that new breed of bastards got on the scene, the ones that don’t even kid themselves about their greed, I’ve stayed sacrosanct as the Peacemaker. And more importantly, alive.
Now isn’t the best time to decide whether a noble death would have been better than this longevity at the price of liberty. But it’s death that’s coming for me soon, and I suppose I’ll find out afterwards whether it was worth it. But I hope that regret counts for something.
Friday, 24 August 2007
Untitled Short Story #2
The thing that struck me most when we arrived was the stillness in the air. Not oppressive, nor as the prelude to a thunderstorm. Everything felt so…peaceful. Even when we started searching and found the horrors that lay behind every door in that tiny hamlet, the aura of the place was one of serene tranquillity.
I know I wasn’t the only one who felt it either. As Jim and I got out of the patrol car, our conversation had ceased suddenly, as if the air had been stolen from our lungs. We had pulled up next to what we took to be the village green. I remember that Jim said something about how the smattering of houses that made up the hamlet of Dantons View could fit onto that green 3 times over. It wasn’t a particularly amusing or witty comment you understand. It was exactly like Jim; factually accurate, somewhat irritating, and requiring a forced laugh from myself to prevent any repetition. But it’s the last thing I remember him saying. I’m told we were there for just over 15 minutes before backup arrived, and I can’t remember either of us saying a thing in that whole time. I mean, we must’ve of course, but I just don’t remember what it was.
We both stood there stunned by, and into, silence. At the risk of repetition and incurring your disbelief, I have to stress this; everything felt so golden. So…so awesome. Don’t get me wrong; what we found there knocked that feeling right out of my head. But sometimes, I do wonder about why it all felt so right when everything turned out to be so wrong.
Jim cleared his throat, and I looked across the patrol car at him. He jerked his head toward the small cottage to my left; it was a pretty little stone-built affair with a small but clearly well tended garden that was an explosion of summer bloom. Jim placed his helmet on his head and started toward it. I shook my head to clear it, and then refocused on the task at hand.
We didn’t hear the 999 call that had led to us being here. All we heard was the dispatch calling all cars about a possible violent disturbance at Dantons View. Jim and I were just finishing up a working lunch in the beer garden of The Hanged Man. Jim always liked to stop by at one of the many pubs that seemed to be scattered around Dorset like seeds in a field. He was a Dorset boy, born and bred, and I think he liked the status afforded him as a dedicated country-boy bobby. Me, I always thought that was just an act to get himself free beer and lunches. But I suppose you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.
I got to hear that call a few months later, when the doctors said I was well enough to be interviewed about what had happened. It was the strangest thing; you hear the 999 operator’s voice, professional tones cut with that oo-arr accent I used to love. But she’s cut off by a woman saying…no, shouting I suppose. She shouts “Please!” Just once, that’s all. And not crying and tearful either. She sounds scared all right, but she sounds shakily in control. Then there’s a click, and then a sort of high pitched whining, bit like what you get on them old tellies when you switched them on and off. Only it keeps going, gets louder and higher. All the doctors in the room looked like rabbits in crosshairs when they got to that bit of the tape, and I don’t suppose I looked to good either. You can just hear the operator going “Agh!” and there’s some thumping, which I suppose must’ve been her ripping her headset off and throwing it away. That whine lasts for 20 seconds, but it felt longer. Then there’s a silence for just a moment.
After that, I hears this voice saying one word. It’s a difficult voice to do justice to, but I’ll try and describe it although you might not like what I’ve got to say about it. It was…well, I’m a father twice over. If you’re a dad like me, you’ll know what I mean but if not you’ll have to take my word for this. Anyway, when you’re a dad, one of the proudest moments of your life is when you hear your little ‘un say it’s first word. It’s a joy, it really is. You see this little intelligence behind your kid’s eyes; they’re not just babbling, they’re communicating with you for the very first time. I’ve heard it twice now and it hit me in the same way each time; pride, joy, tears, and wonderment. Your little lad or lass stops being something that you just care for, and they start to be something you can relate to. They’re not just a gurgling receptacle for you your love and care any more; they’ve started on the road to being thinking, talking, breathing beings, and they’re something that came from you from nothing. You feel like you’re part of a miracle. All of that, all of it comes from that first word from your child’s mouth.
The voice said “Good.” That’s all it said, but in that one word I got that same feeling; something making tentative steps toward intellect and it’s own identity. It even sounded like a little kid’s voice. If you’d heard it in any other context, you would’ve coo-ed and ahh-ed at it. As is, soon as I heard it I started screaming. They had to sedate me for another week; every time I came round I started screaming again. I hear two of the three doctors who were there listening have quit now. Doesn’t surprise me.
Anyway, Jim walks up to the gate and unlatches it. We both walk through and take the 6 steps to the front door. Jim knocks on it. No answer. He knocked again, a bit harder and this time the door opens. No Hammer Horror creaking or anything like that, just a duck egg blue door swinging slightly and quietly inward. There weren’t any noises inside except for the tick of a Grandfather clock. But in that crack of the door opening, I thought I saw something inside.
I shoved Jim aside, interrupting him as he was about to call out “Mrs Henderson?” I would guess (her name, along with the name of the house, was all the dispatcher had given us). Jim always took himself very seriously, and I can’t imagine he would’ve let me off easy about that shove later on. As it happened, it didn’t matter and I don’t suppose it would’ve mattered even if he’d lived bearing in mind what was in there.
Considering how much blood there was in that living room, I don’t know why it struck me as odd that none of that sticky crimson mess had seeped through into the kitchen or the entrance hall. It was as if someone had taken that living room to another building to commit its atrocity, then quietly taken it back. I stood there, dumbfounded; walls, ceiling, floor, and anything on them were covered in blood. When you say that, you just say it and you imagine a room painted red, right? This wasn’t like that; there were thick black clots of it oozing around. There were purples in there; it looked like a madman’s palette. And the centrepiece…I understand that they’ve still not been able to figure out how he did it; the bones and fibres of muscle were all knotted together. 7 people died to make that abomination. Both of Mrs Henderson’s cats too; I saw a couple of paws sticking out from that ungodly mess.
Jim and I, well we were rooted to the spot. We didn’t want to see something like that, but when you do see something like that…well you just can’t stop watching, can you?
At first, I thought the noise was Jim throwing up until I realised that it wasn’t coming from behind me but in front of me. A small, squelching, and human noise. I swear to God I saw the thing move, and that broke my trance. I turned and I ran. Jim took his lead from me for once, and he ran too. We got back to the patrol car, an oasis in the desert of sound with it’s crackling radio. I hadn’t noticed that our own radios had gone dead as soon as we’d gone into the house, and they stayed that way after we got out. I grabbed the mic and tried to say something. My throat was cracked though, and all I could manage was a couple of little squeaks that would have sounded hilarious at another time. I guess the fact that I was trying to talk to control but couldn’t was what made up their minds to send backup. By my reckoning, that means there was about 10 minutes between my failed attempt to use a simple police radio, and the arrival of half a dozen squad cars, ambulances and (a little later on) a team of 4 soldiers to try and take old Albert down.
I heard Jim give a gasp from outside of the car. When I looked out, he was staring at the upper window of Number 1, Dantons View. It was a great big old thing, probably a farmhouse way back when, but now owned by a burnt out bigshot from the city, Jonathon something or other, and his wife. There was something undulating in the window, but I couldn’t quite see what it was; it was greenish-white and I can’t swear to this, but I thought it looked like old dead skin. The more I looked at it, the more I became certain I could hear, just at the margins of the silence, the sound of someone giggling.
Jim turned and ran. He ran the 200 or so yards across that village green, went straight over a fence, and through the open door of one of the other houses. The door slammed shut, and I was 100 yards away, Jim’s mad dash having taken me off-guard. I flung the door open as I got there 15 seconds later. Jim was stood only 2 yards in front, his back to me. Facing him was a man who must’ve been in his Sixties. He was a strange looking man, beanpole legs supported pot bellied and sallow frame which in turn sprouted spindly arms. His white hair was wild, but his face was serene and he was smiling that terrible, calm smile that I still see in some of my nightmares. I’ve been told his name was Albert, and that he was a retired antiques dealer. That smile never left his face. Not then, not when he killed 2 more police officers who were there as backup, not when he was shot through the knees to render him immobile. I’m told that as he bashed his own head in whilst he was awaiting trial in his cell at Brampton, even whilst his brains sprayed out of his self-destroyed skull, he still had that smile on his face.
I don’t know about that, but he was definitely smiling when his hand snaked out and took Jim by the throat. Smiling when he lifted him. Smiling as he looked into Jim’s eyes. Smiling when, without any seeming effort, he closed his hand into a fist crushing Jim’s larynx and tearing through his arteries. Jim danced a stringless puppet dance as he died, and Albert kept staring at him. Again, this could be just an imperfect recollection of a pretty emotional moment, but I thought Albert’s eyes changed a little as Jim died. They went from blankly smiling to a kind of puzzlement. No, that’s not right. Curiosity.
Then he looked at me, and dropped Jim like an old toy. I’m not ashamed to say that my bladder failed me when that old man looked me in the eye. It wasn’t fear though. Aye, I know; that sounds like coppers bravado, but it wasn’t. I felt elated when he looked at me. I felt like everything bad that had happened to me didn’t matter any more, and that everything was going to be all right. Now you might say that’s a stupid thing to think whilst Jim’s arterial blood was spraying me, Albert, and the whole room, right? And you’d be right. But you weren’t there. So to hell with you; you don’t know.
Albert’s beaming visage came closer to mine, and as it did the ecstasy in my brain doubled, then tripled. It was sheer bliss, that feeling. I wondered if that’s how everyone feels when they know, unequivocally, that they are about to die. Then everything went black.
By the time I came round, 4 days had passed. The doctors said that they couldn’t find any injuries on me, and that my coma had been as a result of extreme nervous trauma. My parents, worried looking and drawn, were sat by my bed as I woke. I don’t see them much nowadays. I think seeing their son screaming obscenities and with madness in his eyes when he first woke up has somewhat affected their view of me.
It took even more time to get me from screeching loon, to catatonic stupor, to tentatively sane recovery. In all that time, no-one has told me what was in the other houses in Dantons View. No-one has explained what happened to me. No-one seems to want to talk to me about it. I know none of the houses there have been re-occupied; they all sit empty with rather forlorn looking FOR SALE signs in each of their gardens. The story may not have made headlines, but word gets around and even the whispered rumours of what happened have been enough to put off any interest.
I’ll be getting medical retirement from the force in a few months. No-one seems to begrudge me it. In fact, most of ‘em are happy to see me go. Coppers can be a superstitious bunch, and I think they see me as a Jonah or something. Or maybe they’re angry at me for not dying like Jim or the other two. I don’t know, and to be honest I don’t care. By the time I get my retirement, I’ll have been on convalescence for almost a year. I’ll have saved up £20,000. With the way things are, I’ll be able to put down a good sized deposit on a house in Dantons View. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m counting down the days until I can go and see the Estate Agent’s and put in my offer.
This could be a new beginning for me; the start of something much better.
I know I wasn’t the only one who felt it either. As Jim and I got out of the patrol car, our conversation had ceased suddenly, as if the air had been stolen from our lungs. We had pulled up next to what we took to be the village green. I remember that Jim said something about how the smattering of houses that made up the hamlet of Dantons View could fit onto that green 3 times over. It wasn’t a particularly amusing or witty comment you understand. It was exactly like Jim; factually accurate, somewhat irritating, and requiring a forced laugh from myself to prevent any repetition. But it’s the last thing I remember him saying. I’m told we were there for just over 15 minutes before backup arrived, and I can’t remember either of us saying a thing in that whole time. I mean, we must’ve of course, but I just don’t remember what it was.
We both stood there stunned by, and into, silence. At the risk of repetition and incurring your disbelief, I have to stress this; everything felt so golden. So…so awesome. Don’t get me wrong; what we found there knocked that feeling right out of my head. But sometimes, I do wonder about why it all felt so right when everything turned out to be so wrong.
Jim cleared his throat, and I looked across the patrol car at him. He jerked his head toward the small cottage to my left; it was a pretty little stone-built affair with a small but clearly well tended garden that was an explosion of summer bloom. Jim placed his helmet on his head and started toward it. I shook my head to clear it, and then refocused on the task at hand.
We didn’t hear the 999 call that had led to us being here. All we heard was the dispatch calling all cars about a possible violent disturbance at Dantons View. Jim and I were just finishing up a working lunch in the beer garden of The Hanged Man. Jim always liked to stop by at one of the many pubs that seemed to be scattered around Dorset like seeds in a field. He was a Dorset boy, born and bred, and I think he liked the status afforded him as a dedicated country-boy bobby. Me, I always thought that was just an act to get himself free beer and lunches. But I suppose you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.
I got to hear that call a few months later, when the doctors said I was well enough to be interviewed about what had happened. It was the strangest thing; you hear the 999 operator’s voice, professional tones cut with that oo-arr accent I used to love. But she’s cut off by a woman saying…no, shouting I suppose. She shouts “Please!” Just once, that’s all. And not crying and tearful either. She sounds scared all right, but she sounds shakily in control. Then there’s a click, and then a sort of high pitched whining, bit like what you get on them old tellies when you switched them on and off. Only it keeps going, gets louder and higher. All the doctors in the room looked like rabbits in crosshairs when they got to that bit of the tape, and I don’t suppose I looked to good either. You can just hear the operator going “Agh!” and there’s some thumping, which I suppose must’ve been her ripping her headset off and throwing it away. That whine lasts for 20 seconds, but it felt longer. Then there’s a silence for just a moment.
After that, I hears this voice saying one word. It’s a difficult voice to do justice to, but I’ll try and describe it although you might not like what I’ve got to say about it. It was…well, I’m a father twice over. If you’re a dad like me, you’ll know what I mean but if not you’ll have to take my word for this. Anyway, when you’re a dad, one of the proudest moments of your life is when you hear your little ‘un say it’s first word. It’s a joy, it really is. You see this little intelligence behind your kid’s eyes; they’re not just babbling, they’re communicating with you for the very first time. I’ve heard it twice now and it hit me in the same way each time; pride, joy, tears, and wonderment. Your little lad or lass stops being something that you just care for, and they start to be something you can relate to. They’re not just a gurgling receptacle for you your love and care any more; they’ve started on the road to being thinking, talking, breathing beings, and they’re something that came from you from nothing. You feel like you’re part of a miracle. All of that, all of it comes from that first word from your child’s mouth.
The voice said “Good.” That’s all it said, but in that one word I got that same feeling; something making tentative steps toward intellect and it’s own identity. It even sounded like a little kid’s voice. If you’d heard it in any other context, you would’ve coo-ed and ahh-ed at it. As is, soon as I heard it I started screaming. They had to sedate me for another week; every time I came round I started screaming again. I hear two of the three doctors who were there listening have quit now. Doesn’t surprise me.
Anyway, Jim walks up to the gate and unlatches it. We both walk through and take the 6 steps to the front door. Jim knocks on it. No answer. He knocked again, a bit harder and this time the door opens. No Hammer Horror creaking or anything like that, just a duck egg blue door swinging slightly and quietly inward. There weren’t any noises inside except for the tick of a Grandfather clock. But in that crack of the door opening, I thought I saw something inside.
I shoved Jim aside, interrupting him as he was about to call out “Mrs Henderson?” I would guess (her name, along with the name of the house, was all the dispatcher had given us). Jim always took himself very seriously, and I can’t imagine he would’ve let me off easy about that shove later on. As it happened, it didn’t matter and I don’t suppose it would’ve mattered even if he’d lived bearing in mind what was in there.
Considering how much blood there was in that living room, I don’t know why it struck me as odd that none of that sticky crimson mess had seeped through into the kitchen or the entrance hall. It was as if someone had taken that living room to another building to commit its atrocity, then quietly taken it back. I stood there, dumbfounded; walls, ceiling, floor, and anything on them were covered in blood. When you say that, you just say it and you imagine a room painted red, right? This wasn’t like that; there were thick black clots of it oozing around. There were purples in there; it looked like a madman’s palette. And the centrepiece…I understand that they’ve still not been able to figure out how he did it; the bones and fibres of muscle were all knotted together. 7 people died to make that abomination. Both of Mrs Henderson’s cats too; I saw a couple of paws sticking out from that ungodly mess.
Jim and I, well we were rooted to the spot. We didn’t want to see something like that, but when you do see something like that…well you just can’t stop watching, can you?
At first, I thought the noise was Jim throwing up until I realised that it wasn’t coming from behind me but in front of me. A small, squelching, and human noise. I swear to God I saw the thing move, and that broke my trance. I turned and I ran. Jim took his lead from me for once, and he ran too. We got back to the patrol car, an oasis in the desert of sound with it’s crackling radio. I hadn’t noticed that our own radios had gone dead as soon as we’d gone into the house, and they stayed that way after we got out. I grabbed the mic and tried to say something. My throat was cracked though, and all I could manage was a couple of little squeaks that would have sounded hilarious at another time. I guess the fact that I was trying to talk to control but couldn’t was what made up their minds to send backup. By my reckoning, that means there was about 10 minutes between my failed attempt to use a simple police radio, and the arrival of half a dozen squad cars, ambulances and (a little later on) a team of 4 soldiers to try and take old Albert down.
I heard Jim give a gasp from outside of the car. When I looked out, he was staring at the upper window of Number 1, Dantons View. It was a great big old thing, probably a farmhouse way back when, but now owned by a burnt out bigshot from the city, Jonathon something or other, and his wife. There was something undulating in the window, but I couldn’t quite see what it was; it was greenish-white and I can’t swear to this, but I thought it looked like old dead skin. The more I looked at it, the more I became certain I could hear, just at the margins of the silence, the sound of someone giggling.
Jim turned and ran. He ran the 200 or so yards across that village green, went straight over a fence, and through the open door of one of the other houses. The door slammed shut, and I was 100 yards away, Jim’s mad dash having taken me off-guard. I flung the door open as I got there 15 seconds later. Jim was stood only 2 yards in front, his back to me. Facing him was a man who must’ve been in his Sixties. He was a strange looking man, beanpole legs supported pot bellied and sallow frame which in turn sprouted spindly arms. His white hair was wild, but his face was serene and he was smiling that terrible, calm smile that I still see in some of my nightmares. I’ve been told his name was Albert, and that he was a retired antiques dealer. That smile never left his face. Not then, not when he killed 2 more police officers who were there as backup, not when he was shot through the knees to render him immobile. I’m told that as he bashed his own head in whilst he was awaiting trial in his cell at Brampton, even whilst his brains sprayed out of his self-destroyed skull, he still had that smile on his face.
I don’t know about that, but he was definitely smiling when his hand snaked out and took Jim by the throat. Smiling when he lifted him. Smiling as he looked into Jim’s eyes. Smiling when, without any seeming effort, he closed his hand into a fist crushing Jim’s larynx and tearing through his arteries. Jim danced a stringless puppet dance as he died, and Albert kept staring at him. Again, this could be just an imperfect recollection of a pretty emotional moment, but I thought Albert’s eyes changed a little as Jim died. They went from blankly smiling to a kind of puzzlement. No, that’s not right. Curiosity.
Then he looked at me, and dropped Jim like an old toy. I’m not ashamed to say that my bladder failed me when that old man looked me in the eye. It wasn’t fear though. Aye, I know; that sounds like coppers bravado, but it wasn’t. I felt elated when he looked at me. I felt like everything bad that had happened to me didn’t matter any more, and that everything was going to be all right. Now you might say that’s a stupid thing to think whilst Jim’s arterial blood was spraying me, Albert, and the whole room, right? And you’d be right. But you weren’t there. So to hell with you; you don’t know.
Albert’s beaming visage came closer to mine, and as it did the ecstasy in my brain doubled, then tripled. It was sheer bliss, that feeling. I wondered if that’s how everyone feels when they know, unequivocally, that they are about to die. Then everything went black.
By the time I came round, 4 days had passed. The doctors said that they couldn’t find any injuries on me, and that my coma had been as a result of extreme nervous trauma. My parents, worried looking and drawn, were sat by my bed as I woke. I don’t see them much nowadays. I think seeing their son screaming obscenities and with madness in his eyes when he first woke up has somewhat affected their view of me.
It took even more time to get me from screeching loon, to catatonic stupor, to tentatively sane recovery. In all that time, no-one has told me what was in the other houses in Dantons View. No-one has explained what happened to me. No-one seems to want to talk to me about it. I know none of the houses there have been re-occupied; they all sit empty with rather forlorn looking FOR SALE signs in each of their gardens. The story may not have made headlines, but word gets around and even the whispered rumours of what happened have been enough to put off any interest.
I’ll be getting medical retirement from the force in a few months. No-one seems to begrudge me it. In fact, most of ‘em are happy to see me go. Coppers can be a superstitious bunch, and I think they see me as a Jonah or something. Or maybe they’re angry at me for not dying like Jim or the other two. I don’t know, and to be honest I don’t care. By the time I get my retirement, I’ll have been on convalescence for almost a year. I’ll have saved up £20,000. With the way things are, I’ll be able to put down a good sized deposit on a house in Dantons View. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m counting down the days until I can go and see the Estate Agent’s and put in my offer.
This could be a new beginning for me; the start of something much better.
Tuesday, 21 August 2007
Untitled Short Story
I dunno. Things seem a lot more peaceful now that the confiscations are all in the past. The recent past I grant you, but the past is what it is; best left behind. It all seems sorta distant now. What’s that feeling you get, when you’re having a dream? Disconnected? Is that it? Whatever it is, that’s what I’m talking about.
The whole thing seems ridiculous now that I come to say it out loud. The newspapers are forbidden from reporting on it now, and to tell you the truth, they all seem pretty relieved about that. Maybe not the reporters themselves; I’m sure there are a few good apples out there. But the big media barons? Heh; you can bet they’re about as happy as pigs in the proverbial right now. How do you run a story like that without making yourself look like a fool? Or scaring the shit out of your readership. Either way, who wants to pick from one choice or the other?
Anyway, that’s not what you give a shit about, right? You just want the good stuff. Fuckin’ MTV generation…yeah, I know I know; it was all better in the “good old daze” right? Well…fuck you. It was. It’s called a daze for a reason. It means a pleasant stupor. Did you know that? We were all pleasantly stupid about what was going on. Not like now; now we know something is going on but we’re fucked if we know what. That being true, I think I’ll stay with my happy memories of being stupid. That okay with you?
So there’s this closed session at the UN. For the first time in it’s history, every world leader is gonna be there. Every one. Didn’t matter if they were the Queen of Sheba or the Cunt from Canada. All world leaders were gonna be face to face. The idea was to “provide a face to face forum to end world war” or some such shit. I don’t really remember and, well, I can’t check my facts any more can I?
Anyway, the session lasted 17 days. The whole world seemed to hold it’s breath while the king shits of turd mountain sat and talked. Two of ‘em died. I always think it was a fuckin’ miracle it was only two; all those fat, rich, happy bags of piss and wind? Putting them all in one room for so long? Jesus, I’m surprised no-one suffocated on the bullshit.
2 fewer and 17 days older, the press got summoned to hear what all those brilliant world minds had agreed upon. I remember watching it on YouTube before the internet got shut down; some bleary eyed American President announced that “measures will be taken across all countries and by all peoples to guarantee peace in our time”. At which point, if we’d been a halfway sensible people, we’dve thrown those pricks back and that room and told ‘em to fuck off. Pretty much every conflict worldwide had died down in those 17 days. 17 days with no stupid old man trying to solve a grudge with young man’s blood had led to a distinct lack of direction for people whose hate petered out pretty quickly without orders to sustain it.
Then the books started being confiscated. The list was drawn up (not that we ever saw the fucking thing) and the authorities started cleaning them up. Funny; you always think that sort of thing is gonna be all stern faces and moustaches on pricks. Turns out it’s a bunch of mousy, polite men and women in overalls collecting books from shops and from houses to be removed “for the good of mankind”.
I’m not sure anyone really even misses them to be honest. Hadn’t read most of ‘em so who gives a shit, y’know? There was a lot of protests by people saying that their civil liberties were were being taken away from them. I dunno about that; if you want to read, there’s plenty of books still to choose from. But…well like I said at the start; it’s weird. We all heard that there was a big plan for world peace, and then the confiscations started so we all just assumed…well, it must be for our own good, right? Why else would all our leaders want to get rid of certain books?
Now…now there’s a strange atmosphere. I get the sense that everyone is waiting to see what happens next. No-one seems to know but I know there’s that tingle in the air; not the one you get before a storm, but the one before a senseless pub kicking or when that kid got caught stabbing cats. We’ll see I suppose.
So why’re you making this program then? Wouldn’t have thought talking about this stuff was exactly popular now.
Who did you say you were with again? BBC?
Can I see your press pass again please mate?
The whole thing seems ridiculous now that I come to say it out loud. The newspapers are forbidden from reporting on it now, and to tell you the truth, they all seem pretty relieved about that. Maybe not the reporters themselves; I’m sure there are a few good apples out there. But the big media barons? Heh; you can bet they’re about as happy as pigs in the proverbial right now. How do you run a story like that without making yourself look like a fool? Or scaring the shit out of your readership. Either way, who wants to pick from one choice or the other?
Anyway, that’s not what you give a shit about, right? You just want the good stuff. Fuckin’ MTV generation…yeah, I know I know; it was all better in the “good old daze” right? Well…fuck you. It was. It’s called a daze for a reason. It means a pleasant stupor. Did you know that? We were all pleasantly stupid about what was going on. Not like now; now we know something is going on but we’re fucked if we know what. That being true, I think I’ll stay with my happy memories of being stupid. That okay with you?
So there’s this closed session at the UN. For the first time in it’s history, every world leader is gonna be there. Every one. Didn’t matter if they were the Queen of Sheba or the Cunt from Canada. All world leaders were gonna be face to face. The idea was to “provide a face to face forum to end world war” or some such shit. I don’t really remember and, well, I can’t check my facts any more can I?
Anyway, the session lasted 17 days. The whole world seemed to hold it’s breath while the king shits of turd mountain sat and talked. Two of ‘em died. I always think it was a fuckin’ miracle it was only two; all those fat, rich, happy bags of piss and wind? Putting them all in one room for so long? Jesus, I’m surprised no-one suffocated on the bullshit.
2 fewer and 17 days older, the press got summoned to hear what all those brilliant world minds had agreed upon. I remember watching it on YouTube before the internet got shut down; some bleary eyed American President announced that “measures will be taken across all countries and by all peoples to guarantee peace in our time”. At which point, if we’d been a halfway sensible people, we’dve thrown those pricks back and that room and told ‘em to fuck off. Pretty much every conflict worldwide had died down in those 17 days. 17 days with no stupid old man trying to solve a grudge with young man’s blood had led to a distinct lack of direction for people whose hate petered out pretty quickly without orders to sustain it.
Then the books started being confiscated. The list was drawn up (not that we ever saw the fucking thing) and the authorities started cleaning them up. Funny; you always think that sort of thing is gonna be all stern faces and moustaches on pricks. Turns out it’s a bunch of mousy, polite men and women in overalls collecting books from shops and from houses to be removed “for the good of mankind”.
I’m not sure anyone really even misses them to be honest. Hadn’t read most of ‘em so who gives a shit, y’know? There was a lot of protests by people saying that their civil liberties were were being taken away from them. I dunno about that; if you want to read, there’s plenty of books still to choose from. But…well like I said at the start; it’s weird. We all heard that there was a big plan for world peace, and then the confiscations started so we all just assumed…well, it must be for our own good, right? Why else would all our leaders want to get rid of certain books?
Now…now there’s a strange atmosphere. I get the sense that everyone is waiting to see what happens next. No-one seems to know but I know there’s that tingle in the air; not the one you get before a storm, but the one before a senseless pub kicking or when that kid got caught stabbing cats. We’ll see I suppose.
So why’re you making this program then? Wouldn’t have thought talking about this stuff was exactly popular now.
Who did you say you were with again? BBC?
Can I see your press pass again please mate?
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