Some Welcome to the Queer State of Rolladonia
In which I learn of the curious state of affairs…
When I was arrested I struggled and as a result was shackled. When I was
shackled I struggled more, for I feared the intentions of my captors, so I was
placed in a small padded room, and had my restraints removed. I threw myself at
the walls hoping in a frustrated vein that there might be some way out, and so
again I was shackled. I was left in
the room with just The Voice In My Head, which chided and distracted me, and I
could not turn it off or find where the speakers were hidden.
“You are a bad person”
“No I am not”
“You must think better thoughts”
“I think good thoughts, sometimes”
“You know you are mad to think as you do”
“What rubbish! I am quite sane”
Eventually I was visited, and The Voice was turned off by remote
control.
“I am not mad anymore than the next man is” I explained haughtily.
“You are wrong! You can be as mad as the next man and we will show you
how!”
“But how do you know I am mad?”
“Because we are the Hospital and what we say is right. This is clearly
proven by precedent.”
The handler showed me a video of a figure being kicked to the floor by a
SWAT team wearing white. The tracking was poor so he rewound the tape and
fiddled with the control until he was satisfied that the picture was clear
enough and the crimson crisp enough as the blood poured onto the pavement. He
played it from the start again and to my horror I saw where how and who it was
being beaten to and through the ground, and I covered my eyes in disgust with my
crooked hands.
“What is it the Paupery, the poor, need?”
“Food”
“No, it is not food”
“Warmth?”
“No, nor that either.”
“Care?”
“Wrong, and wrong again, again. And yet you do not question your
sanity? It is Opportunity that the Paupery require, not sustenance, not
provisions, and neither education nor representation. And Opportunity is
something we must make for ourselves, it is not right to have others provide it
for us!”
I did not at first understand the conclusions that the handler drew, for
I feared the consequences greatly.
Then he showed me a video of how the Ignorant lived. It was set in a
small flat in a cramped street. There was a father with a stomach clearly
overindulged, holding a rolled up newspaper, chastising a young boy.
“Why do you fucking spray the dog?”
“I was bored”
“Why did you fucking spray the bitch? You know I hate yellow. Now get
the fuck out into the street"
A voice over:
“The ignorant are ignorant and are therefore pleased to be so. See how
they choose not to change? They do not have to worry about serious matters and
may bask in what trivial flotsam floats their way.”
I still did not understand, but I resigned myself to learn, and ascribed
the pills as required. And slowly I knew things were as I was told, although
they still made little sense.
I met Mallard through the care in the community programme which I was
involved in between 1982 and 1993. He was a sprightly old man with a good eye
for business opportunities with no consideration for fair trade and competition,
and he was a great inspiration to me as my tutor. He sold his pills and stole
others’ so that very soon he had a monopoly and a very steep demand curve. If
we didn’t have our dose we would all start having funny thoughts again and we
wouldn’t be allowed to stay outside. Nobody wanted to go back into secure
accommodation. Mallard told me the following story and under the pills’
guidance it made sense.
“Owing to last year’s shortfall,” explained the president “this
year we will have to make significant cutbacks if this company is to remain
competitive.”
Andrew Mallard yawned. He had heard it all before. Profits down, the
directors’ pay rise cancelled or lay off a few workers? Life in the
prosthetics industry was never easy and world peace certainly wasn’t helping
matters.
“No more land mines, no more violent unavoidable explosive amputees
desperate for a limb to stand on, no more children separated by bloodshed, and
no more forlorn old women resigned to ending their existence scraping together
two pegs which they can never leave behind them. What is happening to our
market?”
Land mines were certainly Oldman Bros’ biggest earner. Oldman
supplied, the world demanded. After those beautiful bombs in the ground were
banned, Oldman had to turn to more modern means to find it’s much needed
markets. Publicity, publicity, publicity. The ‘air walk’ brand was
re-launched, and to celebrate a series of media events were organised. “Only
Oldman” was the key slogan. And eventually their biggest coup for seven
million pounds:
“Oldman Prosthetics - The Home Leg of the London Marathon”
One promotional blitz led onto another even more ingenious. New York
Fashion Week was sponsored to give artificial limbs a young, sexy exuberant
exterior. Beautiful, nubile, yet limbless models opened the show, displaying the
cutting edge in prosthetic couture par excellence. And after that failed to
capture the public’s imagination, war itself had to be the strategists’ next
target. Increased hostilities had to lead to market growth, said the bean
counters. In the mid 1980s prosthetics were a boom industry, the trend could
still turn around, market forces can be influenced. It just seemed a matter of
applying the right subtle pressure.
War was promoted amongst the ignorant masses. Oldman released a series
of publications designed to stir up a little hostility and an acceptance that
violence was necessary, and yet sometimes beautiful despite all the evidence to
the contrary. “Kaboom!?” was the only magazine which survived past the first
issue, and it folded after just three months despite a high standard of
journalism quite unique to it’s market sector. A report by the leading war
correspondent from the Financial Times, Jane Arnold, entitled “What No Leg?”
was nominated for a NAFTA award, the equivalent of the academy awards for
publishers. But the ignorant masses were not interested anymore. So those with
money were courted. Arms fairs were promoted.
“Jakarta Arms Fair: brought to you with Oldman Prosthetics - The Only
Leg You Can Stand On! ™”
And as if that wasn’t enough world politicians were flown to meet each
other, to discover just how disagreeable and offensive they all really were, all
at Oldman’s expense. Then the Oldman plan fell into place. Foreign ministers
from Iraq were routinely kept waiting for hours in stuffy portacabins before
they met their Israeli counterparts, who were always blamed for the delay. It
was all under the guise of a grand world peace initiative. Sponsored by the
company who knew the damage that war could do to people the best, who understood
the damage that conflict caused, and all from the most unique position. Oldman
of course thought that it would never work, that it would have the opposite
effect from their publicised desire for a new world order based on fairness,
equality and fraternity. The problem for Oldman was it didn’t fail, and Peace
was announced on an unprecedented scale. Oldman stock plummeted as city analysts
saw the shape of things to come. So Oldman hit back.
“Will the following names please see me in my office? Davis,
Sanderson, Mortley, Figgis, and Milchard.”
They tried to get Oldman’s name better known to fight off the
competition. Then they tried to organise wars through their politicians. Nothing
worked. The company was on the rocks. But then a miracle happened, GM foods came
along, and all was saved. Mallard’s job was secure again.
“Long live the president.”
There was a considerable amount of pride in Mallard’s voice as he told
this story, because he had worked for Oldman Bros., until automation, and he had
seen the president with his own eyes and not on the television! I found the
story very pleasing, for as they told me everyday, capitalism works for us. I
tried to remember the story so that I could tell it to my handler so that he
could see that I had learned, and I practised telling it to as many other people
as I could find in the streets and the stations where I spent my time avoiding
the people who poke me. They all agreed that it was a fine story, although they
rarely stayed to hear it all. I thought my handler would be very proud when I
told him about the good news I had been spreading, but he was insolent with
rage.
“Why have you done this terrible thing? Tell me fool.”
“I thought you would be pleased, my handler.”
“No! You must not preach it you must act it! You must be seen to know
you must not let them know! They will think you are mad!”
“But I am not mad, I take the pills.”
“Very good. I am sure someday that all will be well.”
I was unsure what I had done to displease my handler, for what he said
made no sense to me, yet I knew he was right because why else would the hospital
send him to talk to me? The hospital knew what was best, that was the first
thing I had learned there. Mallard told me I must practise thinking what my
handler told me if I was to truly re-enter the real world from which I had
fallen. The pills would help but the thought structure must be strong enough to
survive on its own. He said it was like building a house. To make sure my house
was strong he was feeding me one thought at a time. I thanked Mallard for his
patience with me, as I was weak. This was one day before I met the Cavorting
Fly.
How I met a drowning fly and risked my life for it’s safety…
The next day we had a group therapy session where we had the chance to
get our problems and life stories off our chests, providing they were not too
mad. Madness is infectious! Fortunately I did not have to go first.
“I am James Mitchell. As I slipped into a mire of popcorn it occurred
to me that this was not what I had expected to happen when I had started taking
the diet pills. At a svelte 220lbs I had felt like a king sized gorilla stamping
through a game park of lean gazelles, with a belly that could consume the sun
and the moon and still have room for the stars. My shame in the shopping malls
was immeasurable, as I crammed the fatty foods into my trolley that I knew would
sustain my size.
“There may be some minor side effects such as loss of sight, hearing
or maybe minor brain damage. If symptoms persist please contact your local
practitioner immediately”
After a week I began to notice the changes. My stomach was receding, my
thighs looked less like paving slabs and my hair felt far less greasy. Success
seemed inevitable, and with no need to change my diet. Long live chips, mushy
peas and pie. Long live bacon and coke, crisps and fries. This was a revolution,
a loud welcome to the era of consumer choice, at last we need no longer be what
we ate, and in my case that had always been fat.
As my size fell, my confidence grew and very soon I was saying goodbye
to the pounds and not missing the inches. I was popular like I had never been
before and no longer as the butt of every joke. I didn’t care that I was a
little shorter, I hardly noticed it at first. Sure, I couldn’t reach the
counters I was used to groping, the dairy section of the supermarket was way out
of bounds and the delicatessen was lost to me also. It became embarrassing
asking for an assistant to read out the labels and then stretch down and hand me
my food, so I only bought what I could reach.
But one day I was three foot four and not half an inch over, I was so
small I was passing as a youth on the trains, it had sprung up on me quite by
surprise. I was thirty-five, this was plainly ridiculous, and if someone had
asked me ‘if my mother knew that I was out so late’ but one more time I
would have had to have stamped on their toes and then bitten through their
ankles just to hold back my rage. Soon I was starting to think small and not
just act small, I had no more dreams of bare chested ladies dancing in my bed,
or fast cars with faster thrills, the only magazines I could get my hands on
were comics, and the newsagent handed me these with a patronising smile.
“Don’t spend all your pocket money at once now son”
I quit my job the day I could no longer push the elevator button for the
fourth floor. I was not loaded, but neither was I poor, I spent my time
attending children’s matinees and devising ways to get served, the off license
and the pub no longer accepted my ID. But there was no need to drink myself into
the ground when the diet pills were taking me there so much quicker.
I considered taking myself off my prescription, but I was too afraid of
the weight I might put on. All my idols were now my size also, or just a little
larger. The Teletubbies appeared about my height, and the Rugrats a few inches
shorter. There was still progress to be made. I binged late at night on gummy
bears and fruit pastilles, watching u ( c ) rated videos, slept on bean bags,
and woke always earlier than seven each morning in time for children’s
cartoons.
One day I was arrested by a truant officer on my way out of Toys ‘R’
Us, at about two in the afternoon. I was not James Mitchell, the council told
me, because James Mitchell was thirty-five, and neither was I Flash Gordon,
because he was a fictional character. I looked about nine and in need of care,
my teeth were disgusting and my hair was a mess.
I was assigned a family and a new income of one pound a week.
(“Don’t spend all your pocket money at once now son”). My new parents
meant well, but I found them repulsive and I wished they would leave me well
alone. My new tag was James Dublin and I resented the name greatly. School was
more fun than I remembered it from
twenty years before, I was now the school bully since I knew all the tricks, and
was happy to exploit a steady flow of chocolatey treats from my less experienced
subjects. But without my diet pills my body began to change, and before I knew
it I was James Mitchell again, just a little smaller than before. It all seemed
to happen over one night. The next morning I was woken by shouting.
“Where’s James? What have you done with our boy?”
“I am James! And I am not your boy!”
“What have you done with him, you animal!”
So that was how I ended up here in this secure home for disturbed
adults. Can’t you see I’m innocent? I never did anything to that boy, not
that you would understand, how could I have killed myself? So why do they hold
me here? It makes no sense. And I never meant to hurt those other kids anyway,
it was just for kicks! I don’t know how they got under my floorboards, it must
have been bad luck! One day people will understand, oh yes, I’ll make them!”
When my handler had calmed down and stopped shaking and frothing at the
mouth, he said we should go out and get some air and we were escorted into the
gardens. My handler did not look better for having shared his pain, he looked
even more uncomfortable. I wondered how such an unfair thing could have
happened? If he was such a bad man, then he wouldn’t be here looking after us
after all. The hospital was always right. I hoped I knew that.
Rescuing that fly from the pond turned out to be the worst thing I could
ever have done, but I didn’t know that then, oh no. I suppose I just thought
my ‘karma’ needed recharging. I shouldn’t have stamped on all those ants
earlier, at least not with such naked enthusiasm and sheer joy of killing. I
mean I could have just walked away. So when I saw that house fly languishing in
the murky waters at the back of the garden, just waiting to be swallowed up by
some bloated frog or belligerent fish, I felt so compelled to step in and do my
bit for our eco-system. I sometimes use the bottle bank if I’ve been drinking
near it, but this felt much more real, I was really in touch with nature to an
extent I haven’t been since I stole those blackbird eggs and kept them in the
airing cupboard until they went bad.
So I wasn’t rescuing a beached whale caught up on a piece of stunning
Scottish coastline, there would be no TV crews rushing here, but I felt like I
was helping the environment none-the-less, and using a small twig I hoisted the
unfortunate creature to safety and survival. It twitched, flicked it’s legs
and then wings nonchalantly before launching itself off with no great display of
gratitude, just producing a buzzing which made me swing at it with a reflex
action passed down from generation to generation in my family. Fortunately it
was already away out of my arms’ reach, and off on it’s journey to cause yet
more havoc.
I found a hole in a wall that a lawyer had left and headed off into the
streets. I could hear alarm bells ringing in my ears.
How I learnt of the fly’s progress through an old hag…
I had not been out of the asylum on my own before, and was amazed by the
feeling of freedom I experienced. There were people everywhere, they moved in
vast throngs ignoring one another, I never saw anything beyond the odd courtesy
muttered when collision occurred. A huge wave of euphoria hit me. These were the
sane! I was amongst the Taxpayer! I decided to follow them so as to learn how
they behaved, but none of them went far before they climbed into automobiles or
went into buildings, and having no money I could not pursue them further. Also I
felt conspicuous in my orange jump suit amongst such dark colours as surrounded
me, although no-one ever took the time to react to me.
I headed off south, and recognising the Ignorant when I saw it, I
endeavoured to make contact.
“Are you the Ignorant?” I asked one poorly dressed individual.
My query was met with an impolite smack around the face, and a kicking
to boot. This pattern was repeated suspiciously frequently, and I began to build
an impression of these simple kind folk, as I was pelted with old fruit and
vegetables, and pilloried from balconies.
Later I wandered around the streets until I found myself in an area I
did not know well. I had only seen the streets from the television and therefore
was unaccustomed to such unlicensed paupery as I saw before me.
I was filled with dread as I watched a small street urchin beg me for
change, and whilst I understood that she was not in fact begging for money but
for opportunity, I still felt compelled to hand her the only coin I was
carrying. As I bent down, an old hag ran forward out of a doorway from where she
had been spying on proceedings and waiting for some advantage. She kicked the
girl in the head crying “wretch” causing her to drop my only coin. The hag
stooped down in an ugly fashion to pick it up whilst the urchin scampered off
and scarpered.
“Old Hag? Why do such a thing?”
“She was only a street urchin, a guttersnipe at that” and I was
embarrassed at my error.
“Old Hag?”
“It is still I” said the old haggard women who wore warts upon her
nose and boils upon her powdered cheeks.
“I know it is you. And you must now answer my question, why do you
smile at me like so?”
“Because you slew the old women, no?”
“I did what?”
“The fly!”
“What fly?”
“The fly you saved, to fly”
“Listen old hag, tell me your story or I shall bust thee in thy
chops!”
“Verily well, my old story I tell, and you would do well to listen.”
The Old Hag then related to me what at first appeared to be a sorry
tale, but later I learnt otherwise. She told me that her story took place in an
old people’s refuge not far from where I stood, a place where the old who
refused or could not afford to die naturally or otherwise in their own beds were
sent as punishment until their death did occur. The Old Hag told me this was
what an Old People’s Home was for. She said she worked for the hospital, so
she was right, and I knew this because the hospital was always right, and it
must be right for her to work for the hospital, so she must be right, as the
handler had told me often. She showed me her badge, it said “Eileen Blackman
Licensed to Process, issued by Rolladonia Central Hospital”.
Once upon a time when the Carers’ were in power, and wrong thoughts
were commonly thought, there was an Old People’s home where the old could take
sanctuary from the cold damp air, at the expense of the taxpayer. The Old People
loved their home, but only because they had no place else to go, and although
the old people were pleased that they had a roof over their heads, they felt
trapped and isolated, and at best they found their treatment patronising. But
the Carers’ knew that what they did was good because they were being seen to
care.
When the Taxpayer again took office after the glorious revolution, it
was decided that the Old People’s home could not go on, it was contrary to its
final interests. But too many Old People were Old Tax Payers of a sort, and the
Taxpayer had to wait to throw them out. They paid for advertisements to
misinform the ignorant masses.
“Old People are Too Small - they always Jam Inside Things and Get
Stuck” was the first bill poster sign of the Taxpayer’s new covert aims. And
then “Kids! be bold, Don’t Do Old” became another common sight as the
stakes were raised in this battle for survival. The Old People tried to hit back
with what little budget they had, and by 1983 they were able to say that at
anyone time there was at least one sandwich-board-man walking along a street of
Rolladonia bearing an Old People’s Home slogan. The power of television was
first picked up on by the Old People, who used it to show their kind in positive
situations such as crown green bowling, paying in giros and pushing young
children in prams. It was an experimental and modern medium, the world looked up
and for a time things seemed to swing the old people’s way, it was like the
Carer’s had only half lost, although their bodies had long since been burnt.
And for a time this Home stood tall, if a little less proud, the walls
were not repainted, the wiring was a death trap and the locust infestation went
unchecked until the kitchen was bare. The Taxpayer refused to help the Home
other than to not have it knocked down, although it was common knowledge that a
plan for selling the land was in circulation, and a superstore had been planned.
Thus the Old People stood locked in stalemate with the Taxpayer, and could find
a little sanctity which they might preserve.
“I,” said the Old Hag “was the Old People Home’s chief operator,
the main Processor. It was my job to tell the old people who were licensed to
stay from those who were not. I enjoyed my job, and the joy as you can imagine
from throwing such unworthy scum as I have earlier presented to you out onto the
streets was most obviously considerable. But in the end there were just five old
women left, whom I suspected were unlicensed yet try though I might I could not
prove it, and although they bathed in the cold and took their medicine as
prescribed, still they would not die”
Tears of frustration welled in the Operator’s eyes as she relived this
momentous story, and then sparkling out of the dysfunctional void that was her
mouth came joyous ugly laughter.
“And then you, my conquering prince saved the day!”
“What happened? How did I do such a thing?”
“You slew the old women! With the fly!”
“Nonsense? How could I do such a thing?”
“The fly was like manna from heaven for the starving Hospital, like a
wind on a cliff top for a group of destitute girl scouts, like the assiduous
breath from a dragon’s mouth for his impaled whore. Soon the women were
unlicensed, and were therefore removed.”
“I still do not understand!”
“The fly was filthy, it spread the plague and the old women died in
great pain shortly. Thus they lost their licenses. You are a hero of the
Hospital, a friend for the Taxpayer, and a martyr for the ignorant mass”
“A martyr?”
“Why yes, you have the plague, you are a carrier. It was you that gave
it to the fly”
At this point I was again baffled, when yet another beating from the men
in white coats was quite sufficient to banish my bewilderment. Upon awaking I
was sitting in the community centre, facing my handler, tied down to a sturdy
black couch. I recounted and recanted.
“So what is it you have learnt from this sorry tale?” my handler
demanded irritably.
“I learnt from the Operator that…”
“Forget the Old Hag! She no longer works for the hospital, her voice
is no longer true, so nor was it ever. What is it you think is the thought of
the hospital, the correct way you should have reacted to this stimuli?”
“Handler, was I not wrong to save the Cavorting Fly? For although
every life has a right to exist, it was by it’s own existence endangering
others.”
“That was not right, yet it was. You were wrong to save the Cavorting
Fly and you were wrong for the wrong reason. The right of a given species to
desecrate another is neither given in the
law nor is it accepted in the open, but behind closed doors is considered
necessary for survival. That is to say the fly was within it’s rights. However
the only perpetrator in this situation it seems is you, who interfered with
competition. The fly should have died or died trying to not die. This is clear.
It does not matter whether all species are equal, it had it’s chance and it
blew it.”
I admired my handler’s strength and determination, to continue talking
in the face of such appalling odds and to even laugh in logic’s face. I hoped
the pills would help me be brave like my handler, and he congratulated me for my
pretence.
“I know you do not think the thoughts I tell you yet true, but think
them long enough and the thought will be true.”
My handler locked me in a small cupboard with only a bread roll for
company. He said I was to think the thought and what I thought would be true.
The cupboard was to help me concentrate, because I needed to avoid the sunlight,
the moonlight and the disadvantageous affectations of the real world. Over the
next few days my handler spoke
frequently to me through the wooden door, and would shine light on me through
the cracks every six hours. It relieved me to know I was not being forgotten
inside that cramped crate.
“Let me let you into a little secret. The Man In The Street whom you
spoke up for so fondly when you arrived here is not dissimilar from you. Quite
the reverse, he is you. You are as mad as he is and he is as mad as you. It is
of prime importance that you understand this. What we are required to do is to
filter out the madness that makes you as mad as you, and to inject a little
madness that makes you as mad as him. That is what this simple process is. A
transaction of madness is all that is required to make you leave the Mad.”
Later that day I was released by a fellow asylum seeker with a long name
I couldn’t pronounce. He gave me food and water and helped me out onto the
street. There were no hospital staff anywhere to be seen.
“The country is in chaos! The Tax and the Payer have parted company!
They have deformed into two parties! And now the Payer refuses to pay the Tax
and the Tax refuses to be taxed by the Hospital! Medical Law is over!”
“When did this happen?”
“Last night, it was all very fast, thanks to computers.”
We separated in the crowds but somewhere along the way I caught up with
a familiar face.
“What’s your name?” I demanded grabbing hold of his shoulder.
“Oldman” he mumbled.
“Not the President, surely?”
“Sadly no longer, Oldman Bros was gutted and raised to the ground. If
I am president it is only over myself now, and no man will ever take that
jurisdiction away from me.”
“It is an honour to meet such a great man as yourself, Mr Oldman!”
“For goodness sake keep your voice down! The Mad have escaped from
their asylums and are dancing in the streets!” He didn’t seem to have
noticed my garish uniform. “Can’t you see they are lynching people?”
And sure enough there was my handler, swinging from a lamppost,
surrounded by a group of my old friends, his portly frame twisting the metal
supports askew. He was wearing a dress. The mob had obviously taken him by
surprise, too.
“What are we to do? I can hear tanks moving closer” and the
ex-president sounded tired.
“We must flee the city at once, for I fear they intend to fight here
until a solution may be reached. I have seen it happen before.”
As we moved through the streets with my friends we met others keen to
flee, and they joined our band until we numbered nearly twenty. I hoped someone
knew what we were doing, and they weren’t just following me. Something
terrible might happen.
After several hours march, we reached the border which appeared to run
across the brow of a hill, and I signalled to Oldman and the others that we
should try to storm across it. As we ran through the state line side by side,
I heard a rattle of gunfire and looking to my right saw the great
ex-president fall amidst a flurry of torn tissue and ripped fibre. I made it
across, he took the fall, his wide frame providing me with surprising cover.
The president was dead.
Long live the president.
We hurried on with hope in our hearts and an uncertain understanding.
Ahead of us was a large empty plain we knew we had to cross. We were entering
Nahob, the State of Nothingness.