The World Idiot (2 page)

At last we reach the stone circle and stop to rest in its shade. I struggle out of my knapsack the only way I know how: as if I am trying to struggle into it. There are easier ways than this, of course, but I have never been shown them, so like a hunchback wrestling with his own hunch, I twist my arms and make many a harsh grimace.

Already strained to their limits, the shoulder straps break, the burden falls away. Half my own bodyweight of assorted tools clatter against each other and spill out. The deflated sack hangs from my waist now, as limp as I. My shoulders ache, but I am content. I am resigned to pain.

So too Uncle Dylan. He chooses a place on the grass to sit. I straighten my back slowly, groaning as joints crack and snap.

“And now,” he says, “to work.”

He fumbles for his tobacco pouch, cursing at the amount of rubbish held by his pockets. At last he grips his prize and with dexterity remarkable for one with such rigid fingers, begins to fill his pipe.

A strange sight he makes sitting there. An even stranger sight we have just made trudging across the fields: Uncle Dylan in front with only one sandal, playing a sombre melody on his flute, his brass nose flashing in the sun; myself behind, bowed under my weight, hopelessly gasping and wheezing.

“Well don’t delay!” he cries, waving his pocket watch, “there are only four hours until sunset!”

I bite my lower lip. I had not realised it was getting so late. Had our car not broken down, we would have almost finished our work by now.

I select a suitable tool. Uncle Dylan lights his pipe. At least if he is smoking he cannot play his flute. I am grateful enough for this. I ignite the tool and set to work, remembering suddenly the date. It is the last day of April.

Our fourteenth cromlech...

Standing-stones are only slightly easier than barrows, hill forts and wildwood. All these and other focal points we deal with; we dismantle, we chisel away, we dig up, we fill in. Menhirs can be fun. Tombstones, moonpools, haunted bogs.

For just over six months we have been in business. Yet we are but two among many. We try to work for the most modest of fees. We can remove focal points with great efficiency. We have cut ancient dolmens into blocks and carted them away, levelled whole oak groves, excavated subterranean grottoes.

We are winding up the ley-lines, collecting them across the land. We are freelance now, but our services are still in demand. Sometimes, as we work, we discuss the nature of our toil, its purpose and morality.

We hold wildly differing theories. Uncle Dylan believes that our ancient landmarks, our heritage, are being sold by a bankrupt government to the Americans. Stonehenge, he claims, now stands in Utah. I am convinced that our masters in Whitehall are storing and concentrating mystic energy.

“They are experimenting with cosmic forces,” I argue. “They are hoping to develop a new type of bomb. The sources of pagan power are all being hoarded together.”

Our technology and skill enables us to complete our task in good time. We leave the blocks to collect the following day, walk down to the village and enter the pub. Over frothing ale, we acquaint ourselves with the locals. The talk is all about the Earth Mother and the Moon. It seems that we have stumbled upon a pagan convention of sorts; strange men and women have gathered at the village for some sort of annual celebration. Their caravans can be seen through the grimy windows.

Uncle Dylan rapidly becomes drunk. I leave him slumped in a chair and saunter out into the night. I light a cigarette and sit on a bench in the beer garden. The air is very cool, but it hums with electricity. There is much movement among the caravans; figures emerge, their faces whitened, their hair dishevelled, their eyes filled with arcane wisdom and absolute purpose.

Although I try, I cannot greet this sight with much enthusiasm. I have already witnessed too many cults in my working life. I feel a sort of mild sympathy for them, the same sort of sympathy, I suppose, that the bailiff feels for his victim. I close my eyes and attempt to enjoy the country air.

I muse over my own theory as I sit there. I am convinced by my own polemic. I suspect that a remote tract of land, perhaps on a Scottish island, has been chosen as a site. I know that politicians can never be trusted. The recent past has proved this to the widest-eyed optimist.

I try to imagine what sort of weapon such a concentration of magical energy would make. There is a leviathan stirring somewhere in our midst. I am a mercenary of sorts. I finish my cigarette and rejoin Uncle Dylan. He has managed to get into a fight with the barman. He staggers around, arms flailing. Before any blows can be exchanged, he empties the contents of his stomach over his adversary.

We are both promptly thrown out. I accompany Uncle Dylan to a little bridge over a babbling brook. Grasping the side with two gnarled hands, he leans forward and dips his head into the icy water. We chuckle over this and limp back to the car to spend an uncomfortable night on the cracked leather seats, Uncle Dylan’s arm thrown out across my throat.

Between the obscene grating of his snores, I think that I can detect a different sound: a low rumble as of some heavy object being dragged through the earth beneath us. I grow fearful. I worry that my hypothetical weapon has already been used, that an inconceivable wave of earth-energy is bearing down on us. I groan as I fall asleep. My dreams are full of monstrous blocks of stone flying through the air...

“Witches and hobgoblins!” Although Uncle Dylan has a considerable hangover, he still has the ability to rant. The ability to rant never abandons him. He scratches his brass nose and frowns.

We stand in a field drenched by the pink light of early morning. Our carefully cut-up blocks have vanished. There are no deep grooves in the soil to show where they have been dragged away.

“Someone has beaten us to it. Other freelancers, no doubt! They must have followed us all the way here and lain in wait. We do all the work and they take all the credit!”

Shaking our heads, we walk back down to the village. This has happened on more than one occasion. I try to console Uncle Dylan: there will be other opportunities. But we are both glum. The mystic landmarks are vanishing quickly. Soon there will be none left.

“Americans!” he scowls. I brave the pub again to use the telephone, to call out a mechanic for our car. It had to be other freelancers, of course, for who else would possess the necessary power tools to remove such weighty and ponderous objects? There are a great many rivals in this business.

I begin to entertain serious doubts about our future prospects. Prehistory is disappearing from under our feet. It occurs to me that the purpose of our work might be simpler than we have ever suspected: the obliteration of the past to pave the way for the establishment of an iron regime.

Leaving the pub, I notice that the caravans have gone. A sudden absurd notion enters my brain. Suppose the pagans we had seen the night before had taken the stones to keep them safe from the government? Suppose Uncle Dylan and myself are caught in the middle of a battle we can scarcely comprehend? But this is nonsense. How could such harmless eccentrics have performed such an enormous task without mechanical aids?

Sweeping over the ground, a formation of shadows plunges all my speculations into darkness. These shadows are not made by any type of cloud I am familiar with. Frowning, I look up...

Henry is nervous. He has wasted so much time choosing a tie that he has made himself late. He risks a final glance in the mirror before leaving his apartment. He will have to hurry now. But there is a consolation: his tie is the right one.

Out in the corridor, he makes for the stairs. The lifts are all out of order. It is a long way down; he lives on the twenty-ninth floor. As he bounds down the steps, he realises how uncomfortable his best shoes can be. Eventually reaching the bottom, he pauses and prepares himself for the city: he fits dark lenses over his eyeballs.

The city is a furnace. The sky crackles like television static. Buildings shimmer in the haze, abandoned vehicles smoulder on the road. Extending his parasol, Henry begins to negotiate the shattered pavements towards the hoverbus station. He casts wary glances behind him as he walks.

The Collectors are out in force. Aluminium-foil hats on their heads, foil cloaks around their shoulders. They sweep down the streets in their turbocharged bulldozers, looking for bodies. Body reclamation is a vital business, though none can say why. Their menacing presence alone is enough to make him sweat.

He sweats. Profusely. His stiff collar rubs against the nape of his neck. He loosens it with two fingers and a veritable stream runs down his back. He sighs, wipes his face with a handkerchief. Debris and rubble bar his path. He clambers over it, coughing the dust out of his lungs.

I don’t much care for this, he decides. He has not ventured outdoors since the thermometer first began its steady upward climb. He cannot stand the heat. He feels that he must surely suffocate if the temperature rises any more. And no doubt he will. But there is a chance. He has a chance.

To inspire himself, he reaches into his pocket, removes a newspaper clipping, holds it close and reads:

Few applicants ever pass our stringent test. ROSASOLIS is a highly exclusive organisation. We accept only special individuals; those best able to rebuild the scorched remains of Earth. While others baste in their own juices, ROSASOLIS members will be safe in orbit, cool beyond belief in our cryogenic tanks.

Henry pouts now. He would dearly like to be in orbit, cool beyond belief. Yet, as he reads on, the advertisement does not rekindle hope.

ONE PLACE LEFT!

There will be fierce competition. The stringent test will be
very
stringent. And what chance has he of passing it? He has never been any good at exams, he has always been a non-achiever.

Still, he must press on. The station is just around the next corner. He lengthens his stride and is soon there. But a wild commotion assails his ears. A fête is in progress. Delirious revellers gibber and froth. Vendors hawk Easy Freeze, the popular hallucinogen that reduces body temperature. There is much shouting.

Henry scours the entire platform. He is jostled and threatened. Eventually, he spots a solitary driver basking in the sizzle. Bottles roll hollow from beneath his sprawled legs. Henry bends forward and demands the time of arrival of the next hoverbus.

“There are no more buses.”

“No more buses?” Henry is aghast. “No more buses at all today?”

“No more buses ever.” The driver begins to drool.

Henry contents himself with a slap, with the back of the hand, where the knuckles are. It does not occur to him that it is, at least partly, his own fault, that he should have checked schedules and made alternative arrangements. He is all despair. His parasol glitters.

“But I have urgent business! What am I supposed to do? Curse your idle bones!”

“Always been the same,” murmurs the driver. “Born idle. My father’s genes.”

“Curse your father then.”

“Cut to pieces by his solar powered lawn mower.”

Henry scowls and leaves in disgust. There is an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Without a bus, he is stuck. He could walk, of course; he could take a short cut through Caliban Park. But such a course would be inadvisable. He knows the park: the largest mutant zoo in the country.

He might as well return to his apartment and forget about his interview. He might as well count his ice-ration tickets and wait for the end...

His choice: home or Caliban Park. Neither seems particularly desirable.

He chooses the park.

After all, his tie is just too good not to be used.

Henry is nervous. Feeling very weak, he steadies himself on the park gates, surveying through the wire mesh the vast expanse of withered greenery. Recently, the attendants were withdrawn and the inmates left to their own carnivorous devices. For the most part, they practice these devices on each other. But Henry does not think that they are above practicing them on him.

With a sigh, he climbs the park gates and drops to his feet on the other side. He lands awkwardly and twists his ankle. There is pain, but he cannot linger. He begins to hobble across the veldt-like terrain.

He has a few advantages over any would-be assailants. The mutants, he knows, have a defective sense of balance. They can hurl themselves against trees and fences but they cannot scale them. They were an idea of the Ministry of Entertainment. They were designed for the amusement of a public with a very short attention span.

Nevertheless, he would rather avoid a direct confrontation. Head down, shoulders hunched, he tries to look as inconspicuous as possible. This strategy, of course, has a flaw. Now that he has his head down, he cannot see where he is going. Consequently, he rushes straight into a group that has been watching his approach with interest.

Tongues lolling, they jump to their feet and press hard on his heels. Gasping with fear, he cuts a swath through a tangle of tall, yellowing grasses, brambles and ferns. His plan now is to lose them in the undergrowth. But they are persistent. They close in on him, garish plumage waving, fangs chattering, eyes glinting.

In desperation, he throws his parasol at the nearest. This simple action has an improbable outcome. Their attention is diverted away from him and to the sunshade. They fall upon it, tearing it to pieces, happily consuming the fabric, the struts, the shaft. Henry is thus able to leave them and make a quick getaway.

It is not too long before he is safe on the other side of the park. The park is in the shape of a flattened ellipse: whereas the bus would have skirted the circumference, he has been able to traverse the shortest path through it.

Catching his breath, Henry congratulates himself. Surely it was no ordinary smartness that helped him out of that tricky situation? The thought cheers him considerably. He becomes optimistic. Might not ROSASOLIS rate such smartness above mere intelligence? Might not Henry be the sort of special individual they are looking for?

If so, all his problems are solved. Let the Earth die, let the cities melt, let the foul jelly of mankind boil and bubble away. It will not matter to him. From space he will thumb his nose at the world. And as he enters the cryogenic tank, his smile will be one of smug satisfaction.

He whistles merrily to himself. Over the fence and away! He has not whistled for a good many years. There is even a spring in the step of his good leg. But it does not last long. He soon feels the loss of his parasol. His pace slows down. He staggers. He begins to wish he had bought a packet of Easy Freeze. His condition is noted by the Collectors. They move in, mechanical grabs and suction pumps at the ready.

Yet they will not be needed. With grim determination, Henry pushes onwards. He raises his head. Just beyond the Union Bank, the ROSASOLIS building crashes into the sky. The famous logo catches his attention at once. A bright orange pyramid equipped with flaring boosters: a sort of impractical single-stage rocket. And as a passenger, a glaring eye embedded near the apex.

At the front of the building, a deep fissure has opened up in the road. A leap of no mean distance is required to cross it. With a strange cry, Henry throws himself into the void. His momentum not only carries him clear of the drop but also propels him through the swing-doors where he lands on the mosaic floor of the lobby, right under the beady eye of the receptionist.

He greets her with a smile and gives his name. She glowers at him in return.

“You should have been here forty minutes ago.”

Henry mumbles an apology and, as instructed, follows the arrows on the floor. They lead him to the waiting room by a confusing route of corridors, lifts and stairs. The room itself is densely packed with sweating bodies. Even before he can take a seat, his name is called over the loudspeaker.

“Dr Neble will see you now.”

As he obediently steps forward, an angry youth perched on a stool far too small for him shakes his fist.

“I’ve been waiting here all morning!”

Henry shrugs and limps down the length of the waiting room to a small, steel door marked INTERVIEWS. In the highly polished metal, he catches his reflection and gasps. His venture through Caliban Park has taken its toll. His clothes have been torn by brambles and stained with the corrosive saliva of mutants. He is a mess.

So, as the door slides open, he makes a desperate attempt to repair the damage. He does the only thing he can: he straightens his tie.

Henry is nervous. He sits on a chair, facing his interviewer across a desk. Dr Neble is dressed all in white, the ROSASOLIS logo stitched onto his shirt. His teeth and eyes are very large.

“Now Henry,” he says reasonably, “before we begin, I have to know something about you. Personal details. Age, income and the rest. Just fill in this form. And call out if you get stuck.”

“No problem.” Henry takes the form and sets to work with a will. But after only a minute, he looks up and scratches his head.

“Yes?” Dr Neble licks his lips.

“This section here.” Henry is duly embarrassed. “Asking me to list my hobbies. Well, to be perfectly frank, I don’t have any. I’ve never had a hobby in my life. I don’t even watch TV.”

“Nonsense. Everybody has a hobby. What about ‘surviving’? That’s a hobby surely? And one that demands great skill. Ha, ha!”

Henry joins in the laughter. He is eager to please.

“Surviving, yes,” he says. “That’s my hobby.” He completes the form with the single word and tries to sign it with a flourish. But now he has the shakes: the pen slips, cuts through the paper and marks the white desk. He rubs at the mark with his fingers, but it will not come out.

Dr Neble winks: his eyelid is transparent, the eye is just as visible closed as open. He shuffles a sheaf of papers. He deals them.

And so the test begins. Dr Neble warns Henry that he must stop writing after twenty minutes. Henry considers this to be ample time. He buckles down. His grip on his pen is firm, his hands are steady. But he is struggling when Dr Neble finally snatches away his papers. He slumps in his chair and exhales his breath. Soon it is all gone.

While Dr Neble marks his papers, Henry gazes around the room. A huge portrait of Joe Kerensky, the founder of ROSASOLIS, covers most of the far wall. A telescope has been set up by the window, but the blinds, of course, have been drawn. An enormous fan hangs suspended from the ceiling, rotating slowly.

All very nice, Henry is sure, but he finds it difficult to concentrate purely on the décor. He has more vital concerns, chief among them being the possibility that he has failed his test. His brave effort to avoid looking at Dr Neble’s face breaks down. So he tries not to deduce anything from the expressions he sees there.

“Well, well,” the doctor says. “Ho hum!”

The suspense is killing Henry. His voice bursts unbidden from his throat: “How did I do?”

Dr Neble grimaces. His spectacles slip down his nose.

“I can honestly say that I’ve never seen such appalling marks as these. You scored practically zero. It’s really quite remarkable.”

Henry feels the bile rising within him. He has difficulty focussing. Visions of Dante’s Hell crowd his mind; burning bodies, the screams of the damned. Salvation has been denied him. He is not worthy.

“I am doomed!” he wails. “And after all I’ve been through!”

“Eh?” Dr Neble blinks.

“I have failed. You don’t need me. There is no place for an incompetent in your scheme. What purpose would he serve in the great task of rebuilding the world?”