Dylan Malik Orchard's Blog, page 16

So

No message

no fact

no state

no service

no us

no we

no me

so what?

An act

an instant

an indulgence

but no sins wiped

no soul to save

no hell to fear

no heaven to find

no hate to hide

no love for longing

so what?

A movement

a grasp

a possession

a fight

a you

a me

so what?

Chilcot Report

Well, it’s done. The Chilcot Report is out there and, as of yet, no one’s actually read it properly because it’s stupidly long and, no doubt, as dense as the screaming chaos of the voices in Tony Blair’s head. Early signs suggest that it’s fairly damning, if not personally indicting of those involved. A good sign, I suppose. The deceptions, indifference and hawkish warmongering were already universally known about, except perhaps by the perpetrators, but another, more official, acknowledgement of the facts can only add to the weight of historical judgement. Unfortunately that’s all that’s likely to come from this, the weight of historical judgement. Which isn’t so good.

Since the Iraq War there have been numerous incidents of military interventionism by the UK and other . In Libya and Syria, as obvious displays, or in Yemen, Palestine/Israel, Egypt and a dozen others via the medium of arms sales and diplomatic alignment. More meat for histories unflinching grinder, more to be judged by ourselves and generations to come. Precious little, however, that we seem able to control or resist.

I remember the days prior to the invasion of Iraq. I was a steward on one of the big marches, I saw Tony Benn – I pointed him out to a friend who said ‘where?’ and I said ‘there, that guy who looks like Tony Benn, that’s Tony Benn’, to which Benn replied ‘no it isn’t’. We had yellow safety jackets and placards, there was a million or more of us all told and, in my teenage naivety, I thought we were making our point pretty well. It was a pointless war, a poorly planned one, one with no worthwhile ending and no real humanitarian motive – the good sense of the masses would, I vaguely assumed, win out. After all, if I could see how stupid and dangerous it was then surely someone, somewhere with some power would have the wits to put a stop to the idea. They didn’t of course, but we did go to the pub afterwards so the day wasn’t all a loss.

It’s a familiar pattern now. One I’ve seen repeated over and over in my lifetime, where a bad idea starts off as just that, a bad idea, recognised and known as such by anyone who shows even a vague interest in the realities of what’s going on in the world. Slowly though it morphs into something else, it gains weight, becomes a certainty. Not because the idea becomes any better or the ends any less likely to be bad ones, not even because the weight of propaganda weighs down on public opinion and shifts it into accepting lazy lies and delusional ideals. It’s a shift that occurs simply because power, in our society, has become a wholly divorced world unto itself.

Tony Blair is a nutter. What grasp of reality he had, he’s long since lost as you’ll see if you take a look at his sporadic interviews and missives. He sees the world as one of great actors set against a muted and mostly decorative background made up of the rest of us. They act, we endure, they lead, we seek to understand and justify. He’s fairly open about it, he can afford to be. As the years have shown he’ll never find himself out of work and even if millions of people around the world hate him their judgement will never infringe upon his own sense of place and grandeur in the great story of human history. Others are more circumspect in their belief in power as a thing apart from the rest of us. Less willing to admit that, yes, our opinions don’t really matter because our leaders have already decided what will and will not be – which is perhaps the last remaining vestige of the political influence of the majority of people. We’re still worth the token gesture of lying to, which is nice.

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore.” He continued “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

– Attributed to Karl Rove

This isn’t, I guess, much of a revelation. History is in large parts built of the vanity and egomania of the few in imagining themselves to be rulers and dictators of the many. That we even have something like the Chilcot Report makes this a better age to live in than one where asking questions about bad ideas was more directly answered with a kicking and a stint on the gallows. But what’s been gained in that nod to civil discourse has been lost in real, practical effects.

I wrote about Corbyn and the internal Labour struggles the other day. I talked about the need to crack open the doorways that lock away those people we’ve given our power to. The need to remind them that we’re still aware that they have it and that we just might choose to take it back some day. Internal party politics is a place where you can see the potential in doing that, the stakes are big, but not so big as to threaten the foundations of established power themselves. War, on the other hand, is something else entirely. When I and a million others marched in London, along with millions more around the world, we nudged up against something more than a door, we hit a big concrete wall – the sort that’d get Donald Trump wetting himself with excitement. We found the definite line that has been drawn around power, the one which people like Blair, Bush and Karl Rove live behind, their death hands pawing at their perceived wealth of influence and damned if they’ll let anyone else get their grubby hands on it.

I don’t know what can be done to break down that wall, or end the cycle of certainty that surrounds the bad decisions of our age. More violence will follow, I know that much, more wars and more incitement to conflict as dictated by the wills and desires of our ruling classes. And there’ll be more protests against it, more disgust, more disappointment. But as I say, I don’t see how we can break out of the certain end that is power doing whatever it wants regardless of the screams to contrary. Not without mirroring the force behind that power and taking a bulldozer to the wall which, while it may one day be necessary, will never be a happy experience.

It was after that march against the Iraq War that I made a nod to the cycle. I had a badge which read ‘Don’t Bomb Iraq’, I crossed out the ‘q’ and added an ‘n’. It was just a bit of idle scribbling at the time, nothing with profound thought behind it, but even then it was clear that there was no end in sight and, even if the next target wasn’t Iran, it’d be someone.

I doubt the Chilcot Report will bring justice, though I hope I’m wrong. More importantly though I hope that, while we’re reading about and re-condemning the failures of the past, we don’t let the certainty of new mistakes assert themselves yet again. Because you can guarantee that those who hold power are already working on making them.

Tate Modern & Poetry

I spent a few hours at the Tate Modern the other day.

My knowledge of art is, at best, completely non-existent. I know what I like and, in general, I’m willing to give the rest the benefit of the doubt, assuming it’s got some sense of purpose or emotion behind it even if I’m blind to it. Anyway, I saw some things that impressed me, others I was fairly indifferent to and some which I’m sure could impress other people even if they meant nothing to me. And then I wrote some poetry, angling as I am for the title of most pretentious bearded man in the Greater London area – a coveted award I’m glad to say I’ll almost certainly never attain unless scratching my balls and watching the X-Files becomes a qualification.

Anyway, I’ll be posting a few pieces over the next few days which were – though it pains me to use the terminology – ‘site specific’ as well as trying to dredge up some of the images that I was staring at in between scribbling.

Overall though my impression was a slightly depressing one. It’s not the first time I’ve been there, it’s conveniently placed between several pubs and out of the rain which are both important qualities in a place as far as I’m concerned. It’s probably the first time I’ve bothered to think about the Tate Modern as anything more than another tourist attraction though. Easily forgotten against the backdrop of London as a city I live in, as opposed to one I ever bother to experience.

‘Depressing’ might be the wrong word for it really, disappointing perhaps? Dissatisfying. Something beginning with ‘d’ at any rate. It wasn’t because of the art, or the tourist hordes, or the earnest gallery goers, or the less earnest ones who felt that being seen there was as much the point as anything. It was a vague sense of unease at the place itself, something I can’t blame any human influence for. Inside there are hundreds of pieces, probably, all desperately attempting to translate some experience, observation, message or emotion through any number of mediums and all, ultimately, doomed to failure. I saw work which was drawn from war, suffering, passion, commitment, some was good, some did nothing for me but everything was overwhelmed by the white walls and measured cleanliness of the place itself. Just stepping through the entrance to the turbine hall was enough to cut off life as it’s lived from art as it’s experienced. One immediate, forceful, inescapable, the other neatly codified, observable and tame. Which is sad, really. Life goes into art, purpose goes into art and it’s not a tame or gentle thing – it’s a vicious force, in some cases at least, it’s a scream to try and force some awareness, or understanding of something that needs understanding. Or it’s a push, a shove to make the viewer try to think about or experience something which the artist thinks has value, or necessity. Put that against white walls though, put it above the gift shop and next to the cafe, lined up against another six works and on a circuit leading from the horrors of war to the perfection of sculpture and… you get nothing. You get a place which is an avoidance of life, a negation of the realities of it, a safe space to sit and watch what you know are powerful things – because it says so on little square plaques – without having to relate them to the world in which you’re actually living.

Fair enough, I suppose. You can’t stick a load of paintings by the bus stop, they’d get nicked, or rained on, but then they’d also have some real force behind them too. At the bus stop you’re living your life, at the Tate Modern you’re touring a dozen other people’s. Probably not a particularly profound observation as far as art goes, but there you go, as I said – I’m an ignorant bastard about these things.

One thing that did stick out, one feature which did impress me as being a direct message to the experience of being in the place rather than one transported into it for the sake of convenience, was a piece of living art. A woman in one of the rooms who, whenever the room seemed full enough, turned away from facing the wall and started to chant/sing. ‘This is propaganda and you know it’. There’s a message I can get behind, because it is. The Tate Modern, maybe other galleries too, is a grand work of propaganda for the human species. It’s a forum where all the bad and the good, all the inescapable, overwhelming aspects of our experience are cleaned up, given nice lighting and set aside from us so we can look at it with disconnected serenity. And even better, we can tell ourselves, even if we know it’s not quite true, that when we stared at the work we saw the emotions and thoughts that made it staring back at us, we understood something. But I can’t say I did to be honest, much as I could sense there was something there to be understood, I was still standing outside of real life and it’s only there where you can find clarity worth having.

Jeremy Corbyn & The Temple of Doom

Politics isn’t the realm of the people. Never has been.

Put three people in a room and give them even the vaguest sniff of power and within seconds they’ll have completely forgotten why the have it, who gave it to them and what it’s for. They’ll start to find ways to protect it, to wield it to further itself, to put bars on the windows and locks on the doors so no one can sneak in while they aren’t looking and have that power away from them.

Put a few hundred people in a building and you get a very big building, with very big bars and very heavy locks with a few hundred people wielding, furthering and protecting the power they’ve got. And this is… normal. Not acceptable, or democratic, or productive, but normal. For the most part the rest of us are too busy living life to think about it, even though we know they’re using something we gave them to serve interests that are a long, long way from our own. We assume there’s a balance, we assume, albeit unthinkingly, that what we gave them is tempered by some distant awareness of us potentially taking it back – which makes those who have it at least occasionally act on our behalves. We assume that, when it comes to something that matters, we can seek redress from them. Not in the great halls of government, not near their precious and jealously guarded power, but at least through cracks in the door, mumbling requests through and hoping for the best. That’s a realistic enough expectation, not one that makes the whole mess any better, but it’s something, right? Some minor compensation for finding out that what we gave has had the serial number scratched off and been painted a different colour.

Sometimes it works, for some people. If you can get to that crack in the door, if you can whisper clearly enough, if you can afford the time taken to sit there waiting for attention, there can be a payoff. For most though there isn’t, there’s just disappointment when you realise you’re just talking to yourself on the doorstep, looking a bit manic to passersby. But still, when you don’t need to ask for anything, or if you accept that there’s absolutely no point in doing so, the system works. They have our power, we have… well, we have our lives and good or bad that’s usually enough to be focusing on.

Very rarely though, once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, that door to power opens up a little bit. No one’s kicking it in and if you’re on the outside and your name’s not on the list then you’re sure as hell not going to get a nice seat on the inside. But you can glance in and see a slither of what’s going on in there, maybe even shout a message that can’t be ignored. You won’t get back what’s yours at these times, that only happens when someone ram raids the place, but even the vague opportunity to reach towards that power – our power – is intoxicating enough and, perhaps, useful enough to be a wonder in itself.

Jeremy Corbyn has, in this over-extended metaphor, ignored the door and instead cracked open the toilet window. His politics, whether you view him as their embodiment or just a figurehead, are a throwback to a forgotten time. One where we still didn’t hold the weight of power, but one where we were at least aware that it was ours and in knowing that made sure we gave those doors a good kick every now and then to remind everyone of it. What he represents is a strength and awareness of what went on out of our line of sight that a lot of people had forgotten we could have. That’s not a revolutionary thing, or even a threatening thing, but it is a wonderful thing. Unfortunately the price he’s currently paying for that is getting a good kicking by the people who spent so long fitting locks, barring windows and doing their level best to ignore the whispers at the crack. And that’s not even to say that some of those people aren’t good, in their way, or kind, or caring, or considerate or humanitarian. It is to say, however, that they’re shut ins, hovering around that old power and fixated on it with a clear, myopic focus. Their better natures only ever directed through the prism of the privilege they’re guarding. Which, I’m sure, is very comforting for them, although it’s not much use to the rest of us.

The PLP  is currently in a state of self-destructive crisis. In the aftermath of the Brexit vote, in the aftermath of Corbyn’s victory, they’re faced with a terrifying new reality – or an old one depending on your point of view. People of all political stripes are increasingly aware of the power they’ve given away to them and, what’s worse, they’re increasingly asking what those in established power have been doing with it all this time. Their gut reaction is to lash out. Corbyn can’t be trusted because, unlike them, he seems to have at least half an eye on the outside world, he does more than just covet what he has. He sees ways to do good which go beyond jealously guarding his position.

In the day to day grind of life I don’t know that Corbyn could do the good that will perhaps be demanded of him by those who’ve taken his side. Those defending their own interests are fierce as hell when it comes to a fight and, as the media and his own MPs have already shown, they have no scruples about what they’ll do in the process. Certainly a glorious new Socialist future is unlikely, but a resurgent awareness of our relation to the power that we lend to politicians? Now that is possible.

Those in the PLP who’re embarrassing and disgracing themselves with their attacks on the man are fighting their own existential battle. They’ve shown themselves willing to fight the people who select them, campaign for them, fund them, vote for them and generally elevate them to the point where they’re allowed their little slice of the power pie. I can’t understand why they’re doing this when, regardless of the outcome, they’ll end up paying their own price for it. If they win their little coup then the Labour Party will haemorrhage support, lose money, be disaffiliated by Unions and destroy trust in itself for a generation to come. If they lose then the membership will remember them as traitors, the electorate will know them as failures and if they’re not deselected in due course then they’ll certainly face an eternity of obscurity on the back benches. Which I suppose answers my question, having made the first insane mistake they’re tied to their own sinking ship, presumably spurred on by that same myopic fixation on their own positions which taints and distorts any and all perceptions of the world around them.

In all honestly though, I couldn’t care less about them. The fates of those in the PLP who’ve behaved so badly are of next to no interest to me, beyond a slightly morbid sense of enjoyment at watching them flounder. What I do care about is the potential damage their actions will have on the rest of us. If they win their war (and it has reached the point of true conflict) then an idea which means a huge amount will be lost. We will have been told, with iron certainty, that the doors are shut. Our power isn’t our own, our party isn’t our own, our politics isn’t our own and our country isn’t our own. A message which will drive a generation of people away from even bothering, or perhaps drive them to start thinking of ram raiding those doors as the only choice – a blessing perhaps, in a terrible way. And it won’t just be Labour members and voters who’ll pay that price, this is an assertion of control that’ll echo through all the parties and all the people. Mix it in with a heady brew of Brexit, Tory failures (as always), Boris-No-Mates’ collapse and near non-existent trust and respect for the media and there’s absolutely no knowing what the result will be. Although I’m willing to guess it won’t be the capitulation to the voices of power that the PLP might imagine it to be in their wildest fever dreams.

So… what? Well the battle goes on, day by day, laden with media hysteria and nonsense. Ignore that, if you can, focus on the one thing we can know – that’s our power they’re abusing and unless they learn to remember who owns it now then, before long, we’ll start forgetting ourselves. Support Corbyn, rattle the door.

David Zé – Undenge Uami

As you might have noticed the Song of the Day has become my place holder on days where I’ve no real writing to put up, which is most of them at the moment as I’m basically stuck between semi-finished projects (like a radio play) which need to go in their own direction and new ideas which are still finding their feet (like whichever novel I write next). More writing is coming though, just drip fed and in the meantime, have a song…

My latest work, No Cure for Shell Shock, is a collection of short stories and poetry. It’s available as an eBook and a paperback here.

As always reviews, support and shares are welcome.

Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel

Song of the day. Saw these guys live at the Grand Ol’ Opry in Nashville a few years back. Well worth the trip, as is Nashville in general for that matter. Anyway, rock me mamma, rock me…

The Avalanches – Frankie Sinatra

Nothing literary to offer today, so have another song instead. Infectious.

 

City Temple

“So where can I be, if not here?”

“You can be wherever you want, as long as it isn’t here.”

“They said the same thing over there, and there.”

Rix pointed over the road to another paved plot of land, identical to the one he was on, identical to most of the spaces in the city in fact. Frustration was setting in, everywhere he went there was someone to take offence at his presence.

“I don’t work over there sir, I work here, and you can’t be here.”

The security guard had perfected an inert face. He must have been aware of Rix’s reaction, the tension in the air between them but his training had been extensive. Don’t engage, don’t react emotionally, just state facts and wait for them to be accepted. On the first few stops of his pilgrimage through the city Rix had sympathised with that, a talent drummed into all the custodians of the safe and sanitary spaces which seemed to be the norm here. An unpleasant necessity of the job. That had faded though, through confusion, through contempt and finally on to simple irritation. It wasn’t natural for anyone to perfect such indifference in themselves. He had to remind himself that he was in the city now, a long way from the natural world he knew. Of course things were different, he should focus on that. But, still, not this different. People still had to be people wherever they were but, eyes fixed on him with an apathetic gaze, the security guard seemed to be doing his best to escape that certainty.

“I’m not leaving.”

The guard didn’t blink. He didn’t sigh, didn’t move and, Rix suspected, even hooked up to heart rate, blood pressure and perspiration monitors experts would have been hard pressed to discern any reaction to the statement. He just stood there staring at Rix, alone in a seemingly deserted plaza because, it seemed, no one could be there except for the guard.

“You have to sir, you can’t be here.”

A perfect silence hung in the air, another unnatural quality of the city that had pressed on Rix since his arrival. His own home was non-descript, a house set in the middle of no place, it had no name and nor did any of the few neighbours he vaguely knew existed. But it wasn’t silent, ever. Even in the stilled moments the wind still blew, leaves rustled, creatures scurried about out of sight. Yet here in the city there seemed to be nothing, no noise, no people, no animals – a surprise, he knew there were millions of lives being lived somewhere around him but on each little island of inhospitality there seemed to be nothing but unwelcoming stillness. And blank faced guards.

Rix sat down, resolved to take his stand while seated. The guard watched him but didn’t move.

“You can’t sit there sir, you have to leave.”

Rix started to unpack his battered cloth bag. He didn’t have much and, in all honesty, he had little desire to stay any more but if he wanted to rest before he set off to complete his journey then this was the last option he could see. Heading forward their was just more of the same, more pristine blocks of paved land, divided by empty roads and punctuated, all too rarely, with monolithic tower blocks.

Beyond them was the temple, that much couldn’t be doubted. Other pilgrims had seen it, thousands of them, it was an obligation to the faithful to seek out the hub of life at least once before they passed. It was just a misfortune of bad planning that none ever thought to mention the emptiness of the journey there.

Rix laid his blanket out and started to munch on a bag of nuts from his bag. The guard was still there, immovable but seemingly done with repeating his reproachful mantra. A little food, a few hours sleep and he would move on. That soothed the worries about the demands to leave, after all, he had every intention of doing so eventually and that should make whoever it was that spoke through the security happy.

The sun was just starting to set. Anywhere else it might have been a beautiful day but the architecture of the city seemed to radiate resentment back towards the sky. Too much stone and steel made weather feel like an invasion, to Rix at least, where he was from the sun shared the earth with the shade, mingling to create a whole that revelled in the exchange. Perhaps the city did too, or parts of it did because there had to be a lot more that he hadn’t seen beyond the acres of paving and steel fences, beyond that there could have been another sort of exchange between the sky and the ground, one which worked in its own way. Rix hoped he’d get to see it before he reached the temple, after all the journey was part of the pilgrimage and couldn’t be surrendered to the sheer monotony of marching forwards.

“You can’t stay here sir.”

Rix was lying down now, he could feel the efforts of the day sinking on to him. The guard still hadn’t moved, so nor did he. Before long he felt himself drifting into sleep, an impulse more powerful by far than the monotone repetition of the same words that sent him off to dreams.

—

It was still dark when Rix woke up.

“You can’t be here sir, you have to leave.”

The guard was still there, a weighty shadow in the dim light cast from distant buildings. He hadn’t moved an inch, even his eyes were still resting on the recumbent form of his apparent ward. Rix stretched out languorously and hauled himself to his feet. It couldn’t have been long before dawn, he must have slept for longer than he’d intended and his overseer still hadn’t done anything. Another unnatural act and he even had to squint at the guard in the half light, scanning the neutral face to remind himself that it was indeed a human one. Training, it had to be, iron clad training to stand there and assert the rules until they were obeyed without batting an eyelid or letting the mask of indifference shift. It sent a small shudder down his spine but he calmed himself with the thought that he was leaving, perhaps the stranger would even show some signs of relief, or happiness, or anything at all.

“I am leaving, I’m on a pilgrimage.”

“That’s good sir, you shouldn’t be here.”

Still nothing, just fixed eyes as Rix knelt down to pack up his handful of belongings, his mind already shifting onwards to the temple which he could, perhaps, reach today.

With a nod of acknowledgement he set off to leave, the guard watching his progress intently even though he could have seen nothing more than a dull retreating shadow walking across the paved expanse. Perhaps that was natural for the city in general? Rix felt philosophical, this wasn’t home and the standards couldn’t be the same, perhaps in assuming humanity from the stranger he had really just tried to assert humanity as he understood it. No matter, the temple would have answers, there were people from the city there but they held the faith too, they’d be open to answering his questions. His steps were light, although the sun started to lash out and expose again the sparse landscape Rix felt content even in this alien land.

—

It was hours of walking later that Rix next saw life beyond the lonely figures of security guards, standing watch over yet more stretches of sterile land.

The life came in the form of a huddled group of three strangers, one man and two women standing around a fourth person – a guard. Striding closer he could hear them talking, tense but not shouting.

“You can’t be here, you have to leave.”

They must all attend the same training courses, these custodians, they all sounded the same after all. Rix came to a halt on the edge of the group, glad to have found people at last but reluctant to get involved in an argument he was already tiringly familiar with.

“We are here and we’re not living, this is our city.”

Locals, his first locals who weren’t in uniform. Perhaps they knew where the people were? Or why they couldn’t be here for that matter, although they didn’t seem to be making much progress in claiming a place for themselves.

“Yes but you can’t be here, you’ll have to go away.”

One of the women stepped towards the guard and gave him a shove, anger breaking through tolerance. Her friends didn’t move to stop her but didn’t join in either and the target for her ire remained unaffected, staggering a little but quickly bracing himself against further shoves.

“Please, miss, you can’t be here.”

More shoving, futile though, he was bigger than she was and had had time to brace himself. The scuffle went on for a moment before Rix decided to make his presence known, tapping the woman who wasn’t caught up in the excitement on the shoulder.

“Excuse me, do you know why can’t you be here?”

She stared at him, eyes evaluating him while the man stepped towards him to do the same, leaving only the other woman to argue with the guard.

“We can be here, he can’t stop us.”

“Yes, but why does he think you can’t be here? They keep telling me the same wherever I go.”

The woman’s face flashed briefly into a sneer.

“Because they own it, or someone does. They want us somewhere else, but there’s nowhere left to go except for the temple and that won’t last.”

Rix sagged, anything that effected the temple effected him and all of the faithful.

“Why not? The temple’s important, I’m on a pilgrimage there, I’m not the only one either – people are always going there.”

One of the men cut in eagerly, expression open and friendly, a first in the city as far as Rix had seen.

“You’re a pilgrim? Welcome to the city! You’ve not got far to go to the temple.”

Ignoring the upbeat intervention the woman went on.

“The temple is the last place to be, unless you’re in one of their buildings, they can’t stand it, they don’t want us there either.”

“Who’re ‘they’? Not him?”

Rix pointed to the put upon guard whose eyes were still on the woman who’d been pushing him who was, for her part, now simply scowling, tired of her fruitless attack.

“No, not him,” said the woman “His bosses, whoever they are. Look, you should go, we’ll be here a while, we’re going to camp here because they can’t stop us. Keep heading this way, you’ll find the temple. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Her tone had shifted to the warily conciliatory, enough to convince Rix that he should leave. The city was a strange place but they were at least properly human and their encouragement, even if lacklustre was enough to make him look forward again. Besides, the guard had said they couldn’t be there and having broken with the edict once already he felt uneasy about repeating it, even if he felt those doing the arguing were in the right he was still a stranger in a strange land. And there was the temple to look forward to after all, the end of his journey, that was all that mattered.

It was another hour of walking before the landscape changed. First came buildings, the first he’d been close to despite seeing a few in the distance as he’d walking across the paved land. The first ones he passed seemed lifeless. He could see lights on in steel framed windows but no movement, even around the doors there was no one there, not even guards who seemed to exist solely in the empty spaces in between. Rix briefly wondered if that meant he was allowed in the buildings, but it wasn’t a thought he wanted to test. The strangers had said people worked in them and they were allowed, implication enough to make him suspect that he probably wasn’t. That was unimportant though, they were inhospitable enough for him not to want to cross any thresholds. More buildings followed them too, denser ones, packed closer and closer together and showing more and more signs of life.

Before long he even saw a person walking casually down a side road, narrow enough to be filled by that simple flash of life. Then there were more people, people who seemed truly human as they walked, ran and shambled around dressed in a breathtaking variety of outfits. Some pausing to talk with each others, some even nodding a vague greeting to Rix himself. This, he thought, was the city he’d expected, alive and filled with it’s own sense of nature. It made him nervous, scared even, so alien was it but Rix was no coward. Strange as the place was becoming he wasn’t one to recoil from it, even when the crowd grew so dense that he had to resort to a sidling shuffle, gently shoving anonymous strangers out of his path in order to progress.

Eventually he reached a doorway where he could take stock. The crowd was still near solid, flowing past him on the street, but the recess of the entrance gave him some space to think. The temple, it would be nearby now, these people would know it. Some may even have been pilgrims themselves, they might have taken the same path he did and have their own explanations for the strange emptiness they’d encountered. A comforting thought, with all these people there were sure to be answers. First things first though, to the temple, to fulfill the demands of the faith, whatever they were. No one had ever really explained them to Rix and he’d never thought to ask. Pilgrims came back changed, he knew that, he didn’t know how, or why but those few who’d passed by his isolated home had always seemed strange to him. Not in a bad way, nor in a particularly profound way for that matter, but certainly strange when compared to what little he knew of normality.

Rix reached out and tapped one of the many passersby on the arm. The stranger spun around to face him, shocked at the interruption to their routine voyage.

“Yes?”

It was a woman, middle aged but with lines borne of a life well lived giving her an air of experience that belied her age. Rix was glad of that, he felt she would know something and finding answers was something he longed to do.

“Yes, excuse me but do you know where the temple is?”

“The temple?”

“Yes, the temple, I’m a pilgrim.”

The woman frowned a little, although not out of any anger or frustration, before stepping out of the flow of traffic to stand closer to Rix.

“You’re here, pilgrim, this is the temple.”

Rix looked around with a start, eyes falling on the door behind him.

“In here? It doesn’t look like a temple. Does it?”

The woman laughed gently, laying a warm hand on Rix’s shoulder.

“No pilgrim, not in there. It’s all of this, all these people, this is the temple. Not what you were expecting?”

He could think of nothing to say, so he said nothing, aware suddenly that he had no real expectations of what the temple should be. As with the rituals he was supposed to perform there he’d assumed that all the answers would appear when they needed to.

“You’ve finished your pilgrimage, go and enjoy it!”

With a gentle slap on his shoulder she moved to step back into the crowd.

“Wait! What do I do here? What do the faithful do here?”

She was already half gone as he said it, shouldering her way towards wherever she was headed. She took a pause though, turning her head back to him to shout with a laugh.

“Whatever you want pilgrim! You’re in the temple!”

Cunninlynguists – Mic Like A Memory

Just a quick update to post a beautiful song. New short story coming tomorrow hopefully, will be editing it at least.

 

Sol’s Pandemic

This one’s dedicated to the dead who became the truth they were attempting to report. There are plenty of hacks in the world but, hidden amongst them, are some individuals who realise the value of truth and sacrifice themselves to it. 

The truth had to get out, that was the last certainty, the bedrock of Sol’s waning existence.

He was dead, or would be soon. Too many enemies, too many death threats and no friends left, few as he’d had to start with. An irrelevance. No, not quite irrelevant, he didn’t want to die and he wasn’t so brave as to feign indifference in the solitude of his own mind. Sol wanted to live, he wanted to live in mediocrity or greatness, alone or loved, happy or sad – he just wanted to live. And the certain knowledge that he wouldn’t felt like a vacuum forming inside of him, dragging his mind towards acceptance. The second he let his thoughts turn towards it, he’d be gone. So he accepted the words and nothing more, ‘I will die’, they were floating above his head now, being drawn down by that abyss on the inside. They had to stay there, just detached enough to remain an idea rather than an all consuming awareness. At least until the truth was out.

So the truth. The truth had to get out. That was all that mattered now, fatalism, if well founded, was meaningless to that. They would come for him but they hadn’t yet and he still held the truth close, a tumour latched on to his mind, unfeeling but undeniably present. He needed to share the infection of knowledge, spread it like a pandemic in what little time he had left, the patient zero to necessity. Where though? Enemies, they were everywhere. In the police, in the press, in parliament, in the street, he couldn’t trust anyone who should be trusted and that just left people who’d never trust him. Strangers, passersby, people to whom he’d seem like a lunatic at best or who, at worst, would be marked for death themselves by the infection. The enemies would kill anyone they thought knew the truth and it’d simply die again with them after he’d had his turn. No, it needed an explosion, a proliferation of understanding that would spread far enough to sustain itself before anyone could seek to stop it.

There was one chance, one moment to act before there were no more. Sol was crying now, sobbing, alone in his apartment. The truth had to get out. The tears were those of failure, there was no way, there was no hope. He couldn’t think and he couldn’t imagine a path that led anywhere, too many enemies, so many enemies and no one to help.

The truth had to get out.

Footsteps in the hallway. Enemies, killers, an external weight to drag the words of death down through him and into the abyss, where he would inevitably follow. There was no escape, the truth had to get out but their vessel was trapped. Sol wailed through the tears, clawing at his head as if to yank away the mass of knowledge that it held.

Boots thudding on the door, the treble locks rattling in their housings. They wouldn’t hold, no more than Sol would once they gave way.

The truth had to get out. People needed to know about the lies, the thefts, the corruption of what was there’s. But there was no way, time had run out. The truth would never spread, it’d die incubated in a worthless host.

The door flew open. A blur of bodies, indistinct in all but their rage and professional violence. Sol went down, the idea meeting the abyss and everything else fading to nothing. The truth would die with him, the lies would survive.

No matter, he had the abyss now, a slow descent to something else. He had failed, but only he would ever know it, at the very least the truth left unspoken could mark him for no judgement.

The command to kill was lost on Sol, he’d already left.

My latest work, No Cure for Shell Shock, is a collection of short stories and poetry. It’s available as an eBook and a paperback here.

As always reviews, support and shares are welcome.