Tomasmania sweeps the world. Sweatshops turn into ovens, all producing Tomas T-shirts. Any hotel room within a hundred miles of Paris costs a week’s wages. Campsites mushroom around the city. A craze for all things French ignites. In Beijing, people bicycle home with baguettes in their baskets. Snails become as expensive as caviar. Everywhere, men take mistresses. Buildings worldwide are inverted in tribute. The Sydney Opera House looks much the same upside down, as does the Bird’s Nest Stadium. In London the Eye is ingeniously inverted in one rotation.
What of the sociological reaction? Anthropologists everywhere await the start of the season with measuring tapes and binoculars. Sure enough, collars have reduced in size; breasts are no longer trolleyed but carried neatly in baskets. Hiding in a bush, a researcher hears a waiter offering to bring fresh butter. ‘Please don’t worry about that,’ comes the reply. Hallelujah! ‘Producers’ struggle to practise their magic art, for street corners everywhere are now covered with warnings: ‘A producer only wants one thing’; ‘Come on girls, don’t believe it’; and the particularly successful ‘Men lie.’ In a club, Tomas notices a man turning red, biting his knuckles in his efforts not to talk about money. He overhears another cancel a giant champagne bottle.
Tomas and Tereza have one of those magical nights: they drink just enough, dance for hours, make love and go to bed hungry and tired as dawn is breaking.
The second Messiah now needs somewhere to live, a calm, happy place whence he can propagate his message. Paris is gridlocked with followers and too grey. He wants the sun. Tomas decides to look south.
Just as the master jeweller creates the perfect mount for his stone, God created the perfect setting for Cannes. Of all the coastal resorts, Cannes is the finest. St Tropez to the west, the epicentre of trolleys and sun loungers, has its attractions, but like the rap singer’s ring, it’s too much. Monte Carlo to the east, home to eternal treasure keepers, is quaint but old-fashioned and as over-elaborate as a Victorian brooch. Nice in the middle has a fine historic centre but its long coastline is too much like the Queen’s crown: beautiful to behold – but would you want to wear it?
Cannes is the perfect size and shape, nestling at the foot of some hills in the arc of a bay. Facing south, the seaview is framed by small mountains on the far side of the shore that snakes around the coast. Sunsets are spectacular. The seafront is less than a mile long: a dozen restaurants compete for custom and in rudeness along the beach. Behind this is the famous Croisette, a promenade lined with palm trees along which Cannois and visitors perambulate eternally.
Overlooking the Croisette are Cannes’s fabulous turn-of-the-century hotels, seaside monsters like the one levitated by Tomas, all with ornate facades, balconies you can stand on and watering holes where the animals gather at six. Between them, small side streets filled with purveyors of lingerie and bikinis lead back to Cannes’s main shopping street, the Rue d’Antibes, a retail paradise for every taste and budget. At the western end is the Fountainville open-air market, the best in the south, where you can eat like a king for ten euros.
With such a cornucopia of wonders, not to mention the wonderful climate, it’s no surprise that Cannes is Europe’s most popular festival destination. From advertising to yachts, music to mobile phones, the city is continually being flooded with festival goers plying their trade. The most famous event is, of course, the annual gathering of beautiful people for the film festival. During this period of starlets and socialites, the city morphs into a single entity, as breasts, sun loungers, champagne bottles and oversized collars blend together to create a very particular soup.
The only disappointing aspect of the city is the Palais de Festival itself. This ugly concrete structure, host to one event after another, juts out into the bay at the western end of the city. While it is functional, it appears a sorry afterthought, given the magnificence of its surroundings. It’s as if the burghers of the city had sat down one day and said, ‘We’ve got a great place here, let’s turn it into a festival paradise. No need to bother with the convention hall. People will come anyway.’ While Tomas understands the pragmatism of French municipal politics, the Palais de Festival is not acceptable for the second Messiah’s court. He decides he needs something new.
In designing this, Tomas has an unfair advantage. He has seen the future, and it’s croissant-, beret- and garlic-shaped. The Freudian lobby argues for a baguette, another symbol of France, rampant. But in the end common sense and good taste prevail and the corporation of Cannes acquires another asset, a fabulous floating Onion.
This monument to light and space is built on a huge barge in the middle of the bay, accessed by a floating boulevard running off the Croisette. Fine green lines, imitating an onion’s skin, rib the opaque white exterior, supporting the superstructure decoratively. Like the as-yet-unbuilt properties in Tomas and Tereza’s time travels, the Onion is flooded with light through giant sea-facing windows. These also provide spectacular views to its occupants. But the building is practical as well as magnificent: the twisting peak of the Onion’s dome houses the finest restaurant on the coast. Just as its chef garnishes a delicate dish with lemon zest, the Alien completes the Onion with a little touch of his own. Using minimal telekinetic power he sets the Onion in a permanent state of rotation at snail’s pace.
Despite these wonders, the new Messiah is required to have more than one residence. He divides his time between an apartment to the rear of the city, the beachside hotels and his rotating palace on the sea. For the Russians are still trying to kill him. One night they almost succeed.
A marsupial mishap and a giant phallus …
Tomas is taking Tereza to his favourite restaurant in Le Suquet. This tight pedestrian passage, where two people can barely pass, snakes up a hill to the west of the city and is home to twenty restaurants.
As Tomas and Tereza ascend they are thrown against a wall by a kangaroo. The commotion behind them signifies an accident, and they watch the kangaroo disappear up the hill, its leash trailing in the air.
The prelude to this mishap began several days ago when Boss Olgarv rented a room above one of the restaurants. The problem of transporting a four-hundred-pound kangaroo up the narrow staircase to its new home was solved by means of a powerful Russian sedative. Even stronger Russian hands manhandled the sleeping giant up the stairs.
On waking, the marsupial wasn’t happy. Given miles of Australian outback or a cramped room in Cannes in which to jump, the choice was obvious. But the kangaroo was part of a plan which required only one, possibly his final, jump. His loud and malodorous protests were covered by the equally strong exudations from the passageway below. Anyway this is the Mediterranean. Live and let live.
Boss Olgarv’s plan was absurdly simple. On the appointed night, he would wait for the diners to throng the narrow street. Then, having brought the kangaroo to the window, he would push the unfortunate animal off the ledge. Its target, Tomas’s head, would, according to Boss Olgarv’s calculations and the laws of physics, be crushed like an almond in a nutcracker. The plan also paid tribute to the many assassinations perpetrated by the motherland, in which journalists and other undesirables are despatched using farcical methods that render both the cause of death and the assassin’s identity instantly obvious to the world.
Despite the brilliance of the idea it doesn’t work. At the critical moment, the sharp-sighted Alien, now acting as the new Messiah’s twirling praetorian, notices a large spherical shape – Boss Olgarv’s stomach – overhead. Taking no chances, he rotates it immediately. This spooks the marsupial, who changes its appointed trajectory and lands on another spot with powerful legs. Boss Olgarv is caught off guard. His hand, attached to the leash, follows the beast earthwards, as do his arm and body. He lands on his head and is killed instantly, while the kangaroo, after days of dreaming about open spaces, jumps off to find some.
The autopsy, presided over by Judge Reynard, is an unpleasant affair. His detachable stomach, which exploded on impact, is a bloody mess of flesh and gore. But in amongst the guts and blubber the physicians discover a secret compartment, the contents of which are brought immediately to the judge’s attention.
The judge spreads a bloodied drawing before Tomas. It’s the most bizarre thing they have ever seen. It appears to be of a phallus with gigantic testicles. As they scrape away the muck and grime, the picture becomes clear.
The drawing marked ‘Cocksack’ – presumably in homage to Cossack – is of a soldier in a phallus-shaped uniform with his face exposed through a hole cut at the top and his arms through side openings. The phallus doesn’t have feet; its means of locomotion, the judge deduces, must be jumping. The phallus soldier wears a Cossack sword and carries what appears to be a detonator in one hand. But the uniform’s most distinctive feature is the pair of enormous testicles that is attached to the front. These are of the same size and design as Boss Olgarv’s stomach.
‘Boss Olgarv has created a uniform in his own image,’ says the judge. ‘But what function could such giant appendages possibly perform?’
Tomas looks at another drawing that shows a cut-away section. ‘The testicles appear to be huge containers of some sort,’ he says. ‘Look, there’s a tube running up the soldier’s back to the top of his head and a pumping mechanism. And the whole thing’s connected to a detonator.’ He turns grey. He has just survived a third assassination attempt. Now this, a Cocksack soldier, probably a prototype for millions, featuring a device to spread all manner of evil.
Reynard, too, understands the implications. ‘Tomas,’ he says. ‘You’ve achieved a lot. But sermons won’t work against this enemy. We must consider something more drastic.’
‘Very well,’ says Tomas. ‘I’ll raise the Emperor.’
The fable of the fence …
Tomas finds the great man in a beautiful wooded glade by the sea, a few kilometres from Cannes. Two hundred years ago, Napoleon landed here with a handful of followers to reclaim his crown. Sunlight filters through the trees, illuminating the Emperor and making dappled patterns on the ground.
Napoleon is leaning against a small section of fence in the middle of a group of people to whom he appears to be giving orders. But these aren’t followers, they’re students. And the Emperor’s not giving orders, he’s teaching. Napoleon looks up as Tomas enters the glade.
‘Forgive my intrusion, Sir,’ Tomas says, embarrassed. ‘I’ve come to seek your counsel.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ Napoleon replies. ‘Please, join us.’
A space is made for Tomas and he sits cross-legged on the ground like a school child. He looks confused.
‘What do you think we do in the hereafter?’ asks Napoleon. ‘Sleep?’ He sweeps his arms in a wide gesture. Tomas glances around the glade. ‘No, each develops his skill; there are artisans, cooks, athletes, even poets. Thankfully, there’s not much need for generalship, so I teach.’
‘May I enquire which subject?’ Tomas asks. Napoleon looks at his pupils, amused.
‘There’s only one subject,’ he replies. ‘Once you’ve mastered it, there’s no further need for teachers. You can then learn anything you wish by yourself.’
Tomas’s gazes at him helplessly.
‘Come, Tomas. Guess.’
He continues to stare blankly, quite at a loss. ‘Philosophy?’ he mumbles weakly.
‘Very well,’ says Napoleon. ‘Let me help you. In the temporal world there are thousands of educational symbols and mottos. Shields with Latin words I find difficult to understand. Mortar boards and academic gowns, the purpose of which is unclear to me. Fine sayings: “Receive the light that you may give it forth”; “Not only intelligence, but also virtue”; “Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times.”
‘Here, there is only one educational symbol – the fence. This doesn’t manifest itself as a logo or motto but as a physical presence, which students see each day.’
‘And what does the fence represent?’ Tomas asks.
‘The worst possible thing in life – or death,’ Napoleon replies. ‘Mediocrity; those who strive for nothing. Fence-sitters who think of nothing beyond their base needs – sex, money, alcohol. People who won’t defend a friend or principle at all costs, who are the first to drift away in a fight. People who are stuck, who settle for second best and are incapable of mental mobility – of enquiry, discovery or wonder – whose domain is the sofa and, worse still, the fence.’
‘So being sent to sit on the fence is like standing in the corner?’
‘That is not its purpose. The corner is a form of punishment. The fence is a symbol of mediocrity, which students in the afterlife are taught to repudiate. It’s enough that it’s there.’
‘But not all people are able,’ Tomas argues; ‘most live ordinary lives.’
‘Ability and role in life have nothing to do with it. You can be an exceptional street cleaner but a mediocre political leader,’ Napoleon replies.
‘How can a mediocrity lead a nation?’
‘Very easily. Let’s say that the leader, when elected, inherits a strong stable country. The time calls for small incremental improvements to the nation’s wellbeing. It’s not glamorous, but he needs to focus on the details in areas like health, education, law and order and ensure prudence and safety in the nation’s finances. But he’s a glory seeker. He talks about his legacy, and wishes to feel the hand of history on his shoulder. He doesn’t understand that it’s fortune’s wheel, not the individual, which determines greatness; that glory isn’t given to every leader. If the times call for a great deed, so be it. If not, it’s a disaster to seek it out.
‘So instead of concentrating on the basics, he becomes entangled in foreign adventures in the name of making the world a better place. When they go wrong, he speaks with the serpent tongue of a lawyer justifying what he’s done. But excuses aren’t good enough – it’s his job not to make mistakes. And since these were caused by his glory-seeking in the first place, it’s so much the worse. Instead of the epitaph “Here lies a great man”, he’s given “Here lies a mediocrity”.’
‘I understand,’ says Tomas, ‘how the glory seeker is mediocre. But what about ordinary people? How do you free yourself once stuck on the fence?’
‘ “Stuck” is a short way of saying “mediocre”,’ Napoleon replies. ‘The answer is self-realisation. Look at your situation. Are you trapped in a job, relationship, home or way of thinking? Do you confuse trivia with what is important? Are you bad tempered about small things? “Disaster! My dinner’s late.” Do you feel the light fading and your waist expanding? If the answer is “Yes”, then you need to take some risks and be prepared to fail.’
‘That’s easier said than done.’
‘Is it? Can’t you send out a hundred CVs; try harder or finish with your girlfriend; buy a one-way ticket out of town; retrain; go to night school; emigrate; think, discover, internet your way to a different life? Isn’t effort rewarded, and trying always worth it? Anything but the twilight world of bitterness, prejudice, alcohol and bad language.’
‘And if you’re a lifelong mediocrity?’ asks Tomas.
‘Priests will tell you,’ Napoleon replies, ‘that sins can be forgiven and wrongs righted. You might be glued to the fence for a lifetime. But one day, just before the end, decide not to be just another echo on the wind.’
That night, Tomas dreams that he’s in an arena, surrounded by a cheering crowd. Trumpets sound, the Emperor arrives and the games begin. Huge iron gates swing open and a hundred collar wearers riding mobile fences charge at him. In their haste, their collars get caught in the fence sections; they trip and fall in a heap. Next, an army of trolley wheelers wielding fence posts attempts to run him down. The trolleys are made for style, not speed – their wheels detach and Tomas bounces against soft flesh. Finally, a thousand leviathan champagne bottles lined up on top of a fence fire their corks simultaneously. Tomas uses his magic trick of slowing time and the corks stop in the air and fall to the ground. He wins the first round.
Trumpets sound again. Out of nowhere, a Russian yacht with a nasty rotating propeller materialises and advances on Tomas. This looks like trouble. Then an even bigger oligarch boat appears to join the attack. Double trouble. What’s this? A still larger Soviet battleship, that has been converted into a floating palace with savage motor blades, is bearing down on him as well. Tomas is just about to be shredded when the cry goes up, ‘Yours is bigger than mine,’ and again, ‘Yours is bigger than mine.’ The boats forget about Tomas and start chasing each other around the arena with ever increasing velocity. And the result? A delicious yacht soup, which the crowd drinks. Tomas wins again.
Napoleon summons Tomas. ‘To the victor the spoils,’ he says. ‘Ask any question you wish.’
‘What is needed to defeat the Cocksack army?’
‘Power,’ the Emperor replies.
Tomas wakes up and shakes Tereza from her sleep. ‘Being the new Messiah isn’t enough. The presidential election’s soon. You’re going to stand.’
‘And how do you propose I become President of the Republic?’
‘With the help of my enemies.’
The ultimate aphrodisiac …
There are many types of aphrodisiac, from foods and potions to candlelit dinners by the sea. Some people think of oysters when the word is mentioned, others of mind-changing substances. It is generally agreed, however, that the most succulent fruits on the aphrodisiac tree are power and money. Of these, power is the more delicious.
Presidents of the Republic have made liberal and un-subtle use of this potent balm since time began. The current incumbent, a believer in tradition, is no exception. He’s so confident about the supernatural effect of his four magic words that he throws caution to the wind whenever he uses them.
‘I am the President,’ he says, as one might say: ‘It’s a nice day’; ‘You’re a woman’; or, ‘There’s a nose on my face.’ Whereas these statements might be answered with a simple, ‘Yes, I agree,’ the ‘I am the President’ aphrodisiac, put through the translator, takes on a different meaning. It always elicits the desired response. Thus …
STATEMENT:
I am the President.
TRANSLATION:
Fuck me immediately.
The four words, reduced to three in translation, compel the hearer to undress immediately and prepare for coupling. While this satisfies the President, it’s rather less obvious what benefits accrue to the recipients of his largesse. It’s one of the great unanswered questions of history. The girl fucks instantly and without ceremony. Then what? A mention in the credits?
As the new Messiah’s girlfriend, it’s not difficult for Tereza to arrange a meeting with the President. Now, she stands before him in the private salon of the presidential residence not far from Cannes.
‘To what do I owe this pleasure, madamoiselle?’ the President asks.
Tereza looks coy. She twists one leg suggestively but keeps her eyes fixed on the President.
‘Madamoiselle, may I help you?’ he says.
Tereza bites her lip lightly.
The President rises from his desk of state – here Napoleon once sat – and walks towards Tereza.
She wears a simple brown dress, with matching high heels. Her only jewellery is a chunky pendant the size of a small camera lens. Her smooth legs shimmer with a hint of oil. As he approaches, the President catches a glimpse of her perfect upturned breasts. Just as he reaches her, she lowers her eyes, sways shyly and twists a strand of hair.
This is it. One, two, three.
‘Madamoiselle, I am the President,’ he says.
Nothing. Tereza remains impassive.
‘I repeat. I am the President.’
Tereza turns a foot inwards.
‘Do I make myself plain, mademoiselle?’ the President asks, his passion rising.
‘Forgive me, Monsieur le President,’ Tereza says. ‘I’m so sorry. I don’t understand what that means.’ Thrusting out her chest, she raises her eyes to meet his and opens her mouth.
The President explodes with frustration and desire. ‘Fuck me immediately!’ he shrieks. ‘Immediately, I say. Fuck me immediately.’
‘Very well,’ says Tereza and turns on her heel and leaves the room.
Moments later, their meeting is broadcast worldwide on Shit TV.
In the battle between sex and something else …
… something else always loses. The presidential election is one such battle.
Tereza’s broadcast meeting with the President is a ratings triumph on a par with her Hank-torture series. She becomes Shit TV’s new star. And why not? She is young, sexy and the girlfriend of the new Messiah, with endless potential for mischief. What else does a star need? Or a President for that matter?
In unleashing its campaign, Shit TV finds that the President is an easy target: the French don’t object so much to the use of the presidential aphrodisiac as to its failure. It shames the Patrie for the President to command ‘open sesame’ only for the magic portal to remain shut.
He doesn’t go down without a fight. He closets himself with his advisers. They go days without sleep. The presidential nails are bitten to the quick. As much French blood, sweat and tears are shed as on a Napoleonic battlefield. At last, one early dawn – eureka! The President hits on a winning idea, a political ideology of such brilliance and originality that all will be swept before it.
Change! A concept so unfamiliar in contemporary politics that – who knows? – he may even be hailed as the second Napoleon.
He had been planning a campaign based on truth: ‘Citizens! I regret there’s not much we can do with our great nation. We’re stuck. Whatever is promised, nothing ever happens. It’s all just talk and air. Let’s not worry. Water has a way of finding its own level. Time will resolve what we politicians are unable to do. I, at least, am straight about the situation. So vote for me.’
The new version: ‘Citizens! You’re not stupid – you would never fall for an idea that’s been used a thousand times before. Especially not a political cliché that is as old as the hills and is known never to work. So here’s a brilliant new one – change! Never promised before by any politician, and guaranteed to work. So vote for me.’
Although the President doesn’t realise it, the world is, in fact, the subject of a cosmic joke perpetrated by God. One day, for no particular reason, he waved his hand and fixed the world in a perpetual time warp, the effect of which was that nothing has ever changed in politics. It is almost as if the world gets into a giant time machine, ready for an exciting political journey, only to hear a crunching of gears and a loud bang. Instead of travelling among the stars, we are stuck for eternity. Luckily, the people are unaware of this celestial prank and exult in the President’s brilliant new idea.
Election day arrives and Tereza and Shit TV have a problem. What can compete with the President’s superb political marketing of rupture, the need for change, a break with the past, a fresh beginning, the nation reborn, the dawning of a new day?
‘There’s nothing for it,’ says Tereza.
She strips live on Shit TV. And wins by a landslide.
A rat can fit through a space the size of a pencil. Millions of rodents now perform this trick to invade every place of incarceration in the world that houses violent criminals: murderers, armed robbers, weapon-toting narcotics and people traffickers, street thugs and mafiosi.
The rats squeeze and scurry through holes and up drainpipes carrying tiny pieces of equipment, which they deposit in every prison canteen before scuttling off for more. Groups of technicians assemble the equipment with twitching whiskers and busy paws. The process is arduous and assembly slow but the rat sea swarms and surges and each tide brings a little more progress. Gradually the equipment begins to take shape.
The precursor to this global infestation was the Great Bear’s angry summons to King Rat. Tereza’s election is inconsequential; she and the fake Messiah will be swept aside in the coming deluge but for Shit TV to endorse her in its desperation for ratings is an abomination. The Great Bear knows that the fake Messiah despises Shit TV; the network was responsible for his death and his very existence is an antidote to everything it stands for. Doesn’t the network know it’s being played for a fool? That by conniving with him, it sows the seeds of its own destruction?
This is King Rat’s mission: to return Shit TV to the Great Bear’s cause; to promote licentiousness, the worship of money, depravity of every hue and colour – all to soften the West for the final broadcast which his master has prepared a thousand times in his mind. That of his new world empire. For the army is half mobilised, its weapons almost ready and with the Cocksacks disgorged of their venomous load and Tomas’s broken body at his feet, the Great Bear will finally emerge from his lair. Only the biggest network in world history will suffice as a platform from which to proclaim the new Russian hegemony.
For King Rat, it’s an easy mission. Shit TV’s only interest is programming. He just needs to think up a suitably profane show in order to be guaranteed a platform for his master’s message come the great day.
In perfecting his plan, he plays on the one characteristic that is shared by all men of violence – stupidity. How fortunate for him that the global justice system, so obsessed with reason and fairness, has failed to exploit this flaw. It would have saved a lot of trouble. King Rat is about to conduct a masterclass in annihilation without even breaking the law.
As prison canteens around the world fill for the morning meal, convicts are greeted by a giant screen set up against a wall, with a projection device attached to the ceiling overhead. Cameras and other broadcasting paraphernalia are positioned around the eating areas. The criminals collect breakfast, scratch their heads and sit down to watch.
The screens flicker into life and King Rat appears. ‘Today I want to talk about respect,’ he says. This is a word they understand. They lean forward to listen. ‘What’s the difference between you and other men? Why do they scuttle like ants while you walk like lions? The answer’s simple. Respect. You have it – they don’t. They know nothing of the street. Of real life. Of what it takes to be a man.
‘Each of you wears a badge of honour. Prison. Doing your time. The elementary mark of respect. Without it no other honours are possible. It is an absolute necessity.
‘There are grades to this order, aren’t there? Your second, third, fourth, fifth sentences. As you reoffend and return to gaol, fellow inmates nod in deference and make gestures of solidarity and obeisance to the really hard man. You can take it. Even more respect.
‘Most of you here have earned the second badge of honour – violence. The rite of passage: to cut and be cut. That’s your motto. Smash his arm; break his leg; splinter his nose. You’re men of blood. Other people – get the fuck out of the way. Respect.
‘A few of you wear the third badge – murder. The final mark of manhood. Shoot your enemy in the face. Stab him through the heart. Respect.
‘If a man snatches a glance at your woman, knife him in the eye. If he dares a second glimpse? Kill the bastard. Disrespect. He deserves it. Then do your orang-utan walk, roll your hips; slouch, sway, swagger down the street. Do your special clicks and flicks. Curl your lip in a menacing snarl. You’re in the jungle now, an animal. That’s it. That’s the way. Perfect. Respect.
‘But as I look about me now I see no one bearing the badge of the highest order: the ultimate accolade in respect’s pantheon of greatness. How could I? You’re all alive.
‘Think about it. Who do you honour most? Who is spoken of with the greatest reverence and awe? Whose lives and deeds are told and retold without end? The answer is the dead. The narco slaughtered in a hail of bullets. The Mafia boss killed from behind with a knife. The gang member murdered with a machete. Theirs is the true greatness that comes only with death. The ultimate respect.
‘What is prison, violence and murder compared to dying a real man’s death? Aren’t all heroes remembered thus? Why are you still alive? What are you waiting for? Do you have girls’ parts beneath those breeches?
‘Get up! Earn the highest badge of honour. It makes perfect sense. Kill and be killed. Take up your chairs. Smash each other’s heads! Jab a spoon into the next man’s eye! Throttle him! Pulp his face!
‘Do this so that this day will be remembered, and your names with it. The day when the hardest men in history came together with one voice, and in one moment joined in a final fraternal embrace, together glorying in the highest order of respect – death.’
Educational time travels …
Tomas and Tereza are amazed. A group of Taiwanese schoolgirls in pretty red uniforms are smiling, laughing and waving at them – two thousand feet up in the air. They’re in the time machine gliding over the South China Sea in the year 3000, and are joined in flight by an altogether bigger craft – the island of Taiwan!
This odyssey follows the mutual annihilation of two million violent criminals live on Shit TV, the biggest ratings triumph of all time – with the promise at the end of the show of an even bigger surprise next week. This is it. The Great Bear’s final plan.
Tomas visits the Emperor urgently to give him a situation report. The Cocksacks are massing on the Polish border; their testicles carry a secret weapon he assumes to be lethal; the West has been weakened by Shit TV and people are so venal and stupid that they might even support the invasion in the belief that it is connected to next week’s programme; power has been gained via Tereza’s presidency but this alone can’t withstand the Russian attack. The position is desperate. What must he do?
In response to his breathless plea, Napoleon delivers a history lesson.
When I fought Russia two hundred years ago,’ he says, ‘my army advanced into the Great Bear’s motherland. The Russians joined battle from time to time but always retreated, drawing us in deeper. The winter brought a cold so chilling that fingers froze on cannons and breath became ice in the air. Eventually my army was immobilised. Only then did the Great Bear leave his lair to annihilate us.
‘One hundred and fifty years later, in another great war, exactly the same thing happened. An army attacked Russia, it was drawn in and destroyed. You now have the power over men and machines. So you tell me, what must you do?’
Tomas and Tereza have set off in the time machine to find out how to draw the Great Bear out and trap him. This seemingly impossible mission isn’t helped by their bizarre first encounter. The console provides an explanation.
A few centuries earlier, the ingenious Taiwanese invented a technology whereby the atoms of their island’s submerged landmass were violently vibrated together. When particles in the atmosphere were similarly treated, a vacuum was created, the effect of which was to lift the island off the seabed. With a speed and steerage system attached, the island became mobile.
Taiwan is on its way to its annual holiday in the Caribbean. But the technology provides an unexpected bonus. On its travels, the island stops over China, where the population leans over the edge to hurl insults and rotten things at its hated neighbour.
China’s loss of pride here is regained elsewhere. Travelling over another landmass, Tomas and Tereza notice a remarkable transformation – Africa has become Chinese.
While other empires messed about over the millennia, the Chinese got busy. Looking at the long term, underdeveloped Africa was identified as having potential, with the consequence that, over centuries, Chinese money, technology and knowhow flooded its shores. By 3000 the dark continent has become yellow. It speaks, eats and even breakbeats Chinese.
America has undergone a similar transformation. This started in the mid twenty-fifth century when Mexico, tired of playing the poor relation, hatched an ingenious plan. Over decades, a giant subterranean cavern was built in secret on the American border. Tens of millions of Mexicans were assembled. On the appointed day, a whistle blew and a thousand pontoon bridges straddled the Rio Grande. Within days, fifty million Mexicans crossed the border, aided by generations of previous immigrants. The border guards put up a fight and several thousand intruders were captured. But in the end numbers prevailed and Mexico took over. The eagle replaced the Stars and Stripes. Americans now sleep in the afternoon, have dinner at ten and love their mothers. The result? A much happier nation.
Tomas and Tereza’s favourite discovery, however, is the Omnipotent Musical Being, whose appearance on the world stage is as bizarre as it’s unexpected. The Being never really bothered with the world until one day his giant finger accidentally pressed one of the palazzi lining Venice’s Grand Canal. The palazzo was instantly submerged into the mud of the lagoon, making a ‘Parp!’ noise like an organ note. Due to the Being’s lightness of touch and his other omnipotent qualities, it bounced up again undamaged. Amused, the Being tried it on the palazzo’s neighbour. It too submerged, made a different sounding ‘Parp!’ and then resurfaced. The Being ordered all the palazzi cleared. Thousands of Venetians were temporarily dehoused.
Looking at the sky above the city, you are now likely to see the fingers of two huge hands interlocked and cracking together in a limbering-up exercise. After a few preparatory ‘Parps!’ to establish pitch and tone, the Omnipotent Musical Being plays the palazzi in concert like the keys of a giant organ.
At first the Venetians were furious at this intrusion into their floating paradise and the damage caused by mud and silt. But the city often floods – and the music is beautiful. The Being’s concerts quickly became a gigantic tourist attraction. Gondolas groan under the weight of euphoric fans. The residents, far from angry, dress in bathing suits and snorkels, and ride their palazzi up and down like vertical aquatic rollercoasters.
Predictably, the world has become a Federation by the year 3000 and fought several successful interstellar wars. Buoyed by these victories, the Federation challenges another star system, only to be defeated in seconds by an opponent who covers the sun with a giant black dot.
On their way home Tomas and Tereza see a beautiful sphere floating in space. Like the pockets of a roulette wheel, bright diamond sections alternate with luminescent black elements around its circumference. Bemused, Tomas asks the invisible voice for his opinion.
‘Come on,’ says the invisible voice, ‘take a guess. A sphere rotating in time and space with alternate light and dark sections. It can only be one thing.’ Tomas and Tereza scratch their heads. ‘It’s the wheel of fortune.’
How to dig a trench …
‘The new Messiah has gone mad,’ screams Shit TV’s news bulletin. ‘He’s attempting to amputate Italy’s foot.’
While Tomas’s sanity may be in question, the accuracy of Shit TV’s report isn’t. The boot-shaped peninsula runs over seven hundred miles from Milan down to Naples, with a clearly defined foot at the lower end. Tomas has drawn a line at the top of the foot, from Camerota on the west coast to Bari on the east, a distance of around one hundred miles. He orders a mile-deep trench to be dug from coast to coast.
In this he is aided, as ever, by the Alien, who uses his telekinetic magic to transport a fleet of digging machines with rotating circular drills to the trench site. In flight, with parts in motion, they resemble a swarm of prehistoric creatures migrating south. These mechanical mammoths now go to work on the trench. The serrated edges of their drills resemble jagged teeth; viewed from space, it appears that a rogue army of mutant machines is chewing off Italy’s foot.
The monster excavators are operated by the combined armies of the West. This gigantic mobilisation was suggested by the new President, who used the potent combination of her charms and her authority to persuade her aging male counterparts to fall in with the plan.
Meanwhile a unit of engineers has been positioned at Bari, its task to sink a massive pin into the earth at the top right-hand corner of the amputated foot. This object, many times larger than the rotating rod in Tomas’s Russian-soup dream, is half a mile wide and two miles long. Massive piling machines drive it into the earth’s core.
The new Messiah’s plans don’t just involve moving dirt, and it’s not only the army that is busy. Next, Tomas orders a series of chains to be attached along the length of the south coast from Siderno to Tricase at its heel. These are driven into the coastal rock and then hoisted aboard the ships of the West’s combined fleet. Once secured, the ships begin to sail south-east towards Greece.
Rat spies swarm the trench site and coastal areas. Their reports defy belief. The military and naval strength of the West is massed around the foot of Italy. A trench is being dug, in an apparent attempt to remove it. Simultaneously, the biggest armada in world history is carrying hundreds of heavy chains, all secured to the shoreline, out to sea.
The Great Bear can’t believe the scale of Tomas’s miscalculation. The skill of the defending commander is to anticipate the time and place of the enemy attack. How could he possibly believe that the entire Cocksack army would invade south through Italy? Even a novice would spread his forces across the West in expectation of an advance on several fronts. And to make his main line of defence so obvious? Perhaps he really is insane; will he go from the sermon on the tower, to a soliloquy in a trench?
The West is wide open. The Great Bear orders the strike.
‘Cocks away!’
Despite the screeching sirens that warn of invasion, Pierre, as Tomas’s reporter-in-chief, still receives telephone calls and information. He has just heard from the hypnotherapist whom he recommended to the smoking soldier. Apparently the therapy didn’t work, the patient’s head was ‘blocked’. His investigation of the new Messiah never ends. It’s evening and he is sitting with Judge Reynard in a suite of a Cannes hotel attempting to question him above the noise. What else can he do? He has written more words than anyone attacking the Great Bear. Now that he has failed to discover the secret of the pipeline extension, there’s just one last piece left to write – the destruction of the West. Soon, however, he’ll be dead, a condition unhelpful to storytelling. He might as well go down chasing his original quarry.
This one is difficult to catch, not least because he has gone mad. ‘Has Tomas ever exhibited signs of dementia to you?’ Pierre asks the judge. ‘Has he behaved irrationally or as if on drugs?’
‘Not at all,’ Reynard replies above the wail. ‘He was perhaps a little soporific after his execution; otherwise I have always found him to be clear minded, normal.’
‘I’ve always meant to ask you,’ Pierre continues casually, ‘why someone as organised and thoughtful as yourself neglected Tomas’s funeral arrangements?’
‘Did you say organised and thoughtful?’ the judge replies, ‘or old and forgetful? As you know, I don’t have much time and … ’
He is cut off by a tremendous crash as an anti-aircraft battery in the nearby fort fires a salvo into the night. With the regular army away in south Italy, the local militia are defending the town with equipment left over from a forgotten war. But it’s not just the judge who hasn’t much time: the searchlight, normally used for celebrity parties and film premieres, now illuminates an approaching apocalypse.
Just as the sea is composed of water, God intended the sky to be made of clouds. On this night over Cannes, it consists of an undulating blanket of metal, which causes the first ever unscheduled eclipse of the moon. Thousands of aircraft are flying in formation overhead, the roar of their engines creating an airborne earthquake that cracks the pavements and knocks the elderly off their feet.
A worse terror awaits within their metal skins. Perched on rooftops and balconies, the Cannois hear a terrible groan of undercarriages opening; moments later they behold the instruments of the Great Bear’s Armageddon: a thousand giant phalluses, with massive distended testicles dangling beneath them, are hurtling like meteors towards the city.
By daybreak every street corner in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome is occupied by a Cocksack. Ten million have fallen over Europe the previous night to take up their positions; a further army is massed in reserve on the Polish border. Now each Cocksack soldier peers with an expressionless face through the hole in his phallus’s head, awaiting the order via his mobile headset, detonator ready.
A deathly pall falls over the West. Not a breeze stirs. Just as Tomas puts the finishing touch to his trench and the chains become taut, King Rat begins the countdown.
‘Attention, Cocksacks! On my marks! Three, two … ’
A cream puff destroys the world …
On the night of the Cocksack invasion, Mrs Olgarv sends her husband a death dream. Like him, she’s not very good at transmitting telepathic messages to the dead. It requires mental dexterity to stop the dream veering off in the wrong direction. But it’s the thought that counts. In this instance, Mrs Olgarv believes the Boss deserves a nice dream. The West is being invaded and will collapse come dawn, and the Cocksacks, designed to his order and in his image, will carry the day. Although the Boss can’t rejoice in the temporal world he can at least have some fun in the great hereafter.
Boss Olgarv dreams that he’s having lunch at a seaside restaurant in Cannes on the day after the invasion. The restaurant has been cleared of all other diners, tables and chairs, and a simple reinforced slab is set in the middle, on to which the Boss climbs. He is wearing his detachable stomach and, in deference to the events of the previous day, a pair of gigantic testicles.
The Boss lies down on the slab. A pillow is placed beneath his head and he is made comfortable by the waiters. He opens his mouth, whereupon two large tubes are fed down his throat. The Boss signals his readiness and service begins.
Anticipating his arrival, the restaurant staff have raided all the nearby kitchens. The produce acquired – meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, pastries, pasta, bread, cheese, eggs – is piled into a giant liquidiser and pulped into a fetid grey mess. This is now pumped into Boss Olgarv via the first connecting tube, as a main course. The Boss is told that a gargantuan cream puff awaits him for dessert. It’s the size of a swimming pool: he looks forward to diving in.
Filling the second gastric pipeline involved a separate assault on all the cellars in Cannes. A river of vodka is poured through a funnel down the second tube.
Boss Olgarv greatly enjoys his celebratory meal. The waiters gather round to perform small services. An escaping food particle is dabbed from his mouth; his brow is caressed with a chilled cloth; his stomach is massaged to ease its labours.
Eventually the Boss signals that he is satiated and the tubes are removed. A dozen waiters attempt to prop him up on the slab but he’s so full and fat that it is impossible. Worse, their efforts disturb the finely balanced eco-system of the Boss’s stomach and he is violently sick.
The waiters rush to fetch buckets and mops to clean up the mess, while the mâitre d’ politely suggests that the Boss might want to rest awhile after his exertions. ‘What?’ screams Boss Olgarv. ‘You think I can’t handle the cream puff? This is an insult to Russia.’ Although the French Riviera has been subjugated, the mâitre d’ deserves worse, the Boss rants. Slavery is too good for him. He must be killed. In fact, why stop there? Destroy the restaurant. Why not Cannes? France deserves it as well. Hell, blow up the world! Boss Olgarv orders nuclear Armaggedon.
Russia has the power to destroy the world a hundred times over. Once or twice isn’t enough. Not an ant shall remain. This is exactly what happens. To Boss Olgarv’s satisfaction, the world is destroyed not once, but a hundred times over.
The giant cream puff, the cause of the catastrophe, is also obliterated, except for a blob of whipped cream which somehow manages to escape the nuclear hell fires. This is dragged by an ant to its lair beneath the restaurant. The cream blob sustains the ant during the winter of the nuclear holocaust, precipitating an entirely unexpected result.
A radiation particle permeates the ant’s nest and bonds with the blob. When ingested it has an immediate and dramatic effect. The ant mutates.
Despite the devastation of the world, there’s still more damage to be done. The restaurant’s mosaic floor is split asunder as a giant mutated ant emerges into the dawn of the post-nuclear day. It has grown not just in size, but in intelligence too.
It takes the ant only hours to find the materials – mostly from people’s kitchens – necessary to construct a time machine, and a few more to complete the task. He mutates a million of his fellow soldiers, who in turn build a million machines. They return in time to Russia just before Boss Olgarv orders the strike and switch off all the computers. Russia is thus enslaved for eternity by an army of mutated time-travelling ants.
‘Idiot!’ screams the Great Bear at Boss Olgarv.
‘Damn,’ he replies. ‘Next time I’ll eat the cream puff before ordering the strike. That’ll get the ant.’
Judge Reynard and the dream devil…
As the Cocksacks tumble to earth, Judge Reynard is philosophical about what the morning will bring. He’s ill and will die soon anyway. A little less time, so what? Nevertheless, he is unable to spend a peaceful last night because in his dream he is presiding over the trial of the Devil.
‘You are accused of unspeakable evil,’ a prosecutor opens, ‘of perpetrating untold crimes of misery, mayhem and murder, of destroying civilisations and corrupting souls, and leading billions into temptation; of spreading pestilential disease and death. How do you plead?’
‘Not guilty,’ replies a defence lawyer.
A barrage of defence arguments ensue.
‘My client is not of this world; therefore he is not subject to its laws,’ says one.
‘Without evil, how can we understand good?’ says another. ‘My client in fact does mankind a service and should be rewarded.’
‘Define good and evil,’ says a third. ‘What were the Christian crusaders, or the conquistadors who exterminated the Aztecs, good or evil?’
‘This is madness,’ says Judge Reynard. ‘Your client is obviously guilty. He’s the Devil. No further debate is necessary. Does he have anything to say before I pass sentence?’
The Devil burnishes his horns with a cleft hand. His forked tail flicks in the air behind him. His yellow eyes focus on the judge. Clearly he’s thinking hard. Eventually he stands, leans forward and, stroking his beard with long hoary fingers, makes the judge a proposition.
‘If I tell you how to rid the world of evil,’ says the Devil, ‘will you spare me death?’
‘A fine fantasy,’ says a prosecuting lawyer.
‘Your Honour?’ asks the Devil.
Judge Reynard considers the proposition. On the one hand, he should be sentenced summarily. He is, after all, the Devil. On the other, this is an unusual case, plea bargains are part of the legal system and besides, he’s curious.
‘Proceed,’ says the judge.
‘Imagine a world,’ the Devil says, ‘where you can walk anywhere at night, leave your house unlocked and keys in the car. Where drugs and street deals don’t exist and trafficking is a thing of the past. Imagine never hearing reports of an old lady being attacked or reading of the horrific work of a repeat offender. Graffiti becomes an art form. Mankind without ghettos, cartels, mafioso, gangs. In short, a world free of crime.’
‘Inconceivable,’ a prosecutor says.
‘Is it?’ the Devil replies. ‘What if by imprisoning two million of seven billion people it became a reality?’
The court stirs. This smacks of summary justice. And the legal profession is liberal by nature. In any event, it isn’t possible and a prosecuting lawyer says so.
‘Are you certain?’ the Devil replies. ‘The tiniest fraction of people organise crime. I should know, I create them. Street gangs, mafia cartels; narcotics and people-trafficking groups; families of hoodlums and miscreants. The police know exactly who they are. They could be arrested in a week.’
‘This is the language of the Middle Ages,’ a prosecutor says from the bench. ‘Are you suggesting that we return to the law of the jungle? Even a beast has rights.’ He sits down to a murmur of approval.
‘You were once asked,’ the Devil addresses Judge Reynard, ‘whether a small means justifies a greater end? Would you summarily execute a future dictator in the knowledge it would save millions of lives?’
‘The answer is obvious,’ the judge replies, ‘one life in exchange for millions.’
‘So what’s the difference?’ the Devil says. ‘Under my dominion, a few people subject millions to every imaginable abuse, degradation, addiction and perversion. Whole countries and communities are immobilised by fear, not to mention the economic cost. Is it such a price?’
‘There may be a different perspective,’ says one of the Devil’s defence lawyers. ‘I was a soldier before I became a lawyer. My business was battle but I see no difference between crime and war. If anything, crime’s worse. It’s more pernicious, surreptitiously evil like my client, death by a thousand cuts. As least in war there’s sometimes a principle involved. Crime is only ever about money. We’re often promised clampdowns on crime. But they never work. Why not treat it as war?’
‘Very well,’ says Judge Reynard, ‘we incarcerate all known criminals in the world. Then what?’
‘Abolish juries and have a two-strike system,’ says the Devil.
The court erupts. Abolish juries? That is almost dictatorship. And why only two strikes? What of three, four or five? The soldier lawyer steps in to invite the Devil to explain.
‘You need to turn what is slow and complicated,’ the Devil says, ‘into something fast and simple. No more juries who neither care nor want to be there, sitting like hens doing their knitting. Instead, panels of judges who’ve seen it all before. Trials would take days, instead of weeks, months or years. Justice would be swift and expert.’
‘And the two strikes?’ asks the soldier lawyer.
‘That makes things simple for the criminal. First strike: understanding, forgiveness; no time, cost or effort spared in the attempt to rehabilitate. That should please your God. Second strike – it’s over. The murderer seeking a weapon within hours of release. The rapist stalking his victim on his first day of freedom. No more appeals, paroles, loopholes, remissions, reductions or sentences that say one thing but mean another.’
‘And how is this to be achieved?’ asks Judge Reynard.
‘Stop listening to lawyers who are paid by the hour. Do you think they want speed? As for simplicity, how does that serve their puffed-up speeches? And what of the lawyers directly under my influence? The attorney of a Mafia boss; does he believe his client is innocent? Or the defender of an obviously guilty murderer who makes a closing speech that plays on the prejudices of the jury – you think he doesn’t know what he’s doing? Why do you listen to such people? There’s always a libertarian principle, exception, inalienable right or point of order to argue. Even I can be defended.’
The Devil pauses and looks around the court.
‘I have existed since the dawn of time. Every few hundred years man ruptures his past. Fire is discovered. The wheel is invented. Printing replaces the written word. Steam locomotion industrialises the world. Slavery is abolished. The atom is split. Space is conquered. You need to rupture the law.’
‘And why are you telling us this?’ the judge asks. ‘Why risk ruining your evil handywork?’
‘Because you’ll never do it,’ the Devil replies.
The judge wakes up, regretting that he has no time to analyse a dream in which truth is put into the Devil’s mouth. With Cocksacks positioned at every street corner, he smiles at the irony of sharing the same fate as his dream devil.
The biggest problem in the world ever…
Tereza’s single concern on her final night is for the women of the West. She knows the reputation of Russian men, the soldiers in particular, and giant phalluses with massive distended testicles spell only one thing for womankind.
She dreams of fine white particles falling from the sky like the lightest, most beautiful snow. Instead of coating the earth – buildings, fields, objects, men – the particles only fall on women. Flakes seek out the ones who are indoors. They all find this odd, but don’t think much about it and go to bed.
The next morning, women awake to a magic transformation. Everything that was previously impressive, attractive and alluring about men – muscles, money, machismo – has ceased to hold any interest for them. They immediately set out to confirm this strange new feeling.
‘I’ve just closed a big deal,’ says a man, ‘how about some fun?’ The girl looks away, bored. ‘Can I take you on my jet?’ says another. ‘No thank you, I prefer commercial,’ the girl replies. An abdomen king struts his stuff on the beach. Three bathing beauties stifle a yawn. ‘Let me help you get that part,’ a producer offers with a knowing look. ‘I’ll get it myself,’ the one-time ‘producee’ replies. ‘When I was at my house in the South of France …’a banker begins. ‘Was that a surreptitious money message?’ the girl says cutting him short. ‘How vulgar.’
And that’s it. In a heartbeat men lose their power over women. A monstrous problem, as big as the planet itself, rears its terrifying head for the first time in human history. How are men going to have sex? Women are now impervious to money talk, boasts, promises, lies; all the clichés of the chase. Catastrophe!
Desperately men scramble to learn manners and interesting topics of conversation, the new weapons of seduction. Finishing schools for men are established in Switzerland. The Queen’s butlers give free lessons on how to walk to armies of men on parade grounds. Museums are packed with males, library shelves are cleared. The world internet crashes. All knowledge is vacuumed up. For a time it works. Men manage to hold their own on the new level playing field. Soon, girls have heard all the knowledge and seen all the walks. Just for the hell of it, they turn things up a notch.
A man with great courtesy and not a hint of boast-fulness offers a girl a ride on his jet. ‘Fine,’ she says, ‘but you’ll have to give it to me.’ And do you know what? He does. ‘You said before that you were worth €100 million,’ says another to a doting admirer. ‘I want €10 million. Now.’ Immediately he writes a cheque. ‘You can take me out for tea,’ says a debutante, ‘but via Chanel. We’ll visit Graff on the way home.’
Once power has been established, why stop in the middle? Why not go all the way? Although she is asleep, Tereza is conscious of that ancient truism – he who no longer cares has ultimate power. Except that the he is now a she. Within a few years all the money, power and influence in the world has shifted from men to women.
Men now stand naked, gibbering, desperate for sex before their female masters. It’s not difficult to guess what happens next.
First, girls decide to quieten down the world. Like men, it’s too noisy. Cars, so precious to men, are the first to go.The substitute form of transport is men in harness with bits in their mouths, pulling rickshaw-like carriages, encouraged by a whip. Thereafter, men are banned from speaking altogether, other than to pay female-approved compliments and answer questions about menial tasks such as: ‘Has the house been cleaned since this morning?’
Second, women begin to experiment with having sex without men. Initially they find other methods that are just as pleasurable. Men were never that good, anyway. All that mess, fuss and need for satisfaction. After a while, they start to prefer sex by themselves. This fashion spreads, and soon the female masters no longer copulate with their male slaves. It’s a short distance to the final step.
With great thought and care as to selection, sperm is taken from the top academics, artists, scientists and athletes, enough to last an eternity. Women now control births. Naturally, only female embryos are chosen. Within a hundred years men become extinct. Tereza’s dream ends with her floating above a planet full of soft colours, marshmallow shapes, high-pitched laughter and girls having cocktails by the sea.
While Reynard and Tereza dream, Tomas meets the Emperor in the grand salon of his fabulous Onion. They sit in candlelight in comfortable armchairs, with magnificent views of the sea and mountains beyond.
Tomas is white with anxiety and shaking uncontrollably. He feels sick. Cocksack paratroopers are falling all over Europe: city squares, street corners, road junctions, stations, ports and airports across the West have been occupied. Soon the Onion will be surrounded. In retrospect, his plan seems mad. Maybe he listened too intently to the Emperor’s lessons on risk, failure and mediocrity. In following the first, he is about to give a masterclass in the second two.
‘Courage, my friend,’ says the Emperor. ‘The eve of battle is always the worst. Come, let’s speak of something else. Allow me to distract you with a question.’
Tomas stares blankly ahead, immobilised by the coming terror.
‘What is the answer to one of life’s most difficult problems? How can two people remain together?’ the Emperor asks.
Tomas remains silent, unable to think.
‘Haven’t you noticed a pattern?’ the Emperor continues. ‘Sexual infatuation followed by immediate coupling; then the magic fades. Once the rabbit is out of the hat, where’s the surprise? A creeping mist descends and the couple enter a twilight world where nothing grows. Then it’s downhill all the way: rows, recriminations and rudeness.
Lastly, there is heartbreak and pain.’
Tomas is still a frozen blank.
‘Come, Tomas,’ says the Emperor. ‘Is there a trick, or a magic formula? How can this cycle be broken?’
‘There should be respect between two people,’ Tomas eventually replies.
‘And …’ says the Emperor.
‘You need to be alike and share the same interests.’
‘And …’
‘Integrity’s important, as is a sense of humour.’
‘There’s much in what you say,’ replies the Emperor. ‘But it is not, alas, the answer. I need one word for everyone to have, a guiding star to happiness.’
The Emperor makes a discreet gesture and a moonbeam touches the edge of Tomas’s chair. Tomas immediately fires off a dozen words. ‘Love, children, intelligence, consideration, decency, humour, compassion, forgiveness, moderation, truthfulness, tolerance, equality, passion.’
‘Those are good words,’ the Emperor replies, ‘but none of them is right. The answer is … ’ He pauses to study Tomas’s reaction. ‘Distance,’ he says; ‘it’s the only way for a relationship to work.’
Tomas shifts in his chair. What cynicism is this? His bombardment of clichés failed to hit the target. But distance? Is it another of the Emperor’s contrary opinions?
‘Why is it that so many relationships don’t work and divorce is at a record high? The answer is simple. At the start, it’s all froth and slather, there’s no backwards gear. People go crashing in. Weeks, months or years later, there’s an accident.’
‘What about passion?’ asks Tomas.
‘Passion’s fine if it’s part of something else. Otherwise it fades. You know that. But people are swept by its tide, so they blunder from one encounter to the next like a drunk clinging to one lamp-post after another on his way home.’
‘Very well,’ says Tomas. ‘I accept people should be more circumspect at the begining. But why is there a need for distance after that?’
‘Take priests,’ says Napoleon. ‘As you know, intimacy is forbidden to them. They believe that there’s a lot to be said for distance.’
‘And how do they benefit from it?’ Tomas asks.
‘By its nature, distance implies a certain reserve, and good manners; not pushing yourself forward. With this comes discipline. Thoughts are measured. Consideration is given. Words are not spoken in anger. And for those to whom intimacy is not forbidden, distance is the enemy of thoughtless couplings, selfish and stupid unions and “Look at me! Look at me on my wedding-day!” ’
Tomas understands but asks the Emperor to elaborate.
‘What would you say,’ Napoleon asks Tomas, ‘if one day God waved his hand and an extra room were added to each house in the world with the exclusive purpose of allowing one of the inhabiting couple to escape the other? How often do people long to be alone? How much happier would everyone be if some things were left unsaid? If the rule were politeness, consideration, discretion at all times?’
‘But the recipe for a successful relationship is togetherness, to be as one, with all things equally said, done and shared,’ says Tomas.
‘No, that’s a recipe for nausea,’ Napoleon replies. ‘Of course people should be together, but they also need to be apart. It’s the only way.’ He gestures for the moonbeam to shine full on Tomas. The new Messiah springs from his seat.
‘Emperor, it’s my greatest wish that we should meet again,’ he says.
‘It is mine as well,’ Napoleon replies. ‘If not in this life, then in my class.’
‘A fine notion, isn’t it?’ Tomas replies. ‘You’re dead, now go back to school.’
A chance to be more than a great nothing …
The funicular railway, built in 1925, is now a ruin of collapsed concrete and rusted cables. The track, which runs a thousand feet to the summit of the hill overlooking Cannes, is covered in undergrowth; the terminus is a graffitied shade of its former glorious self. It’s still possible, however, to scramble up the line. The Alien begins his climb before dawn on the night of the Cock-sack invasion.
At the same time, eight hundred miles away, the combined fleets of the West are straining against the chains that are attached to Italy’s heel. These creak and groan as the ships ride the waves. But this sea symphony is extinguished by an ear-splitting crunch as Tomas activates the Taiwanese island-raising technology that he acquired on his adventures, and the foot of Italy detaches from the sea floor and soars into the air.
The Alien reaches the top of the funicular observation tower just as King Rat begins his countdown to Armageddon. The Alien tunes in and synchronises with it and exactly on the count of ‘two’ he spreads his arms wide and tilts back his head, as if trying to ascend to heaven.
Towards which Italy’s foot now floats, connected to the fleet by thousands of chains. The ships sail at full speed, pulling the foot, which is anchored to the earth’s core by the giant pin, back to a ninety-degree angle. Tomas urges the fleet on. There’s not a minute to lose.
For the Alien, there’s not a second to lose. Between the count of ‘two’ and ‘three’, he locks his telekinetic power on to the ten million spherical objects that are menacing every square and street corner in Europe. Slowly, they begin to rotate. The phalluses, surprised by this strange interference, ignore the activation command. Quickly King Rat orders the Cocksacks to shake off the Alien’s hold, then gives another strike order.
If time is racing on the hilltop, it’s going at light speed in the Ionian Sea. The foot is now fully retracted, its toe positioned as if about to give something an almighty kick. The chains strain with the effort of holding it back; anchored by the giant pin, it groans, desperate to be released.
The Cocksacks are also in a frantic struggle. The Alien begins to shake like Tomas did levitating the hotel. The phalluses jump and shuffle, weakening his grip. King Rat sends another activation order. Again they’re thrown off balance by the rotation of their equipment and fail to respond. Order after order is given. Ten million Cocksacks leap in unison, shaking the Alien’s hold. Just as he feels it slipping, he lets out a piteous cry, which reverberates around the mountains, sending a signal to the new Messiah.
This is it. The pivotal moment. The tipping point. Where risk ends in defeat, or just possibly victory. Where Tomas is in the arena, covered in sweat, blood and filth. Even if he fails, his attempt will be celebrated so that his place will never be with the fence-sitters, who know neither victory nor defeat. Win, lose or draw, Tomas can savour this moment until death. He’ll be remembered as more than just another echo on the wind. A moment like this, he thinks, is one that all men should seek, in the knowledge that life is short and death certain; the chance to be more than a great nothing.
He orders the chains released and turns off the Taiwanese technology. Freed from its manacles, the foot swings down and forward with a terrible velocity. It strikes the ball at the end of Italy’s boot, Sicily, with a tremendous force that tears it from the seabed and sends it hurtling into the sky. Instantly, all the volcanoes on the island erupt.
The roar of this conflagration creates a sonic boom, which is heard across Europe and distracts King Rat in his battle of wills against the Alien. Moments later, Rat spies report that, inexplicably, the island of Sicily is airborne and heading north up the Italian peninsula. Considering this strange proposition, King Rat wavers in his command of the Cocksacks. In this split second the Alien seizes the advantage. With one terrible final cry, he pushes his tele-kinetic powers to the limits of endurance. At last the fulcrum tips. Within moments the Cocksacks’ appendages are rotating at the speed of sound. Seconds later they explode. Ten million shattered phalluses now litter the streets of Europe.
Meanwhile, Sicily is tearing north like a comet approaching its crash site. As it passes Rome, bells ring out in salutation and the Pontiff appears on his balcony to cheer and wave. As the island powers over central Europe, the wily Sicilian men distract the women by pointing out the erupting volcanoes. The population is now hanging over the edge for the ride; while the girls look inwards, the boys shout words of love to the Czech beauties below.
On hearing of the paratroopers’ annihilation, King Rat calls up the reserve army massed on the Polish border. The loss is devastating but Russia had expected heavy casualties and has survived worse in the past. King Rat swears vengeance; it will come soon, he thinks, as five million fresh phalluses begin to deploy.
The first he hears of the flying landmass is a distant rumbling like an approaching storm. So much the better, he thinks; the army will advance to the sound of thunder. As the sky darkens, King Rat orders the army to break out its waterproof gear. But the gathering gloom signifies more than bad weather. Shortly afterwards the sun fades. Moments later, it is extinguished. What sounded like distant thunder is in fact the roar of something altogether more horrifying – an airborne leviathan ripping the very fabric of the sky.
With incredible speed and dexterity, King Rat scurries from his command post, leaving the massed ranks of phalluses, which begin to jump, bump, fall, wobble, scream and cry. And no wonder. From the ground, all that is visible is a massive slab of granite and rock spewing fire and smoke. But the sight lasts only seconds. In a heartbeat, five million phalluses are emasculated for ever.
Every few years there’s a monster storm, combining hurricane winds, waterfall rain and deafening creaks and groans as things move or fall over. Today, a still louder noise can be heard above the deluge. The Great Bear’s roar echoes through the valleys and shakes the snow off the mountain tops.
The Great Bear paces his lair waiting for King Rat, his head jerking in uncontrollable spasms of rage. Just as the echo of his summons subsides, his cave jumps into the air, rocked by a thunder clap. Then a lightning flash knocks out the power. The boulder guarding his lair splinters into a thousand pieces, scattering rock and storm debris around the cave. One moment the Great Bear sees the boulder explode; the next there is a man-sized crate in the entrance of the cave. Seconds later, the crate glides towards him, energised, it seems, by the force of the storm. It comes to rest close to him and its front section falls away.
At first he can see nothing inside but blackness. Then, two red beads glow from its depths. The sides of the crate collapse and King Rat, who is the size of a man, steps out.
King Rat possesses the form of a rodent, but is six feet tall and walks on his back legs. His eyes shine like lighthouse beams. He doesn’t speak and has no describable expression. He simply stands in front of the Great Bear, who remains incandescent with rage. He tries to compose his thoughts.
‘The time for armies is over,’ the Great Bear says, looking in fury at the debris-strewn floor.
King Rat remains impassive, waiting for him to continue.
‘We’ve miscalculated and used a battering ram instead of a stiletto thrust.’ The Great Bear pauses. ‘Kill him whose words hurt me most,’ he spits, unable to say Tomas’s name. ‘Summon me once … ’
The Great Bear looks up and King Rat is gone. The power returns, the storm abates. All that remains is the debris all over the floor.
King Rat travels by ghostly galleon, taking the storm with him. The ship moves over land, not water, and it leaves a chill in its wake. Within minutes it reaches Warsaw, freezing King Sigismund off his column. In Prague the Charles Bridge cracks and falls into the Vltava, while Lake Geneva ices over as it passes. The galleon sails over the Alps, the storm gathered at its mast, King Rat hanging from its bow, his red eye-beams illuminating the way.
The galleon comes to rest in Cannes. Seconds later King Rat swings his legs over the gunwale and steps down on to the Croisette. As the storm intensifies, a knife glints in the lightning flash. The rodent draws his obscene tail, all sinew, tendon and bone, into a semicircle and shaves it with the razor-sharp blade. Standing high on his back feet, he sniffs the rain-drenched air.
Soon afterwards, he is in the entrails of the hotel, the unseen innards of wires, pipes, chutes and shafts that give the monster life. Although very large, he compresses his body into a vent and scuttles along inside sniffing. No one can hear him as he passes through the walls silently.
He finds the room and noiselessly removes the grill of the duct. A flash of lightning through the window reveals a sleeping figure below.
Pierre’s moment of truth …
Perhaps it was the prospect of death that gave Pierre the jolt he needed. At last, he has pieced it all together and discovered the truth. He now has a story so combustible he holds a firestorm in his hands. The ability to change the world. Realising the awesome power of truth, he writes to his editor before going to bed on the night of the storm.
Dear Editor [he begins], I’m weak and in a quandary because soon I might succumb to the allure of truth. Truth – that seductive mistress whose diaphanous negligee sends hearts racing, with ebony skin, supple limbs and breasts that protrude just a little.
But don’t you think she’s overrated? All those scholastic colleges with veritas on their heraldic shields. The truth, at all costs truth.
The girl asks, ‘How do I look tonight?’ Do you reply, ‘Like a potato’? It’s wartime and the enemy has the advantage. Is this broadcast to the nation? You’re sick and will die shortly. Do you really want to know? Other than to finish your best bottles, of course.
And what of things spoken that are best left unsaid? The painful questions, perceptive observations, invasive remarks; however truthworthy they may be. If over the stretch of a long marriage a single indiscretion occurs, must it be known? The answer is yes, including the details, the more lurid the better!
Should a zoom lens trap a starlet, the truth of her breasts must be exposed. So should the past of the good politician who committed a schoolboy error twenty years ago. Out with it. As for the loving father who once slept with a man, let the world – and his children – know.
Truth, the golden goddess gleaming in her chariot, served by the wisest judge and lowest paparazzo, appealing to our highest morals and basest instincts. But what of her harsh glare, which incinerates all before it?
This power is given to only one in each generation. A story more powerful than the Cocksack army, a thousand words to change the world.
And the instrument of this Armageddon? A small black plastic square on a computer keyboard. I’m going to bed now. Maybe in sleep I’ll find the answer. Should I give you the story?
Death of a hero…
King Rat has done this many times before. Not for him guns, knives or other crude tools of death. Nor does he use doors, windows, elevators or fire escapes – the assassin’s usual means of ingress. All he needs is a duct, a one-inch phial and darkness in which a sleeping figure now lies with his head on a pillow only a few feet below the vent. King Rat has another special technique. He makes no noise. He doesn’t even move. He just waits, for hours if necessary.
The sleeper faces the window, oblivious to the storm. He eventually turns on to his other side. King Rat keeps vigil. The sleeper turns back towards the window, then twists over again. At last he lies on his back, his head cradled in a curved arm. Noiselessly, King Rat reaches for the phial. His victim shifts and smacks his lips. He is about to turn back on to his side but then he adjusts his head on the pillow instead. King Rat senses that the moment is close and unfurls his tail like a waking snake. Just as it arches over his head, it happens. The sleeper opens his mouth.
In a flash the phial is uncorked and a single globule of black liquid is dropped on to the tail. It catches the red of King Rat’s eyes, glistening as it travels down its highway of doom. King Rat expertly manoeuvres the deadly passenger to an inch above his victim’s lips. With an invisible flick, he delivers the droplet to the back of his throat.
Dawn breaks in a huge sky, washed clean by the storm. The Croisette glistens after the deluge. The waiters barely bother to dry out tables and chairs, knowing that the sun will do it for them. Breakfast smells fill the air. Another perfect Mediterranean day.
The Great Bear arrives in Cannes at first light, carried on King Rat’s galleon. This is only the second time that he has left his lair in decades, drawn out to parade his kill. On his journey he ruminates on the turn of the wheel. All the planning, time and cost of creating a great army, when the decapitation of one man was all that mattered. He can even withstand the loss of the Cocksacks. A new supply of their venomous load is already being prepared by his ally the Iranian Hawk. All that remains is for him to make his appearance on Shit TV. The cameras await. After that, the poison will be released. The timing makes no difference. So much better to soften the world with news of the fake Messiah’s death and then deliver his annihilating balm.
The Great Bear makes his way up to inspect the body, dispensing with his guard. This is a moment he wishes to savour alone. The bedroom door is ajar and through the crack he glimpses the fake Messiah’s corpse lying beneath a sheet on the bed. Next to him a computer screen sits open on a bedside table. He had no idea that he was composing his final words.
The mighty beast pauses in the doorway. The memory of decades of pain and frustration flashes through his mind: the Cold War defeat; the years of hibernation; the start of the fight back; the rise of the fake Messiah; the battle for Shit TV; the destruction of the Cocksack army. And now this. The fake Messiah dead, his broadcast platform ready and a new supply of world-controlling venom arriving soon. Slowly, he pads towards the bed.
He stands over the corpse, his giant paw gripping the hem of the sheet. This is it. His enemy is defeated, his destiny fulfilled; fortune’s wheel turns no longer; it is fixed eternally in proclamation of the new Russian power. The rule of the Great Bear.
As he pulls back the sheet, he’s shocked by a stabbing pain in his thigh. The surprise of the truth dart is nothing compared to what is beneath the sheet. Pierre lies lifeless before him. As Tomas gestures to his guards to manacle the prisoner and lead him to the cameras, the Great Bear’s order – ‘Kill him whose words hurt me most’ – spoken in anger and haste, comes back to his mind.
The root of all evil …
The Shit TV dais is on the beachfront facing the hotel. The deep blue sea forms a contrasting backdrop to the blood red of the Russian flag flying in the breeze behind the speaker’s podium. All the cameras and paraphernalia required for a global broadcast are ready. Shit TV, promised a spectacle by King Rat, one that’ll change the world, now awaits the star of the show.
The West is confused by the destruction of the Cock-sacks. Was it an accident? A joke? A precursor to today’s programme? As for Sicily’s flattening of the reserve army, what incredible magic was that? Whatever the answer, these unprecedented events have sent the world into a frenzy of intrigue and speculation. All work has stopped. Governments didn’t even bother to declare a holiday; the planet has taken one anyway. Now five billion people, the biggest audience of all time, wait to hear the answer.
The Great Bear is conducted to the dais by none other than the new Messiah. ‘What’s this?’ thinks Shit TV’s programme director. ‘The new Messiah serving the Great Bear? This must be part of the show.’ He gives the countdown for the broadcast to begin. Silence descends across the world. The excitement is palpable, like lightning in the air. The biggest broadcast of all time, on the largest network in world history, live from Cannes.
Tomas steps up to the podium. He surveys the bank of whirring cameras for a full thirty seconds. Only when the tension is at breaking point does he lean into the microphone to speak.
‘Citizens of the world,’ he says. ‘We have a first in broadcasting history today. Breaking decades of silence, the Great Bear will speak live on this network. This is an incredible event; and I have the honour of being his interviewer.’
The Great Bear comes into shot.
‘Great Bear,’ Tomas says. ‘The world is holding its breath. There are many unanswered questions.’ He pauses, momentarily uncertain that the truth drug will work. ‘What was the purpose of your plan?’
The Great Bear grimaces and struggles in his restraints, hidden from the audience by a fur camouflage. But the serum of the truth dart is coursing through his veins, its power too strong to resist.
‘To subvert the West,’ he replies in a staccato outburst. ‘We sent oligarchs with yachts and jetted in prostitutes to incite jealousy and avarice. We bought football teams and extolled the virtues of the “ballers” nihilistic lifestyle. We corrupted bankers – not a difficult task – and other servicers of the rich and turned them into our servants. We silenced our enemies at home and watched the West turn a blind eye in its weakness and moral apathy. We perverted values. Already much has been achieved.’
‘We know this,’ Tomas replies. ‘But what was the purpose of the Cocksacks?’
‘Can’t you guess? I’m surprised that you ask. What is the world’s most pernicious evil? What corrupts nearly everything and tempts even the good man? For what does a woman forget herself and fall into sin? What is the Devil’s currency? What corruption is more sickening than a sewer, more putrid than rotting meat?’
The programme director is uneasy with this line of questioning but continues nevertheless. He orders the cameras to pan in on the Great Bear. His scared face with snarling jaw, mottled fur and black eyes fills every television screen in the world. He pauses, struggling against the truth serum. A look of pain and fury contorts his face. He fights hard, but can’t resist, even though the answer’s now obvious.
‘Money,’ he gasps, ‘the root of all evil. That was the Cocksack’s load. Streams, rivers, oceans of it.’
The global audience exhales a collective gasp. Of course, money. But why this apocalyptic description?
‘And the effect of spreading it across the West?’ Tomas asks.
‘Anarchy, of course,’ replies the Great Bear. ‘People jumping, crying, screaming and screeching for this manna. And then pushing, punching, clawing and fighting. Finally, killing. The strong overpowering the weak. The man with a handful of notes ambushed by the gang hoovering up the street; the old lady smashed in the face for her single bill.’
‘Then what?’
‘A deluge of death and destruction; marauding gangs more intoxicated by money than any drink or drug. All perspective lost, normality shattered. Citizens attacked, houses ransacked, cities in chaos. Do you think the armed forces and civic authorities would help? With money raining on them too, they’d be the worst offenders. Global disaster. Hell on earth. Evil annihilating good. Nothing sacred. Nobody safe. A money blast more lethal than radiation, enveloping the planet with its contaminating seed.’
‘But … What about your Empire?’
‘Simple,’ the Great Bear replies. ‘Empires arise from ashes, don’t they? What do I want, a world in perfect working order? And who’s easier to control, the good and decent or the evil and venal? Once a man is corrupted, he’s a slave to himself. It’s not difficult to make him slave to another.’
Tomas reflects on the malign brilliance of the Great Bear’s plan. Wars are fought with weapons – but why use them? Why not money? Rain it down and the enemy will annihilate itself. As he imagines clouds of notes billowing in the air, the Great Bear’s apocalyptic vision becomes a reality in his mind.
Shit TV’s programme director is also agitated. ‘Where’s this leading?’ he thinks. ‘Is this really the promised show? Should I pull the broadcast?’
Tomas is quick with his next question. ‘What about the amount of money needed?’ he asks. ‘How could the supply possibly endure?’
‘The pipeline to our friend and neighbour the Iranian Hawk,’ the Great Bear replies. ‘He gave us oil in return for technology and our support for his madness in the world. Also … ’ The Great Bear battles against the serum. Today he’s defeated, but if he can just conceal this detail, maybe one day, decades hence, the wheel will turn and he’ll have his revenge.
Tomas wonders how the Iranian pipeline alone could produce the billions needed for the Great Bear’s plan. But he dismisses the thought and is about to ask another question when he remembers Pierre’s article about the pipeline extension – a secret Pierre never managed to expose.
‘Where does the pipeline end?’ Tomas asks.
The Great Bear inhales deeply. He clenches his teeth and pulls a hideous grimace, forcing his mouth to lock. He begins to shake his head from side to side, looking demented. The programme director almost cuts the feed.
‘Where does the pipeline end?’ Tomas repeats.
‘In Iraq, of course,’ the Great Bear spits out at lightning speed. ‘Just over the border from Iran, in the biggest oilfields in the world. Why do you think we’ve fomented trouble in the region for decades, feeding the flames of Western policy and encouraging Iran to ever greater extremes? Obviously, it was to distract attention from our activities.’
‘How is this possible?’ Tomas asks stupefied.
‘Very easily,’ the Great Bear replies, ‘it’s a lot less difficult than flying to the moon. A pipeline is just a subterranean tunnel dug with machines. It is also impossible to detect: satellites can’t see underground. Oil is abundant in the area, with deep reserves stretching across borders. We’ve acquired billions of barrels while you’ve been busy chasing shadows. And what’s the worst that can happen? You find out and ask for it back.’
Tomas is amazed. Of all man’s thefts of land, people, power and riches in history, this is the most simple and devious. Technologically easy and impossible to detect, taking advantage of a unique combination of circumstances. That the scheme went so far and lasted so long was testimony to the madness of the world.
The idea of dementia triggers a final question in Tomas’s mind. ‘What is Shit TV’s role?’ he asks.
Instantly the programme director moves to cut the satellite signal, but the Alien locks the network’s satellites in time and space. No interference is possible. Five billion people hear his answer.
‘What do morons eating live bugs in the jungle create? Other morons. And fools in a house airing their infantile opinions? More fools. Masochists being abused by foul-mouthed chefs and smooth-tongued judges? Yet more masochists. A world of morons, fools and masochists. Shit TV is the invisible cancer, more lethal than venom, more corrosive than acid. It turns minds into mush. Its daily dose makes the world sicker and weaker and, but for you, powerless in my hands.’
In commemoration of Shit TV’s final broadcast, the Alien rotates its satellites until they become a silver soup that sparkles in space.
A dead man’s story …
As the Great Bear makes his first and final appearance on Shit TV, the Prefect of Police arrives at the murder scene. He undertakes a perfunctory examination of the room, while awaiting the arrival of the forensic experts, and notices the journalist’s computer on the bedside table. He presses a key. Pierre’s letter to his editor about ‘truth’ is displayed, the story to which it refers attached. He moves the cursor to read the story. Then a glint catches his eye. Through a half-opened door, he notices a wonderland of mirrors: the floor-to-ceiling arrangement found in expensive bathrooms. A story to change the world or an opportunity to adjust his cap in this paradise of reflective surfaces? The choice is easy. He is just completing his millinery toilette when Judge Reynard arrives. For some time he’s been concerned about Pierre’s investigations; on hearing of his murder, he wanted to be the first to look around.
The judge takes in the scene with the expert eye of an evidence-gatherer. He’s seen it all before. Within minutes, he has read Pierre’s letter.
‘Monsieur le Préfet,’ says Judge Reynard, ‘I shall require this computer for examination.’
‘Bien sûr, Monsieur le Juge,’ replies the prefect, raising his cap.
Judge Reynard sits in a comfortable chair in the salon of Tomas’s apartment. Pierre’s computer is on his lap. He presses the ‘on’ button and it whirs into life. What is this story that will change the world? Did he discover the secret of the pipeline before his death? Is this his valedictory piece? In his heart, the judge knows it isn’t. He muses for a moment on the thread that separates success from failure, victory from defeat. The Great Bear had this story within his grasp. His simple mistake was to go to Pierre’s room unguarded, wishing, no doubt, to savour his moment of triumph alone. If it hadn’t been for this small hubristic act, he would now be reading the story to the world live on Shit TV, the new Messiah his prisoner in chains.
Reynard finds Pierre’s letter and the story attachment beneath. Would Pierre have sent the article in the morning? People often feel different in the cold light of day. Pierre’s urge to reveal the ‘truth’, so enhancing to his reputation and riches, might have faltered on reflection that the truth isn’t always best. The judge presses a key and Pierre’s final piece appears on screen. Reynard sits back in his armchair and starts to read:
The story begins with a brilliant young man, Emile Reynard, training to become a doctor. He quickly masters the rudiments of medicine, but feels called to a wider role in life. On becoming a lawyer, he rises through the judicial ranks to become the country’s foremost judge, noted for dispensing wise and robust justice. He retires with his mental faculties intact but also, alas, with a terminal disease. But he’s brought back by the Supreme Justices to try Tomas’s case. Only the most senior judiciary will do. This much we know.
The story takes a twist during Tomas’s trial. On reading the transcript it is clear that Reynard, far from being hostile to Tomas, is sympathetic to him. From this, it’s reasonable to suspect that the judge also believes that the means justifies the end. Perhaps, after a lifetime’s exposure to evil, Reynard takes the same view on society as Tomas. Although appalled by Tomas’s morality lessons, he has little sympathy for their recipients.
Reynard considers Tomas’s death sentence by popular demand to be even more abhorrent than his crimes and against every legal principle. Not being a fence-sitter, he decides to take matters into his own hands. The judge personally interviews and selects the soldiers for Tomas’s execution squad and oversees all details of his execution. We also know that the others chosen to attend – the vulture and the buzzard – were nonentities, who have since disappeared. And that the judge, meticulous in every detail, surprisingly failed to make arrangements for the internment of Tomas’s body following his death.
The judge is immediately to hand after Tomas’s resurrection and assigns a battalion to guard him, an unusual decision. He connives in the general frenzy surrounding Tomas’s deitific status. He continues to support Tomas as he inverts an historic monument and builds a new one. All this based on the simple premise of Tomas’s resurrection. Except that Tomas didn’t rise from the dead. He awoke from sleep.
Tomas speaks of a swirling sensation in his veins after he was shot, followed by sleep: the description of an anaesthetic taking effect: the soldiers were not Tomas’s executioners but his anaesthetists. More precisely, one was. Instead of five guns loaded with live ammunition and one empty, it’s likely that all were blank except one that contained an anaesthetic dart. How was this achieved? Like all brilliant plans, with great simplicity. The squad was hypnotised by the judge, who is an accomplished psychohypnotist from his medical days. Reynard simply found the six most vulnerable to his technique: ‘Close your eyes, my son, search your heart.’
This theory was confirmed by the insusceptibility of the smoker in the squad to hypnosis. I went for treatment to help me quit and subsequently gave the hypnotist’s name to the smoking soldier. Later, I received a message that the soldier’s head was ‘blocked’. Someone had been there first.
The rest, as they say, is history. Tomas has pursued an agenda of social change, no doubt influenced by the judge. Tomasmania is an unexpected bonus for Reynard’s plan. Even without this, he has had a global platform from which to raise the debate, particularly with regard to justice, where the judge’s lifelong experience of the silver-tongued techniques of lawyers has radicalised his views. Doubtlessly, he does not expect to succeed in changing the system. But maybe lighting a fire is enough. One day the law might just ‘rupture’.
It’s remarkable but true that sometimes the oldest and least suspect people can surprise. The genius professor quietly working on a world-changing formula in his laboratory; the brilliant academic silently making a remarkable discovery. With age and experience come stealth and cunning – far more potent than young men shouting or burning flags in the street. Judge Reynard is the perfect, perhaps the ultimate, exemplar. And what is the worst that could happen? Prison? Unlikely: the State would suppress the plot in order to preserve the honour and financial position of the Patrie. In any event, Reynard is old and knows he will die shortly. And the best result? It has already happened. A global reaction against Russian roubles, bankers’ bonuses and football filth.
The only remaining question is whether Tomas was hypnotised as well? The answer is almost certainly yes. After his ‘execution’ we know Reynard spent time privately with him. It’s also reasonable to speculate that there were other occasions on which the judge could practise his art. But it doesn’t actually matter whether Tomas was hypnotised or not. The power of belief is greater than any hypnotic spell. And Tomas’s conviction that he was the second Messiah made him ready putty in the hands of the puppet master.
So where does this end? That will be for you, my readers, to say. You may wish to continue to believe. Tomas’s influence has spread far and wide. This is the nature of a new religion. It arises, catches fire, then there’s a counter reaction. My purpose is to reveal the truth. But this may be apostasy to Tomas’s supporters. One man’s truth is another man’s lie; one man’s god, another man’s devil. Ultimately, what does it matter what we believe, or even if our beliefs are absurd? The Romans had their gods; others worship the fairies in the woods. I have shone the light. You must now decide.
Judge Reynard closes his eyes. A kindly, tired old man hunched in a chair. Perhaps he’s reflecting on life. Or maybe he has just fallen asleep. His finger hovers over another small black plastic square with ‘delete’ written on it. A moment later, he goes to join his friends on the balcony.
Sunset over the sea …
Tomas and Tereza are sitting on a sofa watching the sunset. Reynard settles on a lounger beside them while the Alien twirls around the balcony amusing himself. Tereza is drinking champagne, the bottle propped in a bucket on the floor nearby. Tomas has an ice-cold beer. Reynard takes a campari and soda, an old man’s drink. In front of them is a basket of crudités – the sort you can only get in the Mediterranean – and a dish of oil mixed with mustard, salt and pepper.
Tomas has always loved the light in the South of France. All skies are different, but the atmosphere along this coast is somehow unique. Neither too harsh, like the northern light, nor oppressive like the sun-laden skies further south, it’s a perfect blend of colour and heat; and the light show’s climactic glory is, of course, the sunset.
There’s something satisfying about a seaside town winding down for the day. Loungers and all the beach paraphernalia are being cleaned and stacked away. Bars opening; sunbathers smelling of coconut oil returning to their hotels; waiters preparing for the evening service; that moment of calm between the day’s end and the night’s activities.
The sunset is a symphony of clouds and colours. Yellow turns to orange, then deep red, the sky shot through with a kaleidoscope of colours as the sun moves lower on the horizon. With every breeze, the painted clouds change shape and size like dancers at a phantasmic ball.
The invisible voice joins the party with his friend the invisible eye, who has a special perspective on the sunset. ‘What can you see?’ says the invisible voice. The invisible eye looks through the colours and clouds to the very innards of the sky. Sure enough he sees billions of echoes on the wind, but every so often a great man in history – Julius Caesar, the Emperor Charlemagne, Napoleon Bonaparte … Dancing among them, like a kite on the breeze, he glimpses a familiar, still living face.
Tomas looks across the terracotta roofs of the city to the back of the beachside hotels, the sea and the mountains beyond. The sea is a deepening blue against the mountains, which look like cardboard cut-outs against the sky as the light fades. The sun makes its final descent. For a moment, a giant red ball perches ethereally on the mountain top. Then it quickly slips below. A furnace ignites on the far mountainside, shooting red flames into the clouds, which continue their spectral dance.
Tomas takes in the scene in silence, holding Tereza’s hand on the sofa. He hopes that, at his end, should it come quickly, he’ll be given just a few minutes to remember the indescribable beauty of this moment.
