The Government in Exile and Oth - Paul Collins, ebook
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The Government in Exilea short story by Paul CollinsIt is Revolution Day tomorrow, and the people are already crowding thestreets, preparing for the festivities.I turn from the blackened window and jog down the stairs. I always runupand down the stairs. I find it amuses the people in the house. I jogmainly because it is the only exercise I get. I think they resent myjogging. They feel keeping fit is a little excessive.Ob (this stands for Obese, we think, although it might be anabbreviationof Oberon) looks up from the table where he is pondering a crossword.Henods disdainfully -- I know he thinks I'm a fool for jogging.I slow to a walk and glance down at his crossword. I have yet to seehimcomplete one; I wonder why he persists with the charade. He fools noone.In the kitchen the plates are piled high. Something scurries frombeneaththe unwashed cooking utensils. The movement dislodges a knife that iscrucial to the pile's balance, and I am barely in time to rescue allbutthe large plate, which crashes to the floor. I hear Ob sigh."How's the crossword?" I call. It is a joke among the household thathasbeen festering in Ob's mind like some terminal disease. Cancerousgrowth?That would be nice. A terminal cancerous growth.I hear his pencil rattle across the table and can imagine his bloatedfaceturning a bright red with every swallowed breath. I should remind himtosave his energy for Revolution Day tomorrow.I kick the shattered plate into the corner where all the other brokenitems gather like mould. It is my turn to wash the dishes, as it wassevenweeks ago. Perhaps illogically, I concede that I too will forego thischore. Everyone else has.Ob is not at the table when I leave the kitchen. No doubt he isupstairsin his one-windowed room, taking rabid, inspired shots at theunemployedin the streets. If it keeps him happy until tomorrow, why not?In the downstairs common room Mary Sue and Ike are watching a re-run ofsome ancient show. Although originally filmed in colour the celluloidhasslid into sepia. The sound track, too, has regressed. This is perhapswhyMary Sue and Ike are both huddled close to the TV and do not notice myarrival.I sit down and daydream a little until the show finishes. It is ahardshipI endure gladly. From upstairs the muffled report of a high-velocitycarbine echoes down the stairwell."You been upsetting Ob again?" Ike says. He giggles hysterically. Ihavededuced that Ike is reliving his childhood."His crossword wasn't going too well," I admit. I pull a sad face.Mary Sue says, "Let's hear it for poor Ob!"And we all say, "Ahh, poor Ob."We hear another shot. If we had been taking tally of Ob's kills, Ibelievewe might have counted a decrease of at least one hundred unemployedthisyear. This is a figure of which any government statistician before theRevolution would have been proud.Dull thuds sound without. It is the unemployed throwing rocks anddebrisat our battlements in retaliation to Ob's recreation. Shortly they willthrow heavier rocks, and, perhaps, as has happened before, a few ofthemwill be brave enough to lay siege with a ram at our front doors.They have never penetrated our defences and I doubt their sanity inattempting to do so now."Someone's at the front door!" Mary Sue says brightly. "I wonder whocanit be?" This is her Alice in Wonderland guise."I'll get it," I say. But Ike is already trundling after her up thewrought iron staircase to the parapets.Each releases cauldrons of mineral turpentine and I hear howls of painasit ignites.Mary Sue has long since ceased taking photos of the victims. Once, thisentire room was wallpapered with colour stills of the living dead.Contorted bodies, alive, in poses of abject horror. She no longer takesthese pictures, because there is no more film.Ike has offered to forage for film outside, but Mary Sue declined hisoffer. There are too few of us left now to lose one for the sake ofentertainment, she said. Why not simply go outside and fetch one of thefuckers in instead?So now that wretch adorns our mantelpiece. Cured over smoking fires forthree days he watches us with grotesque eyes, as though he knowssomethingwe do not. Perhaps he does, for tomorrow is Revolution Day.I have ceased hearing Ob's rifle. It has not stopped -- rather, Iprefernot to hear it rake the unemployed."We got at least ten of them!" Mary Sue says merrily as she skips aboutthe room. She blows a kiss at Dumb Dumb, our mascot on the mantle. "Tenmore!" she trills, pulling at the leathery cheeks of Dumb Dumb.She is madder than Rasputin ever was.Ike and Mary Sue then perform a ritual dance to celebrate. They arealwaysproud of their efforts to keep down the unemployed."What's for dinner?" Ike asks as they whirl giddily about the commonroom."We can have unemployed, unemployed or unemployed," I say."Er, let me see," Mary Sue says, pondering over the menu. "I thinkwe'llhave -- ""Why don't we have unemployed for a change?" Ike says, as though amazedathis own originality."How marvellous, darling," Mary Sue says wondrously." Now why didn't Ithink of that?"Her eyes seem bright."If we were all geniuses, gentle child," Ike points out, "there wouldbeno geniuses.""So we'll have unemployed," Mary Sue decides. "With a dash of speed."I bow in parody and repair to the kitchen. The chef's duties were onceona rota system, but that, too, collapsed. It seems to me, as I begin toprepare a frozen chateaubriand, that every system is made to fail.Should something last more than its scheduled life, it is automaticallyafailure. I suck a syringe full of cheap claret and inject it into themeat. I wonder idly whether marinating the meat has any beneficialeffectother than making the vineyards more money, but of course, there are nomore vineyards.They say I am the best chef, and I imagine my popularity in theculinaryarts derives from the culmination of small touches: placing slivers ofgarlic in the meat, using mixed herbs and spices, reducing the claretforthe gravy, and other such artistic tips I have learned.It is more probable that I am the chef because no one else can bebothered.Through the plate glass windows I can barely see the westering sun.Volcanic ash high in the atmosphere has created magnificent sunsets thatIam unable to appreciate fully owing to the dirt on the windows. Noteventhe rain is clean now.Dark clouds are scudding across the bright orange horizon, and asolitarybird is gliding with the currents in and out of the great carvings inthesky. The sun is a molten ball sinking into the water. It is a Dali,cometo life.Ob's rifle on automatic shatters the Dali. Curiously I crane my neckskyward. I expect to see plummeting unemployed.Instead I see the bird flick and twist like a piece of charred paper.Itspirals down. Its wings jar its passage, and briefly I urge the birdbackup among the clouds. For those seconds it appears to gain its balanceonthe sky's high wire, but then Ob's carbine, now firing tracers, bringsitunequivocally down.Tiny, fiery spits ignite the sky and fling the bird's corpse so that itappears space-bound. It punctures like a pillow full of down, and thefeathers are carried away.From upstairs I hear Ob's whoops of laughter. I cut a deep hole intothemeat and bury a piece of garlic.At dinner there are eight of us. Ike and Mary Sue sit at one end of thetable talking sotto voce. It amazes me they have not already exhaustedtheir tiny repertoire of jokes. I can only conclude that they arere-runs,as if on the TV and radio. Perhaps from their inventories they snatcheachother's jokes and embellish them.Ob centers himself at the table. There he is closest to the meat.Presently he is hacking at it with his hunting knife. He attacks themeatas he does every obstacle in his life. As a special treat to us he iswearing his Pierre Cardin suit. On him it looks like a Myer special. Hehas splattered it with globules of gravy.I sit at the other end of the table. We have candles tonight tocelebrateOb's killing the bird. It was Mary Sue's idea. As she explained it tome:"Don't you see, Harry? The bird was free, as are the unemployed -- soithad to die! Isn't that precious?" Her logic would not stand thescrutinyof a ten-year-old.Again, I believe it amuses her to humour Ob. There are so few pleasuresinlife. The other four pick at their food with no great fervor. I do notseethem often; they usually eat dinner in their rooms while studying GreatBooks of Wisdom. They were once technicians of some repute. Eyessunken,owing to massive over-reading, cheeks pallid and gaunt throug...
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