by Heide Goody
There was a chorus of agreement, driven partially by hunger. Michael had already heard Aisling suggesting one of the chickens might not be missed. It had been difficult enough painting the birds, Michael wasn’t sure he was ready to endure their slaughter too.
Heinz stepped them through the routine while they were wearing their television wearables. The dance moves, limited as they were, were even more challenging when wearing hardware that weighed more than the baggage allowance for a budget airline.
Todor persisted in mixing up his left and his right, despite a fresh application of lipstick to his shoes. Quite a few of the televisions now sported cracks or had chunks missing after he had crashed into Ibolya and Michael, who had taken his place in the line-up at Heinz’s insistence. Aisling gleefully seconded this decision, suggesting Michael should be the one to play the bucium, which had remained untouched in its case until now.
“It will be the perfect thing to open the song,” said Aisling. “Like it’s saying ‘Pay attention Europe, here we come with our song’!”
“Why aren’t you in the band?” Michael asked Heinz.
“Someone has to direct,” said Heinz. “That will be me. Aisling is needed for production elements like working the dry ice machines and releasing the doves.”
“Chickens.”
“Yes, all right, chickens.”
“I have noticed one thing about our chickens,” said Michael. “They haven’t shown any inclination to fly at all. I can’t help thinking that when we release them they will just walk away. Weren’t we looking for them to rise up into the air?”
Heinz winked at him. “Once again brother, I am ahead of you. I think we might almost be ready for full dress rehearsal, so let’s do the dove thing for real. Help me unpack these drones and our chickens will indeed fly.”
Once again, the air was filled with the sound of unhappy chickens as they wrapped them in webbing straps and clipped each bird to the underside of a drone. It proved tricky to keep the chickens upright; several did test circuits round the room listing at a strange angle, clucking mournfully. Eventually they had a full squadron of chickens attached to drones. Heinz created some nifty scripting on Michael’s tablet so Aisling wouldn’t have to try and work twenty four remote controls to get them all airborne at the correct moment. The same tablet controlled the images streaming onto the screens they were wearing. Heinz dubbed it Mission Control, and was fiercely protective of it.
“Dress rehearsal time!” called Heinz, lining them up in the correct position. “Get the bucium, Michael.”
Michael fetched the unwieldly instrument from his case and eventually found a way to hold and support it while wearing the televisions.
“Everybody ready?” called Heinz. “Aisling. Mission Control is good to go?”
“Er, think so. Just trying to find the correct video file. And we’re on low battery. Let me put it on charge.”
Aisling took it to a control console, plugged the charger cable into the wall, turned it on and rested the tablet on the console.
“Okay, good to go.”
Michael took his cue for a hefty blast of the bucium. He put his lips to the ancient wood and blew for all he was worth, but no sound came out. He took a deep breath and tried again until he felt the veins in his head standing out.
“This is possibly harder to play than it looks,” he said.
“Um, what does that mean?” said Todor, pointing at an overhead display that had begun flashing red.
They looked up.
INITIATING START UP FOR THE LHC, PROGRAM 1
“Aisling?” said Heinz. “Did you turn something on over there?”
Aisling lifted up her tablet and looked at the rows of buttons and switches underneath. She gave a shrug. Michael joined her, in the hope that somewhere there would be a button labelled Large Hadron Collider: On/Off. He could see nothing that he could even begin to understand.
“We need to turn it off before someone notices,” he said.
“Too late.” Stefan pointed to the scrolling news banner on one of the TV screens.
LIVE: Terrorist group turn on large hadron collider. Analysts speculate that this is blackmail on a global scale. Do the group imagine they can create a black hole?
“Oh dear,” said Michael. “Maybe we should talk to them.”
“I think we might be beyond that,” said Heinz. “Our video broadcast is in an hour. We need to barricade ourselves securely in place and get the song out. They will surely send in some sort of special forces if they think we’re trying to blow up the world or something.”
“They could just walk in the front door,” Stefan pointed out. “The only reason that they haven’t is because they think those sausages are explosives. They will just walk in and shoot us all.”
“Which is why we must get the song out first, so that everyone understands what we’re all about,” said Michael. “I have an idea. Why don’t we go down into the tunnel to do the song? We will be secure for a little longer down there.”
Within moments they were lowering the equipment down through the trapdoor. It was exhausting work, but everything was in place in good time for their broadcast. As they stood next to the large hadron collider, it made a loud electronic humming, punctuated by occasional spitting noises that faded into a distant yowl.
“Is that going to interfere with the sound?” asked Michael.
“It adds atmosphere. It will be fine,” said Heinz. “Everyone in position? The cameras are ready, and we’re going to be feeding directly to the news channels that have signed up for this.”
“Which ones?” asked Michael.
“All of them,” replied Heinz with a broad smile. “Now, is everyone happy with the beats? I will give the signal for the start, and that’s when you go with a nice loud blast on the bucium Michael. Aisling, you need to be ready to start up the video displays on the televisions, and to release the doves when I make this sign.” He held up his hands with his thumbs linked and made a cooing sound as he made a flapping motion.
Aisling rolled her eyes and indicated that she was ready. Heinz flipped the switch on the dry ice machine, consulted his watch and counted them down.
This was it, thought Michael. A Brexit vote, followed by months of pained soul-searching on the madness of his adopted countrymen, followed by a few hours of frantic planning and a week of even more frantic travel around Europe to put together this Euro super-group: the Finnish lunatic, the Irish songsmith, the two singers, Bulgarian and Hungarian, the Austrian on guitar and he, Michael, representing the spirit of right-thinking British people with an alpine horn in his hand and TVs strapped to his naked body.
Yes, this was his moment. Here was their stand for European unity, their attempt to save the world and the open borders and free trade of a continent.
Michael had never felt prouder.
“Three, two, one. Michael!”
Michael made sure that he was looking directly into one of the security cameras as he blew into the bucium. He wanted the people of Europe to feel the sincerity of his gaze. The sound that came from the bucium was rich and clear, a siren call to everyone across Europe. Surely this would make everyone sit up and take notice? Todor started to sing, his voice easily drowning out the large hadron collider with its loud, raunchy delivery. They all stepped through the rhythm; Michael could feel the dance moves synchronising perfectly. Ibolya sang her operatic interlude and every soaring note was a new peak of perfection.
There was a noise with a different quality from along the tunnel. Michael tried not to be distracted. It was all so perfect, and they just needed to hold it together until the end, but then a dozen figures appeared: running around the curve of the tunnel from both ends. Michael kept his cool. Surely they would hold back until the song was finished? Couldn’t they see what they were doing?
“Release the doves!” yelled Heinz. It wasn’t time, but Michael understood the need to make their statement of peace while they were still able.
A
isling hit the controls and launched the chicken-carrying drones. The dozen figures, commandos clad in black and khaki, were briefly taken aback by the spectacle. They hadn’t been trained to deal with drone-mounted chickens.
“Get the tablet!” shouted one.
A commando moved towards Aisling, but Ibolya stepped into his path. She was reaching the crescendo of her piece and she screamed the top note directly at him. He crumpled before her, staggered sideways, knocking into the large hadron collider. He fell against a lever which opened a small inspection hatch. Michael watched in horror as the flock of drone-propelled chickens flew directly towards the open hatch. The first of the chickens was pulled inside by unseen magnetic forces. The remains of the drone smashed against the side wall. Another chicken was drawn in. A few moments later, all of the chickens had disappeared.
Heinz shouted at Aisling. “The video feed, get the video feed up!”
Another of the commandos ran forward to take control of the tablet. He and Aisling wrestled for it. “Give it to me!” he barked. “Gib es mir! Donne le moi!”
His multilingual demands caused an instant rage to take over Aisling. She flew at the man, all fingers, nails and teeth. He screamed as she went for his eyes. Michael, agog, could only think the ex-lover who had once “Done her wrong” was very lucky to have avoided her in the intervening years.
Heinz dived for the tablet and stabbed at the screen just before it was snatched away from him by another commando. Michael smiled as their body screens lit up. A co-ordinated display of fireworks and lasers, illuminating this loyal and diverse group of people would make the statement that he’d pictured. They carried on with their dance steps, ignoring the special forces soldiers who now surrounded them, weapons raised. They just needed a minute more.
A strange sound came from the particle collider. It was a much louder version of the phut–neeeow it had been making previously. The sound approached them and Michael couldn’t help turning his head to look, just as something small and deformed shot out of the open hatch. It struck the nearest special forces soldier on the back of his shoulder, propelling him with such force that his unconscious body was flung into their midst.
“Was that one of our chickens?” said Heinz. “Here comes another.”
The remaining chickens came out of the large hadron collider like a poultry based Gatling gun. Todor’s television screen smashed in a spectacular explosion of glass and plastic and sparks. The bag of tomatoes he had suspended between his screens for the purposes of snacking was instantly pulverised, showering down upon the fallen commando like so much blood. Todor danced to a different tune as he struggled out of the sparking and burning screen harness. There were flames elsewhere. The dry ice machine had taken a battering from where Aisling had used it to club a commando; now it was producing real, not fake smoke. Michael looked around. The group was in disarray, but the video feed was still playing on some of the screens. He froze when he realised the video was not the fireworks and lasers from before, but of Clovenhoof mincing about in a field and singing to a disinterested nanny goat.
“I kissed a goat and it bit me
“The taste of her cud was delicious…”
“No!” whined Michael. “No. Not that!”
As he watched, powerless to prevent the viewing public of Europe being subjected to the same spectacle, Clovenhoof snuggled up to the goat and nibbled her ear tenderly. Michael sank to his knees with a low moan.
“Make it stop! Make it stop!” he sobbed.
And then a chicken, flash-fried by a supersonic journey through subterranean Europe, shot out of the large hadron collider, smacked him squarely in the face and knocked him unconscious. Which, all in all, was a blessed relief.
New York, New York
The Amtrak Silver Meteor, at the end of its twenty six hour non-stop journey from Fort Lauderdale to New York, pulled in at Penn Station at seven o’clock on Tuesday evening, just as the polling stations were closing along the eastern seaboard. At eight o’clock, train officials found a man in an overhead compartment who claimed he had been forcibly stowed there by an individual who had stolen his ticket all the way back in Florida. At nine o’clock a Democrat Party official confirmed that a planned fireworks display over the Hudson, a sort of pre-emptive victory celebration, had been cancelled. This came amid rumours that Clinton’s hold on key states was slipping, and that a quantity of the celebration fireworks had gone missing in suspicious circumstances. At ten o’clock, Donald Trump left the Republican festivities at the New York Hilton Midtown and retired for the evening to his penthouse apartment atop Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
He turned on the television, changed into his pyjamas, brushed and flossed his teeth and climbed into an otherwise empty bed. He watched the news for only a few minutes before turning off both television and bedside lamp. It had been a long, hard day. It had been a long, hard year. A year like this took its toll on a man.
Donald couldn’t say how long he had been lying in bed, if he had even fallen asleep at all, when a sudden and stark light filled his bedroom, reflecting off mirrors and gilt-edged surfaces alike. He pushed himself up onto one elbow and held out his hand against the light.
“Who’s there?” he said.
The light was held aloft by a tall figure.
“Come here and know me better, man,” it said in a deep and self-important voice.
Donald threw the sheets aside and, both fearful and curious, tried to find his slippers with questing bare feet. “That light’s a bit bright,” he said.
“Some men think so,” said the self-important figure. The light dimmed a little anyway, to the point where Donald could see the figure properly.
It stood by the window atop piles of boxes and crates that had not been there before. At first glance it appeared to be an imposing, almost god-like figure, wrapped in ancient senatorial robes, a spiked crown upon its head and a flaming torch held aloft in its right hand. A further inspection might have inferred the robe was nothing but one of Donald’s own bedsheets, the crown had been fashioned out of wire coat hangers and the torch was a battery-operated plastic piece of crap that sold for fifteen bucks at the gift shop on Liberty Island. Donald was too stunned to notice.
“I am the Spirit of America,” intoned the dread visage.
“The Spirit of…?”
“Of America.”
“Wow,” said Donald. “Does this mean I’ve won?”
“What?”
“I assumed that when I won the election, I would have a visit from the CIA or NSA – to tell me the nuclear launch codes or the truth about Area 51 or something. But this— Believe me, this is very impressive.”
Clovenhoof faltered. He’d been ready for Trump to cower in fear. He’d been ready for Trump to wallop him one and denounce him as a fraud. He hadn’t been ready for Trump to assume a visit from the Statue of Liberty to be standard operating procedure for a newly elected president.
“You think you’ve won the election?”
Trump gave him a content and unruffled look. “Those poll numbers are looking very good. I know we’re already winning bigly in key states.”
“You cannot be president,” insisted Clovenhoof.
“Ah,” said Trump. “I see what’s going on. You’re one of those Democrat vote riggers.”
“The vote is not rigged,” said Clovenhoof, wishing he’d thought of that. “No sane American would want you as its commander in chief.”
“I am a very, very smart person,” said Trump. “I have heard from hundreds of people that tell me how smart I am, believe me. Important people too. I’m not a politician but I am a businessman. Who will the American people trust to lead them? Hillary is really, really a not good leader.”
“Foolish mortal!” Clovenhoof towered over him. “Do you think you are fit to hold the same office as the great George Washington?”
“George Washington who kept slaves on his Virginia plantation?”
“Abraham Lincoln then,” snapped Clove
nhoof.
“People tell me that Abraham Lincoln censored the press and had his enemies deported. I don’t know, but that’s what people tell me,” said Trump.
“You dare besmirch the name of one this country’s great heroes?”
“Hero? He was a hero because he freed some slaves and got shot in a theatre? Personally, I like people who don’t get shot in the back of the head.”
Clovenhoof, who was not used to trying to take the moral high ground, was finding it exhausting. He flung his Lady Liberty torch aside, jumped down from the crate he was stood on and plumped for a moment of honesty.
“Listen, buddy. You can’t be president.”
“That’s what the GOP bigwigs said. That’s what Rubio and Cruz said. People underestimate me.”
“But you can’t.” Clovenhoof thrust his much crumpled Apocalypse Bingo sheet in Trump’s face. “Nostradamus’ Apocalypse Bingo sheet says that when the Trump of Doom sounds in victory then ‘All the countries of the world will end in flame and ordeal.’”
“All the Countries of the World?” said Trump thoughtfully. He snatched the paper and scoured it. “Who concocted this nonsense?”
“Nostradamus, you gibbon.”
Trump screwed the paper up and tossed it aside. “I don’t buy it. Why would my presidency – and it will be an amazing presidency, just you wait – why would it bring about the end of the world?”
“Seriously? The thought of your little mitts on the big red nuclear button is causing half the world sleepless nights as it is.”
Trump frown furiously. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying—”
“Little mitts? Big red button? Look at these hands. Are these small hands? These fingers. Look at them. Long and beautiful. That button will look positively tiny with my hand on it. Let me tell you, when I push a button, the button knows it’s been pushed. I’ve had no complaints.”
