Scotland Before the Bomb
Page 15
A prawn caught between thinking and not thinking about nothing.
A prawn silenced by the vengeance of unreason.
A prawn for tomorrow.
A prawn in the shade.
A prawn who spurns the vicious hug of the mother.
A prawn alone.
A prawn in winter with the sparkle of summer.
A prawn you know.
A prawn open to the suggestion of shrinking.
A prawn at dawn.
A prawn confusion.
A prawn who considers anything less than extraordinary a waste of time.
A prawn with cisgender options.
A prawn in the bowel of a banshee.
A prawn radiating smugness at having used the word “disingenuous”.
A prawn is there.
A prawn on the lawn.
A prawn optimistic about the fiscal stability of the Marianas Trench.
A prawn on a limpet on a shark in a whale.
A prawn in Franz Benzine’s stomach.
A prawn between pliers.
A prawn pinched.
A prawn in a wicker chair in the room of a murdered tailor.
A prawn nooked in the cleft of a crack.
A prawn upon the louche waft of decadence.
A prawn in a decapodehedron.
A prawn to the right.
A prawn cuddled up with a cute Texan.
A prawn with the sense to fast-forward.
A prawn upstream.
A prawn who schemes with zeal.
A prawn spinning from a seal’s tumult.
A prawn for me and possibly them.
A prawn riding the regal hauteur of a Caribbean swan.
A prawn for sale.
A prawn who screams for the burnt parchment of now.
A prawn listening to the wind.
A prawn tumbling from sandwich to plate.
A prawn smirking on a broadside.
A prawn with a strong understanding of electroencephalography.
A prawn miscollected.
A prawn too free to have ambitions.
A prawn overarching.
A prawn.
A prawn reading the Koran in Korean.
A prawn rammed into the guts of mathematics.
A prawn complaining overly, and moaning lowly.
A prawn in the middle.
A prawn unbruised in the cracking of a plate.
A prawn in place.
A prawn that’s true.
A prawn in plaice.
A prawn masquerading as a mosque.
A prawn simpler than another prawn.
A prawn reluctant to pop the cork.
A prawn and the art of fertility.
A prawn who lets the characters lead.
A prawn impolite.
A prawn mids-neeze.
A prawn poking from a stockbroker’s coif.
A prawn on a plectrum.
A prawn pondering the consequences of a poor compass reading.
A prawn over there with thou.
A prawn on the piss.
A prawn long.
A prawn caught re-enacting
the same crime as a prawn.
A prawn ribbed for your pleasure.
A prawn inserted into a dolorous melodic pattern.
A prawn away.
A prawn a way over there.
A prawn who says, at the end of the day, there stands a prawn who can.
[Inscriptions carved on stone tablets, photographed by Duncan Angello, 2058-60.]
“Diary of a Pineapple Holder”
[KIRKCUDBRIGHT]
MAR 4 [1:12PM]
I arrived at the airport and presented my new passport to the customs officer. After passing through the turnstile, I was handed the pineapple. In no uncertain terms, I was told that if I let the pineapple fall from my hands at any moment, I would be deported instantly.
[3:07PM]
Found the airport cafe. Spent a long time trying to manoeuvre my luggage with my right hand while keeping the pineapple balanced with the left. Peeped some monuments and buildings. The Bernard Ananas statue, with the proud founder holding his pineapple, is prominent outside the airport. Spotted some unprepared folks dropping their pineapples. The police arrived and rather roughly bundled them into a van. We all know what we’re letting ourselves in for! I am writing this with my pineapple clasped tightly in my left hand.
[5:03PM]
At hotel. Read the brochure. Pineapple fasteners, industrial adhesives, or other pineapple securing apparatus are prohibited, and are punishable by forty-nine years in prison. Yikes! As promised, the level of luxury here is immense for such prices. I had lobster bisque earlier, and tucked into truffles and champagne for £4.99!
[8:29PM]
Back from a stroll. The city is spectacular at night. It really is a paradise. Met some friendly locals who recommended upcoming shows. Live entertainment here is free, as the government support artists with living wages. I caught a few songs from the farewell Supergrass tour (the visiting musicians are exempt from pineapple law!), and had the famed ‘Perpetual Pineapple’ cocktail. It was transcendent.
[10:10PM]
Channel-hopping. It’s weird to watch a soap opera where the actors are all holding pineapples. It’s weird on the street, sure, but seeing how this pineapple-holding lark has permeated the culture is extra-weirder. Nervous about sleeping. I’ve practised for the last few months sleeping while holding the pineapple, so I shouldn’t be so worried. Still, it’s the first night when most people drop their pineapples . . .
MAR 5 [9:38AM]
I survived the night. There was a spooky moment when I dreamt the pineapple falling to the floor, and woke up to see the pineapple aslant across my thumb. A close call. My fingers hurt from the spikes, as predicted. I have some of the special hand cream that helps. You can transfer the pineapple between hands, provided the pineapple is being held at all times, and wear special gloves as required.
[12:38PM]
I met my new boss, Gert. He was hip. “No one punches a timeclock here, man. You can work whenever. You prefer to shoot some pool, have a siesta? Sure! We take things easy here,” he said. I spent the afternoon playing one-handed tennis. My colleagues said that life with the one hand was tricky at first, and offered me some tips on how to keep the pineapple balanced in my left while using a few fingers from the right to complete various tasks. People here cope with the constraint remarkably well.
[5:26PM]
I had an amazing first day, met some terrific people! Had a meal with the team and about to head to the theatre, and perhaps a club later, who knows . . .
MAR 6 [8:12AM]
Drank heavenly cocktails. Watched a moving performance. Munched sublime tucker. Danced the ananana (our equivalent of the chachacha) all night with the team. Flirted with Beth from the marketing dept.
MAR 9 [8.19AM]
Beth invited me inside after supper and a moonlit walk. She was sweet and told me not to rush. Her last partner was deported one evening when he expelled his pineapple in a fit of ardour. I undressed carefully. The removal and application of clothes is still the most common cause of pineapple dropping. I pricked Beth a little during foreplay, but she laughed and showed me a scar from her ex. Sex while holding the pineapple was a little frustrating. I really wanted to embrace her, but I had to keep a cool head.
MAR 10
I went to receive my new pineapple from the Pineapple Provision Office today, my first one becoming a little stale. It felt strange parting with my original (even a little sad!). It is a crime to eat a pineapple here, and some people have lost their citizenship by cracking open their fruits and sucking the sweet juices inside, the temptation becoming too much. Fortunately for me, I hate the taste!
MAR 12
I can’t even remember what not holding a pineapple feels like. I am at home here!
MAR 13
Some halfwit cleaner forgot to put a wet floor sign in the canteen. I almost slipped an
d dropped my pineapple. My colleague Ernie wasn’t so fortunate. One wrong step is all it takes.
MAR 14
I have to remember to alternate my pineapple hand. I am suffering from pineapple cramp. I bought a new pineapple mitt to wear until my pricked skin heals.
MAY 15
I met a man in the pub who wanted to emigrate. “I would rather struggle in some squalid country with poor human rights than spend another moment holding this tropical fucking fruit,” he said. I take his point.
MAY 16
I have everything I need and crave. I have a charmed and easy life, I live in luxury I could only imagine in my previous country. But I sometimes have to ask myself, is this life worth the struggle of holding a pineapple in my left hand forever?
MAY 17
On second thoughts, it’s only a pineapple. I’m away for a swim!
[From Diary of a Pineapple Holder, Greg Olivier, Self-published, 2023.]
“Realm of Sapo”
[LOTHIANS]
Sapotage
I AM Lazlo Seplütt, Commander of the resistance organisation Sapotage. Our main objective is to shoot down the highest number of drones possible and force Sapo to cancel their aerial shipping service. Our organisation sprung from the small protest faction Saponoise, established in Livingston by a band of sleepless shiftworkers. It started when Sapo introduced a drone delivery service on orders over £100, a luxury for premium subscribers, where items were flown largely to private homes in rural locations or suburbs. It became cheaper over time for Sapo to produce their metallic pests, so the service was introduced on cheaper orders, and used widely in the towns and cities. Their buzzing engines, like amplified wasps, soon claimed the skies, their rotors whirring like a protracted chorus of farts, their mechanical claws hammering on windows and doors. I was working on nightshift when the first fleet invaded the city. I struggled to sleep through their incessant buzzing racket as the population oneclicked novels, truckles of cheddar, three-piece dining sets, bedspreads, pastries and pasties, and other non-urgent items on a whim. Sometimes I was awoken when a drone tapped on my window, asking me in a robotic voice if I would mind taking an order for my neighbour. I soon mobilised the resistance. In the evenings and on weekends, our volunteer troops position themselves at various locations—the tops of streets, across the burbs, flat windows, in sewer drains—armed with a range of handheld weapons, from molotov cocktails, IEDs, grenades, to bazookas and missiles, and blast these vermin from the skies. We meet frequent hostility from customers, furious at having their orders cancelled. Some members have been assaulted by their neighbours, such as Tim Bright, whose ear was sliced with a katana when the man next door’s leopard-skin carseat cover was set alight by a flare. We want peace. We want to show that we needn’t have our realities shaped by Sapo. That they have no monopoly on our skies, and that our airspace should be sacred. If you lose a pair of socks or a pack of broccoli to one of our bazookas, take a moment to consider whether the loss is really of any significance whatsoever in the scheme of things, or if you might be willing to wait a few days for a noiseless postal delivery by an actual person.
The Couriers
Every morning we put on our uniforms—red jeans and shirt with blue dungarees—check our order targets for the day, stare into the mirror and shout: “Fuck Sapo.” I am one of the ninety-two remaining Sapo couriers in existence. I live in a tented village around the Midlothiania Sapo warehouse, where the underpaid workers are forced to live, unable to afford the flat rents and commuting expenses. I scrape a living speeding orders to customers, in competition with the drones that have usurped thousands of hard-working couriers like me. My first order that morning was from Mrs Dongle in Dalkeith who had ordered seven eggs and a pack of seeded bagels. I sprinted into the Sapo warehouse for the items, locating the bagels at one end, then sprinted a hectare to locate the eggs at the other. I removed the seventh egg from a pack of six and placed it, as per protocol, inside a padded ziploc bag inside a cardboard box. The bagels were placed in a separate cardboard box, and the eggs in another, padded with cotton wool and bubblewrap. I sprinted with the three boxes towards my motorbike, placing them in a special holding at the rear, and powered towards the A702. I was terrified about cracking the eggs or the egg. If one egg was cracked then I would lose the tip, I would have to pay for the cracked eggs from my own salary, and return to the warehouse to source another seven eggs. I sped up the road at 120MPH, swerving my way around the cars, streaking through tailbacks, and made a right onto the B-roads. These speeds are necessary to outpace the drones. The City of Edinburgh Bypass, paved over and replaced with a large wall plastered with fliers for festival productions, is no longer an option for swifter access to Dalkeith. I arrived one minute into the delivery window at Mrs Dongle’s house and tapped thrice on her door, observing that her house was opposite a convenience store. She opened up and snatched the boxes without a thanks or a tip. I returned to the motorbike, having called her a sour old cunt under my breath, and made a trip back to the warehouse. I received a text en route informing me that the seventh egg had arrived in a cracked condition. I must replace the seventh egg immediately, and that egg must be sourced from the warehouse, it must be packaged in the official Sapo box, otherwise that is a sackable breach of protocol. I will lose the 45p that egg cost from my salary. I sped back along the motorway, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a lorry, splatting over ninety bugs in my visor, and returned to the warehouse. I sprinted once more to the eggs, removed an egg from a pack. I wrapped the egg in saran wrap, placed the egg inside a small padded box, then placed the small padded box in a larger padded box. I repeated the trip. Mrs Dongle snatched the box from me and I returned to the warehouse, fearing a second text informing me the second loose egg had arrived in a cracked condition. No text arrived. I continued with the next order: a set of wine glasses, twelve packets of biscuits, and a daffodil-patterned vase. When we return after a day’s work to our draughty, muddy tents, we remove our uniforms, ration out a slug of rum, stare into the mirror and shout: “Fuck Sapo.”
Avian Assist
Avian Assist is a non-profit organisation that works to reduce bird fatalities caused by Sapo, and to help citizens cope with the repercussions of bird assaults on their mental and physical wellbeings. Sapo drones are responsible for more avian deaths in cities than windows, cats, and high tension wires combined. Weeks after Sapo first introduced their drone service, millions of urban-dwelling birds were driven from their nests and sliced by the powerful rotorblades of the machines. The birds, an adaptable species, reacted to these invasions with swift retaliation: soon flocks of seagulls and pigeons swooped towards the drones in attack formations, upsetting their flight paths, ramming their undersides, and creating enough turbulence to bring them down. Sapo effected a solution to cope with their losses. These avian attacks on their drones were costing the corporation millions in re-orders, customer refunds, and replacement drones. In addition to the numerous renegade groups shooting them from the skies, and the thousands in compensation paid to people felled by falling drones, this led to an expensive problem for Sapo. Their temporary solution was to place spikes along the sides and undersides of their drones, in the manner of local councils and business owners who prevent nestbuilding on bridges or walls. This proved ineffective. The drones were brought down with several speared or wounded birds on their spikes. Next, Sapo fitted a series of toxic sprays (a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide) in place of the spikes, that when triggered prove fatal to the birds. These were primed to puff several minutes before the birds approached, creating a trail of toxic cloud that would force the birds to retreat. Fatally, the quantity of these toxic gases was so large, that flocks would end up caught in the clouds, and hundreds of poisoned and maimed birds began to drop from the skies, causing trauma and physical injuries to people below. These birds, falling like bricks from the sky, killed ten people in a week. A long and well-publicised series of court cases followed. Sapo fought for th
eir right to remove birds from their flightpaths by any means, and put a small-print clause on the Sapo website placing the responsibility of paying for the victims of fallen birds on the customer. Now, hundreds of people are seriously injured in cities every day, oblivious customers are caught up in manslaughter cases, and thousands of birds are massacred by toxic clouds. Our mission as an organisation is to fight on behalf of the the victims of Sapo’s egregious legal tactics, to help preserve the dwindling bird population, and inform consumers that in ordering a pair of mittens by drone, they might well be implicated in the murder of a fellow citizen.
Customer Feedback
“I love the new aerial service. I ordered a signed picture of former US President Kayne West. It arrived in under twelve minutes. All I had to do was open the front window and take the signed picture of Kayne from the plinth. The drone said in a mechanical voice ‘Thank you for shopping with Sapo’. It was truly incredible.” —meganbatch
“I ordered a cubit of cumin. The drone arrived when I was in the shower, so it flew around and tapped on the bathroom window. What a clever little flying robot thing! I had no qualms about opening the window in the nude and taking the cumin. If that was a delivery man, I might not have heard him knock, and I would have to leap out the shower and into a towel to take the order, if he hadn’t left already. These are a smart and efficient way to collect essential items, although the rotorblades sliced into my window, leaving a thick cut in the double glazing.” —chefforhire
“Fabulous. Working in my study, I thought to myself: ‘I could kill for a bar of organic white chocolate and a botanically fermented cherry cola’. I logged on to Sapo’s site, paid the two quid for the drone delivery, and in ten minutes Buzz hovered at my window. It startled me at first, as I was listening to Ed Sheeran’s moving final album on earphones at the time, but I opened up and took my items once my heart rate had returned to normal and I put down the hammer. Unfortunately, Buzz ended up stuck in the oak tree outside my house, and made a torturous squealing sound for two days, until an operative from Sapo came and cut the tree down to retrieve their drone safely. Recommended.” —slowburner