Beacons

by Gregory Norminton

  ‘Hmm. You’ve been following me, chixie. Were you wanting something?’

  ‘Me and Ma were at the show. It’s her birthday and she wants a signed photo cos she’s your biggest fan.’

  ‘How cute! Well come in, chixie, and I’ll see what I can find in the way of merchandising.’

  The room’s huge and there’s pix of her lit up on one wall, like on Ma’s screen, saying Welcome to YOU, and a box of plastic moons with her face on, that you can hang from your ceiling like Ma did till I got mad at her for being wasted. Porkies’ll eat anything.

  ‘Sit down, chixie. What can I offer you? Coke? An energy?’

  While she’s looking in the fridge I drop the rucksack on the floor and slide it behind the sofa with my foot.

  ‘No, I’m good.’

  She shuts the fridge door. ‘Hmm. A polite kid would say No, I’m good, thank you, Mother Moon.’

  ‘Well I’m not one of them.’

  Her smile changes. ‘OK. Let’s level up, chixie. You said you wanted a photo for your mum but now I’m getting a different vibe. You know who I am. But who are you?’

  ‘My mum’s called Emmilou.’

  ‘Ah. Emmilou. Remind me.’

  ‘You know her. You talk every day.’

  ‘Ah. Well. I do and I don’t,’ she smiles, with her face that’s like pastry from a bake-in-a-mo bun kit. ‘You see, chixie, here’s the thing. Emmilou may talk to me. But – little secret? You saw the crowd here tonight. In my job, there isn’t time for one-on-one, much as I’d like to. But I certainly love Emmilou, and care for her deeply. Very deeply. She knows that. Shame she wouldn’t come and say hello.’

  ‘Cos she’s not here.’

  ‘I see.’ Her breathing changes, you can see it from her boobs. ‘And it’s not her birthday either, right?’ I nod yes. ‘And I guess we can forget about the signed pic too. Hmm. So you told Mother Moon a couple of untruths, chixie.’

  ‘She’s in the morgue. At the health station.’

  Her eyebrows frown into two ticks. Then she reaches for the alarm button on the wall and presses it like Georgi said she would.

  ‘Ah. Big sozz to hear that. So you’re grieving. Losing a loved one’s a hard blow, but we all go through it and somehow we come out stronger people in the end. So tell me why you’re here, popsicle.’

  ‘I want you to make the doctors defrost her.’

  ‘What?’ she laughs. She shouldn’t laugh. ‘You’ll have to explain, chixie, cos I’m not quite following.’

  ‘My grandad’s old and he might zap out, so I need her back. Soon. Ma can manage with just one eye. And a limp. I’ll help her. It’s me does most things anyway. The porkies and that.’

  Then ew, she leans down and hugs me. She’s squelchy and she doesn’t smell of booze and kill-yous like Ma, she stinks of perfume. ‘Oh chixie.’ Her voice buzzes against my head. ‘Have a good cry with Mother Moon. Let it all out.’

  ‘Get the fuck off me!’ I push her off, and fuck saying beep. ‘If you don’t get my mum defrosted I’ll kill you, true story!’

  She presses the alarm again.

  ‘Listen, chixie. I don’t appreciate the way you’re behaving but I salute your determination in coming here all alone, like a real little man. The big picture needs folk with your kind of drive, chixie. Brave little people full of spirit.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about the big picture. I just want my mum.’

  ‘Poor love. I feel your agony, chixie. I really do. With all of my big Mother Moon heart. But I don’t have the power to bring people back from the dead. Big, big sozz about that.’

  My heart starts spazzing like it might pop.

  ‘She’s not dead. I never said that.’

  She frowns. ‘Morgues are for dead people, chixie.’ What’s she on about? ‘Sounds like someone miscommunicated. Mummy’s not coming back, chixie. Cos she’s dead.’ My chest’s still spazzing. ‘Now it’s natural to want to blame someone and you might find yourself doing that when it’s sunk in. But – little explanation? I don’t choose my followers. They choose me. Folk are free agents, chixie, and you can’t prevent them doing what they want to do. A lot of Zeroes are opting to withdraw from life these days. You could call it a trend. Honest truth, the big picture can’t afford people like Mummy. She came to see that. If she did the brave thing, and it looks like she did, well she’s earned my admiration and respect. And your gratitude too, if it’s led to an upgrade. Are you living on the mainland now in a snug little prefab, chixie?’ I don’t say anything. I can’t, cos my ideas are bumping about like wild freakmen. ‘Well if you are, you have Mummy to thank for it. Steep learning curve today, mmm?’ There’s a siren outside and flashing lights. ‘Now are we going to let them put an official warning on your folk-chip? Or shall I just let you out quietly and forget about your little visit? Cos I’m generous that way, chixie.’

  My mouth’s dried out cos of the morgue. ‘I’ll go. I’m done here, Mother Moon.’

  She lays her fat hand on my head and steers me to the door.

  ‘Wise choice. You’ll go far. Truly. Now how about a high-five, big man?’

  I take the lift down.

  I walk out slowly, through the front door.

  My heart’s still spazzing.

  The troops are there, busy with walkie-talkies but Georgi was right, they don’t notice me cos I’m just a random kid, just a kid with a remote control in his pocket who knows his Ma’s not coming back, not now, not ever.

  Ten, nine, eight.

  I’m right in the smallest corner of the big picture. So small you can’t see me.

  Seven six five four three two one.

  But just wait till you hear the size of the noise I’m going to make when zero comes. ‌

  Just listen while it all goes boom.

  ‌Goodbye Jimmy

  ‌Alasdair Gray

  In what is more a study than a laboratory, our Headmaster contemplates an array of crystalline forms when one of his deputies arrives from a distant province. This visit has been long expected, yet the Head nearly groans before turning his head enough to give the visitor a mildly welcoming smile and say, ‘Hullo, Jimmy. What brings you here?’

  He has the mandarin voice of a Lowland Scot unlocalized by a university education, but not Englished. His employee answers in a slightly plebeian Dublin accent, ‘You know well why I’m here. You’ve stopped answering me emails.’

  The Head says gently, ‘I know what they say.’

  ‘What use is that if you’ve no advice to give?’

  The Head sighs with a slight shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘Is that meant to be some kind of answer?’ demands Jimmy, ‘are you giving that wee place up as a bad job?’

  The Head contemplates his crystalline forms again but cannot shut his ears to the cry, ‘Then I’m giving it up too! Abandoning that nest of graceless, ignorant, self-destructive animals! Leaving it! Done with it!’

  The outcry becomes wild sobs which slowly quieten and end.

  After a pause the Head murmurs, ‘You can’t leave that job. You’ve nothing else to do.’ Then he adds loudly, ‘Unlike me!’ grinning so impishly at his guest that the younger, careworn man seems faced by a mischievous child. A moment later the Head’s old serene look returns, and to change the subject he says in a comradely way, ‘I have my own worries, you see.’

  ‘Life on other planets?’

  ‘Yep!’

  ‘Any luck with it?’

  ‘Nope. I’ve produced a lot of the usual microbes in submarine volcanic vents, but changes in the chemical environment keep wiping them out before they can even evolve into annelid worms. A planet supporting much life needs a lot of water and some chemical stability. You can’t get that without a near neighbour as big as Jupiter to hoover up the huge meteors, a satellite like your moon to grab most of the others. In this universe the chance of getting a planet like that are over a zillion squared to one against.’

  ‘But you’ve got one!’ says the visitor i
ntensely. ‘Why turn your back on it – the only world rich with all kinds of life? Some of it with the brain to grasp your intention, and I’m not taking about whales.’

  ‘Calm down, Jimmy,’ says the Head kindly.

  ‘I am perfectly calm, and stop calling me Jimmy!’

  ‘Do you prefer your earlier titles, O Lucifer, Son of the Morning? Prometheus, bringer of fire?’

  The Head is joking. Jimmy says wistfully, ‘King of the Jews. Prince of Peace.’

  The Head wags a forefinger, says ‘Prince of Darkness! Loki! Kali! Mephistopheles!’ – his Scots accent broadens for a moment – ‘Auld Nick! Well, in my time I’ve been called a lot of funny names too.’

  ‘So why call me Jimmy?’

  ‘It suits my accent.’

  ‘Why sound like a Scot?’

  The Head sighs, looks gloomy, at last says, ‘I still get messages from that world of yours, messages from desperate people who want help. They demand help! These impossible demands …’

  ‘They’re called prayers,’ Jimmy tells him.

  ‘You should stop them reaching me! These impossible demands … are mostly from mothers.’

  ‘Mothers worry you,’ says Jimmy accusingly. The Head strongly defends himself.

  ‘I cannot break physical laws that keep this universe running! I cannot stop fire or fiery chemicals hurting babies and wee kids because their skin is burned off by homicidal idiots obeying orders! When I answer …’ he hesitates, ‘prayers in a Scots accent they know I am not a loving father who will work miracles. They know they havnae a hope in hell.’

  ‘Then why not sound American? Like Dubya?’

  There is a globe of the world within reach. The Head touches a northern continent upon it, saying sadly, ‘Don’t depress me. I once had hopes of America.’

  ‘Why not sound,’ asks Jimmy brightly, ‘like a former Scottish prime minister? He goes around claiming to be one of your greatest fans.’

  The Head covers his face with his hands, muttering, ‘Please don’t sicken me. Supernatural beings are only heard when we use other folk’s voices. You sound Irish because you like to be liked and (IRA apart) the southern Irish voice usually does sound friendly to people outside Ireland. But God the Father must sook up to naebody! Naebody!’

  After a pause Jimmy says calmly, ‘Do you sound Scottish to me because I haven’t a hope in hell?’

  ‘Yes!’ says the Head looking straight at him, ‘But it won’t stop you saying what you’re here to say, so say on, Macduff.’

  Jimmy holds out a sheaf of printed papers, saying, ‘Read these emails you ignored.’

  ‘No. Bin them. I know what they say because I know everything. Everything.’

  ‘But you won’t attend to everything, so attend to these!’

  The Head says patiently, ‘They say the world’s richest governments have enough nuclear weapons to kill everything bigger than a cockroach, and are inventing ways to improve them, while fighting wars in any land that will not otherwise let them exploit natural resources there. These governments still sometimes say their warfare defends democracy. They used to say it defended Christianity and free trade. All lies, of course. What did you want me to do, O Prince of Peace? Intervene personally?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘That never works. I gave Moses a few good rules everybody should observe – Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t tell lies. Many mothers still teach that to their kids. But then came law makers with exceptions to my rules – You must kill when governments tell you to, and can steal from men, women, and children when governments let you take their land, and must not tell truths when governments say truths are dangerous. Also witches must not be allowed to live, adulteresses should be stoned to death. Had I said to Moses, This I command thee, do what the hell you like! human history would have been just as bloody.’

  ‘Nobody thinks your law against killing applies to foreigners,’ says Jimmy mournfully.

  ‘You did your best to correct them about that, my …’

  The Head hesitates. Jimmy looks hard at him until he goes on to say, ‘… my good man. Yes, you told them to love their neighbours as themselves and their enemies too. Don’t fight the people who oppress you, but refuse to kill, steal or lie for them.’

  ‘Good words to spread,’ says Jimmy sadly.

  The Head starts to speak, hesitates again, then says in an embarrassed way, ‘There is something I’ve wanted to ask. When you were … hanging there …’

  ‘I was nailed,’ says Jimmy flatly.

  ‘Yes. And you told someone in the same state that he would go to heaven with you. Why?’

  ‘He talked kindly to me,’ says Jimmy, shrugging and spreading his hands, ‘I wanted to be kind back. Should I have told him there is as little justice in heaven as on earth? My body was in such pain that I forgot it was temporary. I was delirious. Up to almost the very last minute I was mad enough to think you might save everyone who suffered unjustly, and save them … through me!’

  He gives a desperate chuckle. The Head assumes the manner of a schoolteacher and says, ‘If I only existed to give eternal sweeties to good folk and eternal beltings to bad, goodness would be cheap. There would be no decency, no heroism in it. I love heroism and you were a hero. I am proud of what you told people and what you endured for telling them.’

  ‘You didn’t need heroism to be crucified. The Romans did it to hundreds of thousands. From the start of history down to the present day millions of children, women, and men have endured worse deaths for no reason at all – just because they were born in unlucky places.’

  Says the Head consolingly, ‘Your words comforted many unlucky people, especially slaves and women.’

  ‘O yes!’ cries Jimmy, ‘and when my comforting words were made official by the Roman Empire and even policemen were christened, my Christians began murdering neighbours with different Gods and burning down their temples and synagogues. My Jesus was as big a flop as your Moses, which is why I want you to—’

  ‘Suddenly!’ the Head interrupts, snapping his fingers. ‘Suddenly, simultaneously appear on every television and computer screen on the planet announcing, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and your neighbour as your self, or You! Will! Be! Ex! Ter! Min! Ated! They would treat me as a rogue virus.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ says Jimmy shaking his head, ‘I want you to exterminate all the brutes.’

  ‘Say that again,’ says the Head, surprised.

  ‘Exterminate all the brutes. Now.’

  The Head sighs, stares at his crystalline forms as if looking for help there, then mutters, ‘Michty me. Crivens. Jings, Jimmy, don’t be so damned biblical. I am not the genocidal lunatic described in Genesis. I never made a deluge that drowned everyone except a single family of each species. I did not burn Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone out of heaven.’

  ‘But you wiped out most of the dinosaurs and the salt-water plankton. You smothered Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic ash.’

  The Head says patiently, ‘A wholly stable planet is physically impossible. Even with Jupiter and the moon to shield it, an asteroid the size of Dundee is bound to hit the earth every thirteen million years or so. The dinosaurs lasted a lot longer than that. They had a fair innings. Six and a half million years will pass before the next meteoric disaster – plenty of time for folk to learn how to stop it. And it is not my fault when men build cities beside a volcano. Your job was to stop folk blaming me for things priests and insurance companies once called Acts of God – floods, earthquakes, plagues, and epidemics caused by ignorance of safe cultivation and hygiene. And you cured that ignorance!’

  ‘O yes!’ says Jimmy bitterly, covering his face with his hands, ‘I encouraged Bacon and Galileo when ignorance seemed to be the main problem and good scientists were thought black magicians or heretics. And now natural science is triumphant.’

  ‘Exactly,’ says the Head. ‘Educated folk no longer blame yo
u and me for everything bad. That is a definite step in the right direction. I refuse to wipe out life on earth because my agent there who should encourage it is tired of it.’

  ‘But I love life on earth! I want you to save it by quickly destroying only one kind of brute – the most selfishly greedy kind. Get rid of men, please, before they destroy every other living thing.’

  The Head smiles, says, ‘If mankind heard you now they really would think you …’ (he holds out both hands with his fingers curved like claws) ‘… Bee! El! Zi! Bub!’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ says Jimmy, again shaking the sheaf of print-outs at him.

  ‘Atmosphere overheating from diesel fumes,’ says the Head, obviously bored. ‘Glaciers and icecaps melting, sea levels rising. Forests felled, land impoverished. Pure water tables shrinking or polluted. Drought increasing where forty per cent of folk suffer malnutrition and soon billions will die of thirst.’

  ‘Primitive Christians were right,’ says Jimmy passionately. ‘Scientists are black magicians. Nearly all of them work for corporations tearing up the fabric of earthly life with the help of governments they have bribed. Half the animals alive fifty years ago are now extinct. Frogs and sparrows are nearly extinct. The bumblebees are dying. Some conscience-stricken biologists are freezing the sperm of threatened creatures so that they can be brought back to life when the earth is governed sanely. Mankind will never govern it sanely.’

  With a tolerant chuckle the Head says, ‘Aye, men have always been great wee extinguishers. Remember North America at the end of the last big ice age? A vast forest of deciduous trees with nothing dividing them but lakes and rivers and rocky mountains. It was the home of the biggest, most peaceful vegetarians we ever achieved – titanic browsers, ground-sloths as big as elephants. The first men who entered that continent across the Bering Strait had never dreamed of so much meat. Killing bears and woolly elephants in Eurasia was dangerous work, but men easily took over America. The ground-sloths couldn’t run away, couldn’t run at all, didn’t need to be trapped. Set fire to the trees and you had several roasted ground-sloths burned out of their pelts in a gravy of their own melted fat. The number of North American men expanded hugely – for two generations they were too busy eating to kill each other – they gorged themselves all the way down to Mexico!’