Beacons

by Gregory Norminton

  #zincbitch: #africanting.

  #Me5elle: Word.

  #zincbitch: #Mpod?

  #Me5elle: The Dirty Christians, I Get Lifted, Old Testament remixes, DJ Leviticus.

  #zincbitch: Loose!

  #Me5elle: I also sneaked a few of those Tokyo buzz cubes and smart bombs. I dropped a couple before we set off. I was coming up as we went down.

  #zincbitch: Radicalized!

  #Me5elle: Triplebitchy. I was smurfing all the colours. I got out my I-3DCamCan as we went in but the man in the shirt stopped me.

  #zincbitch: #medianazi.

  #Me5elle: Total. Federated. Witch Man.

  #zincbitch: Is it true they have them down there?

  #Me5elle: 100% Total KKK fest. #KKKsucks. Like 100% Total. God squad, but what can you do?

  #zincbitch: OMFG.

  #Me5elle: Yeah! So I just have to Blog it all, but actually it’s elite because I saw like contraband intelligence. A forbidden city. A city lost to the storms.

  #zincbitch: #lovepoetical. You waxing so pretty girl!

  #Me5elle: DMI.

  @#zincbitch You have 106 friends watching CLICK HERE to see who. #joinlivechatnow. You have 94 friends streaming CLICK HERE to see who. #joinlivechatnow. You have 2134 friends live CLICK HERE to see who. #joinlivechatnow.

  #Me5elle: So you could see the famous beach – it’s like long and thin and sort of an island and it’s all a bit like that and everything is sort of there but it’s all smashed up. I wish I had more pix to post. Words just don’t carry what I was seeing. #HollywoodUnreal #ApocalypseWatch. Dad was so cute, going oh look that’s so and so or I can see this place. He was a bit sad too because he’d be like that was where we used to shop but it’s all gone now #melancholy-mallrats.

  #zincbitch: Emoting your sentiment #lovemydad. I guess he saw the place where he grew up turned all snarly? #lovemydad That would be a mood dropper. Good job us @#newgirls don’t get so bothered #environment-attachment so #oldtimer.

  #Me5elle: #waxpoetical #self-reflection. We flew real low and I could see all the buildings real close and thought deep about what it was to live there for all those people and what happened and what it would mean to lose everything. Barak just wanted to ask the guards about their guns #totaladolescent.

  #zincbitch: GRFOW!

  #Me5elle: Then we started flying over more water and it was full of trash and dead stuff. It was a swampfest and I had an attachment issue. I mean, how can this happen right?

  #zincbitch: #waxpolitical.

  #Me5elle: We weren’t allowed to land downtown. Too dangerous. Total #Mogadishu. All these retro skyscrapers, not antique like Detroit, but retro po-mo and super-snarly like the downtown in #TakeNewYork on the XboxX10. And we were sweeping round to avoid sniper fire, that was what they said and the super-real exciting thing about it was the guards were ultra serious and focused as if some #BlackHawkDown scenario was about to unfold.

  #DunderChunder is live.

  #DunderChunder: Hey!

  #Me5elle: #zincbitch Hey.

  #DunderChunder: @#Me5elle why didn’t you 5 me back?

  #Me5elle: @#DunderChunder dude! I’m #livechat here and this is a #waxpoetic tribute about my dad’s birthday #ilovemydad. Private channel me later for grievance issues K?

  #zincbitch: @#DunderChunder stop being such a #bitchboy #lameface.

  #DunderChunder: WFUT.

  #DunderChunder is offline.

  #Me5elle: WTF! #totaladolescent.

  #zincbitch: You know that’s why I only #date-a-college-guy. Update me baby.

  #Me5elle: TFA! We whizz round past these skyscrapers and I can see over the whole city. #factoid Miami once had eight million people.

  #zincbitch: Before storm?

  #Me5elle: Affirm!

  #zincbitch: #waxpoetical I need mind pictures. #waxpoetical come give me!

  #Me5elle: Sorry just bummed by #DunderChunder. Yeah I know #forget-him right? K this. Miami, dig? The first storm, the real big one, #Hurricane-Winthrop, winds were more than 300 miles per hour. There was a storm surge with waves like 150ft high and super-fast. The water just ram down and mash up Miami, Judgement Day style, #911 over-fest like tsunami #JapanTsu2011, #IndianOcTsu2004, #IndonesiaTsu2015, #PacficTsu2019, but no earthquake driving it. This was heavy weather wind and sun. You saw the film, right? #TheWaves.

  #zincbitch: The one with Madonna’s grandson? #GILF #Sublime-Apocalypse.

  #Me5elle: Yeah. Real words #newgirl, real words. We loop back to Miami Beach. Apparently it’s a bit safer and land on the roof of this old condo. We went down fast and my stomach flipped a bit. The buzzcubes didn’t help #puke-a-troid. Anyway, so we wait on the chopper while the #hotdarkwater dudes run around and make a ‘perimeter’ as they call it. Jamie #cutegay said it was like the strongest building on the beach still standing and it was real antique, like 1950s. Hang on, let me WikiToke it to you #Hotel-Fontainbleau-MiamiBeach.

  #zincbitch: I’m feeling that.

  #Me5elle: Not even retro Modern but Modern-Modern. Back-time it used to be super-classy, VIP to the max. I’m talking ultra bitch levels, like #ParisHilton.

  #zincbitch: Girl I’m just seat tripping here. Vlog me more! So jealous, I’m like pea-souping it, I’m just a little green pea.

  #Me5elle: Double dig! OK, like, for the trip I had my #RalphLauren #SunSuit and #Oakley #Radiation-Shades with #Gucci #SpannerMask and my #G-Star #SlutWalkers.

  #zincbitch: You can really carry that #WeatherWear. I just look like a dufus in that garb, a total #SarahPalin.

  #Me5elle: I need it. We’re talking cold season and it’s still HAF. I was a #SweatyBetty #PussyDrip.

  #zincbitch: Heat like that just uplifts me to the cool valleys of Idaho.

  #Me5elle: So total with you #zincbitch. I am #valleygirl all the way. #LoveIdaho #RealUSA. Like Daddy keeps saying we’ve got to be #thankful. Other are bummed out in the SunSlums with #medianazis and #WitchHunters for company. At least we are Scooby-dooed! Anyway, I’m drifting.

  #zincbitch: #waxpoetical.

  #Me5elle: We all stand on the roof of this hotel and Jamie points out various landmarks to me and Barak. Dad and the Hawaiian shirt dude stand a little way off, talking about something. The helicopter takes off again, which made me feel a bit #attachment-issue but apparently they had to do that. The #hotdarkwater guys were posing with their guns and looking at shit with their infra-cams and Spy-Wear. One thing that hit me, once the chopper was away, was just how quiet it is #StormZone. I could hear nothing, not even the sea because it’s so choked up with consumer-sludge and plastic from the #1stArtificialAge. Apparently the sea isn’t even the same as it was before. The molecules are all different now, that’s what Dad says. They are trying to synth new ones at his laboratory #ilovemydad he’s so geeky. The only sound was the sound of the old buildings creaking and groaning and birds chirping each other as they ate the bugs in the sky, and you could hear these bugs croaking and trilling and humming, and with the buzz cubes it all seemed extra sharp, you know. I could see the pollution and the insect-drone as a yellow mask in the bottom part of the sky and all the old palm trees that had been carbonized, I mean serious #africanting. They all lost their leaves and just stood like clusters of dead candles.

  #zincbitch: Pix-tripping J!

  #PlatinumPrincess is live.

  #PlatinumPrincess: @Me5elle @#StormZone @#Miami! WTFx3!! Why don’t you #Mogadishu my bikini-line? Are you some kind of #FoxNewsWarrior now? Baste me a dildo #newgirl!

  #zincbitch: GTFU PP!

  #PlatinumPrincess: Chill zinc-o. I’m just playing the dozens.

  #Me5elle: K it’s Cool. Hail up @#PlatinumPrincess.

  #LEDmore is live.

  #LEDmore: Word to the 5elle. 5 up! Just scanning your #waxpoetical you #waxdeep #newgirl.

  #Me5elle: Hail up @#LEDmore. #BigLove. #waxpolitical. My dad wanted to see if we could visit his old hood but Jamie said it was pretty much all gone. I was balled though, Barak too. Jamie said Miami was less dangerous than it us
ed to be. They cleared most of the gangslammers, bumboys and #africanting out last year. Mostly it’s just #ghost-town. But we did hear some bangs, like pop pop but far away. Barak thought we were being shot at but #hotdarkwater didn’t seem too worried. We only had ten minutes roof time before the chopper came back. #ilovemydad he even wiped away a tear or two as we got back inside. The other dude was filming with an I-3DCamCan, next generation model.

  #zincbitch: HFS! You have to be a Prime to get those. Even my pops can’t get one until next year.

  #Me5elle: He was federated, like I said. A Witch-Dude.

  #zinbitch: Word.

  #LEDmore: Real word.

  #Me5elle: #self-reflection seeing Miami made me think about the world and what we’re doing to it. I think all us @#newgirls and @#man-guy could make more effort, I don’t mean #attachment-issue but #Better-Environment and we should be more grateful and pray #ILoveJesus to show our gratitude that we were born #valleygirls in #IloveIdaho #RealUSA where it still snows and they have fish in the rivers and that we’re not some poor sun-junky in the sun-slums SATELLITE – INTERRUPTED STREAM … PLEASE WAIT. UP-LOADING IN TEN … UP-LOADING IN TWENTY … PLEASE WAIT …

  Athens, Greece. Just after now.

  Abu-Bakr smiled at the American girl and stopped turning the pages. He had no idea how she expected him to respond. ‘Very good,’ he said. He could read English, but most of what she had written seemed incomprehensible. The American girl, her name was Jennifer, blushed and said, ‘It’s just a rough draft, nothing really …’ and gave a bashful shrug. ‘Oh, do you want another pita? Are you still hungry?’

  Abu-Bakr was still hungry. The American girl sensed this and signalled to the cafe owner. The proprietor didn’t look particularly happy, and Abu-Bakr knew it was because he was not supposed to be in this place with the tourists, where he could be seen. Three months in Athens and he was starting to hate the city. Every day he went with the others to Plaka and there he stood in a small square surrounded by tourist shops and restaurants, his merchandise wrapped in a blanket and stuffed in heavy bags. Certain areas were OK, other areas less so, but wherever he was he had to watch out, not only for the police but also the men who controlled the trade and decided who sold what where. The police would just move him on, but those other men – who could say what they might do?

  His pita arrived; just chips, salad, and sauce inside. ‘See, I remembered?’ The American girl first spoke to Abu-Bakr two weeks ago. Jennifer Constantine was her name. She was from New York, ‘the state not the city’, but ‘originally’ she was Greek, she said. He liked the way she said ‘originally’, opening her mouth as if the syllables were too big. ‘Originally’, he was also from somewhere else. ‘Jennifer Constantine’. To his tongue the name tasted funny. She was plump, friendly, and sensible and she wore the same short pants and vest top all the American girls seemed to wear. Her legs were chubby and tanned and she had short, brown hair yanked back in a tight bun. He thought her face was a friendly one and she had kind eyes that seemed patient and indulgent. Abu-Bakr asked her if she was married and when she laughed off the question he said she would make a good wife. Afterwards, he thought maybe this had been the wrong thing to say. ‘Jennifer Constantine’. She was ‘twenty-three’, she said. Abu-Bakr was twenty-five. Close in age, but she was so unlike his wife or sisters or any woman he had ever met before that it was difficult to know what to make of her.

  The first time she saw him, she said, she bought a fake Gucci bag. He didn’t remember the sale but she still had the bag. ‘It’s very practical,’ she said. ‘And who needs a real one? This is just as good.’ He could see the zip was already jammed, but she didn’t mention that.

  The second time, she bought a pink sun umbrella. He remembered her because she tried to speak to him. He was never very good when the tourists asked him things, usually just stupid questions like ‘Which way to the Acropolis?’ as if he was a tourist guide or had ever done more than look up at the famous rock with its ancient ruin. He knew it had been a great temple, then a church and a mosque, and now it was something altogether different – a monument to time itself, perhaps, a reminder that everything would fall. No matter. The world was full of ruins and he didn’t have money for admission.

  Jennifer Constantine asked him different sorts of questions. Where was he from? What was his name? Why was he doing this? At first he was suspicious. She didn’t look like police, but who could say? Now, after they had met a few times, he understood better what she was trying to do. She was trying to see him. She was working out what it was that she could see. All the same, he had no idea how to answer her questions. Even in his own language he didn’t have words to explain it all. She smiled as if she understood and gave him ten euros for the umbrella. ‘Keep the change,’ she told him.

  When the day was over he met the others. They came from everywhere – from Somalia, Sudan, and the Ivory Coast, Guinea and Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan, Tunisia, and Bangladesh. Their stories were all different, but the theme was always the same: pushed from their land by drought, famine, and flood, driven onwards by war and unrest. Abu-Bakr had thought it was just his country that was broken. Now he realized it was half the world.

  They took the bus back to the flat, a long drive through sprawling suburbs. There Spiros was waiting, ready to check the merchandise and take his cut. However much money they made, and most days they made very little, the largest share always went to Spiros. Spiros or one of his men would have new stock – more umbrellas, fake watches and bags, stupid toys. All plastic, junk, nothing anyone wanted. Sometimes they were made to buy the stock up-front. An extra incentive to sell, Spiros said to them, although sometimes they sold nothing. They couldn’t cheat Spiros. He had his thugs, and Abu-Bakr had watched them beat a man senseless and throw him on the street. There was nothing to be done.

  Half the world was broken, but the better half was meant to be in Europe. Even so, the situation in Greece was difficult. People spoke about the ‘crisis’: no work, no money, everything so expensive. He had seen the protests outside parliament, the riot police firing tear gas, the crowds like people he had seen everywhere, all of them angry, desperate, and trapped. On their faces, the same frustration he felt, the same worn fears. During the protests, Spiros brought gas masks and laser pens to sell to the crowds. They made more money than usual. The riots were bad, but at least there was no civil war. At least they could still drink the water and the electricity worked and there was food in the shops and at night people could go out and enjoy themselves. The police might beat them in the square, but they were not children with guns, high on drugs and desperate for food. They were not allowed to kill them.

  At sunrise and sundown they went onto the roof of the apartment and bowed to the east, to another ancient city none of them had ever seen. Every night they cooked rice and talked about getting away, of travelling to Patras where there were boats to Italy and from where anything seemed possible: France, Germany, England, Sweden or Holland, places with green grass, grey skies, cool rain. Places where they said you could get work and a decent place to live. Abu-Bakr didn’t know if all was true. Mohammad had relations in London, and Ismail had family in Brussels, and they clung to the promise of these contacts, specks of light in the darkness, distant stars with which to chart their journey. If these others had made it, so could they.

  Jennifer Constantine was also travelling. She had always wanted to see Europe. She laughed when he said it was something they had in common. ‘Europe’. She told him about her trip. England was great, London was cool, Paris was beautiful, France was wonderful, and Italy just enchanting, but everywhere was very expensive. Now she was staying with cousins in Athens after visiting Rhodes, Santorini, and the Cyclades. Had he seen the islands? The beaches? No, he shook his head. No islands, no beaches.

  Abu-Bakr found it easier to ask Jennifer questions than answer them. She was happy to talk about herself. ‘Oh my God, if you let me, I could talk all day, I’m just a big blabbermouth, tha
t’s what my mom says anyhow.’ She told Abu-Bakr that she was studying something called ‘creative writing’.

  ‘You want to write books?’ he asked.

  ‘Sort of.’ She said she was writing a story about a girl from the future in the form of her diary and conversations with friends. This way the reader would find out what had changed in the world and what was still the same. In the story the girl communicated using ‘social media’. ‘Like Facebook?’ said Abu-Bakr. He used it too, when he had a chance to get to a computer. It was a good way to share information and keep in touch with others also travelling north, searching for the best way to a better life.

  ‘Cool,’ said Jennifer, ‘I’ll add you.’ She said that in the future most people would not read books, but they would still tell stories. Stories were important. Abu-Bakr understood this. The ancient Greeks had told stories, thousands of years ago – he had seen the theatre where they said the first plays in the history of the world were performed – and they told stories now. It seemed a little strange, though, to go to university to study something that should be as natural and free as the air itself. He remembered as a child sitting to listen to the village elders tell stories that were older than their village, older than the tribe, stories that were a part of the soil and sky. He learnt these stories and told them in turn to his children. But now his village was gone, the elders were dead and his children had been scattered like seeds in the wind.

  ‘You seem sad,’ Jennifer said to him.

  Abu-Bakr thought of his wife and how ashamed she would be if she could see him now, doing this humiliating work, adrift in a hostile city and friends with this unmarried, infidel American girl. Almost two years had passed since he last saw her. His memories of her were like the reflection of light on water, broken by ripples and changing with the tide. She was supposed to be in Jeddah with two of their five children, working as a maid for a rich woman. He only hoped life was better for her than for him. Did she want the truth, this American girl, when she sensed his sorrow? Did she want to be told how the soil turns to dust when it has not felt rain for ten years and the crops perish and all that is left are the skeletons of sheep and goats as war spreads, north and south and all around? What did she know of the bodies picked bare by ants, children ill with hunger-swollen bellies or the people forced from their dying land to great camps at the border? He had no words for the stories of the broken world. Jennifer Constantine was an American girl. Had she ever gone a day without food or water? She had her God too, this cheerful Jesus who would die for her for all eternity, her God, and the supermarket, but what did she know of the tests of faith? What had she ever lost? But he also knew she was a good person and that was something to be thankful for. ‘I liked it,’ he said, finishing the pita. ‘It’s an interesting story. Maybe one day you’ll be famous and I’ll see your books in the shop. How about that?’