London When it Rains

by C. Sean McGee

  “I think it would be best if I slept alone.”

  “Oh, but nobody sleeps alone.”

  “Even still, if you could pull some strings... I’d hate to be a ruckus, especially if I didn’t have to.”

  “It’s part of your therapy. You’ll see and you’ll understand in time. We’re never alone, not even if we will it so.”

  The Doctor helped The Old Man out of his restraints and out of the bed. And when he was standing, The Doctor took his hand and guided him out of the room.

  “Did you like the balloons?” asked The Doctor, looking over his shoulder.

  The Old Man stared back at the ceiling.

  “I don’t care for them,” he replied. “I much prefer my two feet right where they are.”

  “Do you mind if I hug you?” asked The Doctor.

  His arms were already wide open before he even said a word. His mind was already made up. The decision on whether or not there would be a hug had already been made; probably long before The Old Man even woke.

  The Old Man didn’t want a hug. He was sure that nobody in the world ever did; but he also felt that this was some kind of a test, so he lowered his guard and he smiled somewhat. Though it must be said, it was less like a smile and more like a spasm – as if he were stroking.

  The Doctor embraced The Old Man and hugged him for an inconsiderate amount of time. It was long enough for the experience to pass beyond awkward, inappropriate, and upsetting, to being one that was quiet and relieving; and it was at that time that The Doctor let him go.

  “Do you like table tennis?” asked The Doctor.

  “No.”

  “Bowls?”

  “No.”

  “Cards?”

  “No.”

  “Swimming?”

  “Do I have to wear a costume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no.”

  “What about crafts?”

  “Like pottery?”

  “Amongst other things. Painting is popular.”

  “I don’t paint.”

  “You could learn. That’s what the classes are for.”

  “I am not at the age to be terrible at things.”

  “A fundamental part of the therapy is for all guests to undertake new learning activities. What was the last thing you learned?”

  The Old Man thought of the last three things he had learned. One involved cable ties, the other an oven baked dish, and the last was something an old Turkish man said as his throat was being slit.

  “Seni affediyorum.”

  “What is that?” asked The Doctor - intrigued and a little amused.

  “I’ve no idea. Something that stuck with me.”

  “We have language classes too. Maybe we can find out what that means.”

  “I enjoy music,” said The Old Man.

  “Fantastic. We have some excellent composers residing here at the moment. Wonderful electronic arrangements.”

  “Blues,” said The Old Man.

  You’d swear he’d cussed, or stepped on a wee puppy; such was the look that The Doctor gave.

  “That type of music is prohibited. Anything else, though.”

  “Jazz.”

  Again with the face.

  “Sir, in order for you to be better, you must distance yourself from that which subconsciously conspires with your thoughts and emotions. This branch of music that you mention – blues, country, and rock – is laden with the seeds of redemption. It is riddled with God and anti-God. It is the filthy needle to your heroin. These kinds of music are not only unsafe, but they are also not tolerated and are strictly prohibited. There are very dire punishments for this type of contraband. As I said before, a man of your merit is not the kind of man to make a fuss or a ruckus. And as for music, we have a host of wonderful composers who work to create upbeat, positive beats as the kids say – music for better people; music for a better world.”

  “Can I ask you – before we go any further…..”

  For The Doctor, conversation was a tool of mathematics; it was a measure of probability. He knew what The Old Man was going to ask before he even thought that he had a doubt in the first place. He knew because everyone did. This type of question was the last cigarette, the last chocolate pudding, the last bloodied syringe, and the last torrid affair. It was a reprieve of sorts, but more so, it was an awakening and an acceptance of a problem; a problem that they were incapable of resolving on their own.

  “I would be worried if you didn’t ask. Go ahead.”

  “Do you miss any of it?”

  “Not at all. Was it the music that you enjoyed the most?”

  “It was.”

  “In the body, viruses can mask themselves as seemingly healthy and purposeful cells. Even some diseases present symptoms which can cause guests to actually rethink treating their life-threatening illness. The music you loved was the mild euphoria that clouded your deeply syphilitic mind. It was the beautiful colour, to the berry’s venomous nature. The detrimental effects of God cannot be lessened by its supposed rewarding side effects. ”

  “What is life? What does it mean to be alive? Is there a purpose? And where does life go when the body dies?”

  “You are old. Does it scare you, the thought of not existing one day soon?”

  “I know I’m old, and I know my end is coming, one day soon; I just don’t know how I am supposed to feel about that. Some days I am scared, others I am angry, and but most of the time, I don’t really care. I wouldn’t call it relief. I’m just lazy maybe.”

  “What do you think the purpose of life is?”

  “Everything we do is felt, thought of, or spoken about after the event itself. If someone falls, we turn and look. If that someone is hurt, we quickly rush to help them. If it rains, we pack an umbrella. And if it’s windy, we shake and shiver, even under our woolly coats. If we’re scratched and it pains then we wince. But if we’re scratched and it tickles then we laugh. We read a book, a poem, or watch a movie and we spend days, weeks even a lifetime, reviewing it, debating it, deconstructing it, and doing our best to understand it so that we can either relate to it or distance ourselves from its meaning. The ambulance follows the screams and shouting, which in turn follow the silence that follows a horrific crash. And then the investigation quickly follows suit. The purpose of all things is defined after the event, but there is no finite end. One event always leads to another so I ask you, how can you be sure there is an end? And if there is, what is its purpose?”

  “Good. I was afraid you had no questions and were oblivious to your own predicament. Betterment comes only after one asserts that they are much worse than their proposed cure or solution would have them being. We treat all kinds of people, from all walks of life. And the time needed to cure each person is relevant to their individual condition. You may have heard the expression that the darkest hour comes before the dawn, yes?”

  The Old Man nodded.

  “That’s not entirely true. The darkest hour, in fact, is several hours before the dawn. After the worst pain you can imagine, there is still a great deal more pain to endure. There is no immediate cure. There is no next-day-solution. The very worst that you feel right now in your existential abandon will feel only slightly less bad tomorrow, and only marginally less worse in the days and weeks that follow. The path to recovery – to normality – is, like our life, yet to be defined. It is yet to be carved out. There is no pill, and there is no wishing upon a star.”

  “What is there?”

  “There is a process – a logical and humanistic process. And we begin almost right away. I’ll take you to your room, first of all, let you meet your new friend, and to unwind a moment or two, before this afternoon’s therapy.”

  The way he spoke, The Old Man didn’t get a sense that he was leaving anytime soon. He spoke in such a calm and passive manner, as if The Doctor knew there was absolute no chance to escape; be it over the wall, or by learning and manipulating the system. The Old Man could feel this. He could see it i
n The Doctor’s smile. Anger was a fearful defence. The Old Man knew, through his many years, that people who smiled a lot were always capable of a great deal of harm.

  “Shall we?”

  There was only one sufficient response. The Old Man went with The Doctor out of the evaluation room and into what looked and felt like, the lobby of the grandest and most spectacular hotel that could ever possibly exist. If there was a railing it was golden and if there was surface it shimmered and glittered. There was not an inch of space that didn’t warrant awe or applause. The Old Man had never stepped foot in such wealth and exuberance. He walked as if he had spoiled his pants – carefully lifting each leg and gently placing each foot, for fear of scuffing the floor.

  “What do you think?”

  “Amazing comes to mind.”

  It was amazing; and a stark contrast to the bleak developments and dilapidated social housing across the street and for as far as the eye could see.

  “It is only when we bathe ourselves in opulence that we can truly see our state of disrepair.”

  Outside on the street, barefooted men and women with scabs on their fingertips, filth on their faces, and lice in their hair, fought over dented cans of aerosol while their children wrestled with scavenging and disease-ridden dogs, just for something to do. While inside, a young couple in pin-striped suits brought The Old Man a glass of wine and set of pyjamas.

  “Let’s see that room of yours,” said The Doctor.

  VI

  The heart of a city is not at its centre. Little is drawn to the heart as much as is drawn to the city’s thoughts and ideas, the colour of its eyes, the trim of its beard; to the depth of its neckline, the stripe in its suit, the shadow in its lashes, and the spunk in its voice. The heart cannot be dressed. It cannot be worn on the city’s sleeve. Instead, it beats beneath a wall of sound. It is silent, for the most part, and beneath all the lauding, applauding and revelling cheer, it goes entirely unnoticed and unattended.

  The heart of this city looked as any heart should. Row after row of avenue, street, and alley was paved in asphalt and cement; and from them stood magnificent concrete structures. And like a heart, hundreds upon hundreds of factories of every breadth, depth, and height. And there were factories of every shape, colour, and dimension. Were a single dollar to flow through its superior vena cava, it would turn into a hundred thousand more; and it would inspire a wealth of new ideas and technologies.

  This was not a diseased or rotting heart. Its paint was not chipped or peeling away, and its arteries were not laden with potholes; nor were they lacking proper signage or infrastructure. This heart – though as still as it was silent – looked as if it were entirely capable of proper function. It looked as if it could turn a single cent into an entire fortune. It looked like it could turn an inch of risk into a mountain of prosperity.

  Each factory still housed their many machines, and they all looked as useful and as valuable as they had the last time that they ran. And at the end of nearly every line in every factory, there lay pallets, still waiting to be loaded with boxes; and there sat jacks and forklifts, waiting to load trucks that filled every space in every loading bay.

  And in every office, desks were still decorated with invoices, receipts, schedules, and calendars; and they were prettied with pictures of somebody’s children, somebody’s wife, and somebody’s cat or dog. There were plastic ferns in the corners, the kind that glimmered, as if they’d just been watered; and there was not a whiteboard without some kind of a plan or strategy, just as there was no sink that was not piled to the brim with cups and plates, and clumps of old coffee powder.

  This heart had not outlived its purpose. It has not stopped beating by any fault of its own. It did not end for lack of resource, and it did not end for lack of demand. It merely ended on the odd occurrence that somebody said so, and then an entire city acted as such. Beyond disrepair, it was not. It could - were a drop of blood spared to it - start again as if it had barely skipped a beat. It had so much potential. It could, by the look of it, carry its city to the peak of its potential – where the air is most thin; and then carry back to solid ground again.

  All it needed was a single cent.

  But the heart of this city was an organ of discard and abandon; and it had been as such, long before its final beat. It did not fail suddenly. Its demise was fractional and it took years before it passed the point of no return. But when it did pass that point, all the bickering in the world; and all the pointing, blaming, and needless debating could do little to stem the bleeding. The hammers stopped hammering, the machinists stopped machining, and the wheels eventually stopped turning. It was gradual at first with shop after shop and factory after factory slowly grinding to a halt, but the term crisis quickly turned into epidemic until one fine day, the heart could longer beat. The last machines went quiet and the dust began to settle in.

  It had been nearly a year now since the last trucks cleared the last lines of production. It had been even longer since a single cent had been made. This part of the city had been forgotten and discarded. It was not maintained, monitored, or even policed. For over a year, it was not been visited, driven by, or even spoken of. Nothing resided here. Nothing stayed, and nothing passed through. This part of the city – the heart of the city – it did not exist. So strange was it then, for bursts of blue light to be spitting out from beneath a roller door; and with it, the sound of metal being ground and beaten into shape and position.

  “Load the ammunition and explosives as close to the gas tanks as possible, and food and rations at the front of the buses.”

  Between the flickers of blue light, a group of heavily armed militia – both men and women; young and old – prepared themselves for war. It was hard to pick one from the other. They each looked as forceful, pristine, and lethal as the weapons they carried in their hands. Their sizes and shapes differed, it was true, but the same could be said for the bullets they loaded into their guns, and for the knives, daggers and swords they carried in their boots, on their belts, and sheathed behind their backs. Not one person appeared any less violent than the other, or any less capable of harm.

  “How soon ‘till the cages are complete?”

  Inside the last bus, the flickering of blue light stopped. The Welder looked at The Leader and firstly nodded, and then he smiled. His mouth looked like a quarry. The few teeth he still had were yellow, twisted and rotting; and there was a fleshy stump where his tongue had once been. It wiggled when he smiled.

  “One minute – max,” said The Leader.

  The Welder nodded once more and peered back into the flickering blue light. He didn’t wince for a second. The Leader stepped off the bus and addressed the militia.

  “I do not take lightly, our role in any of this. We will be looked upon at first with fear, and then, as the wounds heal, we will be remembered in disgust and dismay. Our legacy will be infamous. Those of us who survive will be hunted. Some of us will be trialled and imprisoned, and others will be stoned and tortured. Our family names will end with us tonight. They will not carry on. Our brothers and sisters, and our cousins, uncles, and aunties – they will change their surnames and they will live with great, silent shame if ever they are made to remember us. I and you alike will be chastised. Our graves will be unmarked and it will be a crime to remember us in passing. I do not take this role lightly, and neither should you. Without us, there will be no great change. Without us, everything that we believe in – every ideal that we live and strive for – will turn to dust. The flower of humanity that we have sewn will wilt and wither away. All that is good will never be.”

  The Leader loaded his vehicle with arms and ammunition. The rest of the militia did the same. There didn’t seem to be a nerve out of place. There was no fright or worry – there was barely even a trace of thrill or excitement. Each person filed into their vehicle; be it the armoured buses and holding cells, the jeeps and motorcycles, or any one of the utilities that were strapped with explosives, accelerant, an
d shrapnel.

  As the keys turned and the engines roared, The Leader spoke gallantly.

  “Though the letters of history will damn us and condemn us for what we are about to do, and though it shall never be proven or admitted, we are the saviours of this city; just as we are its villains. Without us, there is no chance of betterment – there is no new age.”

  VII

  “Cheese?”

  The Old Man hadn’t eaten any in years; his pension couldn’t stretch that far. But that’s not to say that he didn’t crave it incessantly. His first instinct, though, was to politely decline and then hope that he would be offered again.

  If he had his way, he’d eat the whole damn platter. Instead, he eyed it with a ravenous appetite and acted as if he had just been fed. There was a protocol after all to wanting which helped to differentiate it from begging; a kind of mannerly dance. Being courteous was etched in The Old Man’s genes – offering what he did not intend to give; saying thank you for that which he did not want to get; apologising when nobody was at fault; and smiling, when all he wanted to do was snipe and curse. And so, though he most certainly wanted the cheese, his damned instinct - of which he had no say about whatsoever – had him politely decline.

  “No thank you,” he said, expecting to be asked if he was sure.

  Instead, The Roommate ate the entire platter. He didn’t look up until he was done, and he barely slowed to chew or even take a breath. The Old Man stared at The Doctor as if some kind of punishment were to be handed out, but The Doctor merely smiled and took the empty platter when The Roommate had finished licking it clean.

  “And how was your death last night?” asked The Doctor.

  The Roommate smiled and stretched out his arms – yawning with his mouth wide and gaping like a rude and unlearned child.

  “It was very good.”

  “Do you feel any worse?”

  “I am without pain, and without worry or bother, Doctor.”