Sun circulated the rooms assigned to each working group, leaning quietly in back corners to measure the interaction and then after a while, if necessary, calmly steering the group in the right direction. It was always necessary.
The first group was considering the proposition that the future victor knows when and when not to fight. The whole point of this concept, in truth, was to pick your battleground, but the Gods involved had not absolutely grasped the correct end of that stick. A flip chart at the front had a thick line drawn down the centre, with one side headed ‘WHEN’ and the other headed ‘WHEN NOT’. Underneath each was, respectively, ‘NEVER’, and ‘EVER’. The delegates, having achieved this minimalist analysis, were playing charades. It was a film, two words, and the Mayan god of the Mountains, Cabrakan, was stumbling around holding his lower lumbar region and then pointing at himself.
“Arthritis god?” asked Shango, the African storm god, loudly. Cabrakan stood up and threw his arms wide in exasperation.
“Where is there a film called Arthritis god? Who’d go to watch that?”
“We don’t have easy access to cinemas, actually,” said Shango, “due to the repressive pre-eminence of the white gods who have invaded our land to take the fruit of our youth with their fancy clothes and incense.”
“Oh, right,” said Cabrakan, “look mate, I haven’t been worshipped for centuries but I don’t sit around whining about it. Not everything is the fault of the white man. We could all name something that isn’t the result of white deific imperialism couldn’t we?” He stared around the room, where various gods creased their brows in thought, whistled under their breath and examined their fingernails.
“Anyway, it’s-“
“-Brokeback Mountain.” said Sun, moving to the front of the room. He tapped the flip chart with the end of a felt tip pen. “Let me tell you two things. Firstly, this-“ he pointed to the words on the chart, “ does not address the issue, which is; when would we be happier to fight than him?” There were gasps around the room, as if bright lights had suddenly been turned on. “Second. He’s gone for a massage. Hot stones, possibly a few crystals in the corner of the room, some essential oils. We all know it’s bollocks, and if he comes back in here in a couple of hours feeling no better and finds you lot miming Fried Green Tomatoes at The Whistle Stop Café, he’s going to go wrath, and he’s going to go quick. So, sort it. Find a time and place the enemy really doesn’t want to fight.” He tossed the pen onto the table, and stared at the shamefaced bunch in front of him, heads down, finding a sudden interest in the grain of the MDF veneer.
Next door, there was a team made up in the main of Maori and Australian Aboriginal Gods, put together on the bases that they had a shared sense of indignation about being regarded as marginal by the more mainstream types, and that they could each understand what the other was saying. Their task was to develop a ‘strategy to win battles when they had both superior and inferior forces’, a problem undermined somewhat by God’s keynote speech, which had make it clear that his forces were superior only in moral values and he was struggling to find a war won only by the power of good.
At least they had taken this to suggest that they would have to concentrate on the ‘win with inferior forces’ part of the equation, but alas they had really only come up with the solution offered so much earlier by Inzanagi. Under ‘SOLUTIONS’ they had written; ‘CHEAT (?)’.
The occupants of the third room were considering the stipulation that an army should be animated by the same spirit throughout its ranks, a suggestion they took literally, all on their knees praising God. Sun opened the door, heard the laudatory hymns, and closed it again. If any of that were enough to ensure victory, they wouldn’t need him, would they? His fourth visit was equally short; the team considering the view that victory relies on military capacity and should not be interfered with by the sovereign. They saw him as a representative of the sovereign (in this case Supreme Creator of the Universe and all in it), and disbarred him at once.
He was mentally wearing lead boots when he entered the final seminar room. What mystified him was how these…beings…had ever come to be worshipped by honest souls who did everything they could to scratch a living and put food for their children on whatever passed for a table. It was as if the privilege they had always had, the accidents of birth that meant they were gods rather than night-soil collectors, had turned them into children. Like children they had no inkling that the world did not revolve around them. Like children, they were fed when they should be, slept when they wanted, and felt they had the right to anything falling into their field of vision. Like children, the biggest challenge to them was never adults, whom they could manipulate, but other children, whom they couldn’t
The Gods of nature ubiquitous in early civilizations became supplanted by unitary deities, but they didn’t take a long holiday and accept their retirement, like footballers past their best; they got angry and caused earthquakes and crops to fail, flooded flatlands. Many could not face up to the anonymity laid out before them for aeons, and both the Egyptian deities and those in the Norse pantheon found a way to encourage Hollywood to keep them in the public eye. Their innate belief that they had the right, the innate right to rule would have seemed ridiculous if it weren’t echoed by the few who rule the billions in the living world.
In the last room was a motley crew of deities whose position in the broad tapestry of worship had always been tenuous, and upon whom the other gods, to be frank, looked down. Sword-wielding gods of battle had little time for diaphanous females who claimed responsibility for obscure flora. Those Gods were much too busy contemplating their own beauty and loving themselves to talk Goddesses who were Love, who were Beauty.
They were almost all women, though a few worked across the gender divide, and the walls of the room in which they were working were hung with a large number of flip-chart sheets covered with concepts and queries. He watched as they worked, none pre-eminent, but all taking their turn in leading discussion. There was a calm energy about what they were doing, and most of all, he noted, a lack of predetermination about their views. It was a shock, after the previous groups he had seen, to come across those who listened to what others were saying. A decent spark would have ignited the testosterone in the other groups, but here deep breaths were in danger of making Sun want to lie down and eat ice cream from a bucket.
They were discussing the view that he (or she) who desires victory will be himself (or herself) prepared but wishes to take the enemy unprepared. He had no doubt that the male deities would have been talking about, shouting about, an attack before dawn, a surprise weapon. Flora, a Roman goddess, leaned back against a desk, her audience engaged, a tiny, pink creature with hair spiking in waves and rifts of colour, and asked the others to look again at what they had listed for the enemy’s state of preparedness. As the women came up with suggestions she pointed off to the sheets on the wall to ensure they had covered everything. What was clear to Sun, from this, was that the enemy had fire in forms both literal and metaphorical, and these goddesses and handmaidens had quickly concluded that charging in with more flame wouldn’t extinguish anything. He also thought, and this was counter-cultural for the product of as patriarchal a society as China in the 6th century BC (or indeed the twenty-first century AD), that it seemed that if you really wanted anything done, you might want to ask a busy woman.
Sun looked at the papers on the wall and stroked his long moustache. He realised after a moment that Flora was talking to him.
“Sorry? Miles away.”
“That’s ok. We were just wondering if you thought we were on the right lines.”
He’d never before been asked by a god whether he thought the direction of travel was roughly acceptable. He took a moment, aware of all the enthusiastic faces turned towards him. If he had time to think about it, seeing expectation in the eyes of goddesses would have been something he had no real right to expect.
“I think,” he said, finally, “you’ve done a r
eally good job.” He had to stop while they applauded themselves with frail, elegant hands. “But.” He was aware that they leaned forward, keen to hear his words. “But. Now you have done all of this, and you seem to understand very well what it is that enemy is prepared for, you need to take the next step. He can do all of this,” he waved his hand, “stürm und drang; lay waste to things, be the destroyer of worlds. And for sure, should it come down to it, that is where he will want the battle to be. But where is he weak? What is he?”
“Nasty.” said one.
“Vicious.” said another. More joined in. There were words coming from all quarters. When the sound died, a massive woman spoke. Her skin the colour of gold, her skin decorated with dark curlicues and angular patterns, black hair flowed in waves over her shoulders and to her waist. She said one word.
“Vain.” She, Atanue, Polynesian goddess of the dawn and the rivers. A random portfolio.
“Vain.” He agreed.
‘Vain’ was the first word that came to mind when Saramama spotted her date making an entrance into the restaurant. She was a slight figure, her hair long and black as the night, flowing over narrow shoulders of chestnut coloured skin of such a smoothness it almost shone even in the low lighting of the room. She wore a calfskin dress cut square across her bosom, decorated with tiny rubies and beads of ivory and azure. Her sister, Mama Allpa, had several breasts and they always joked that perhaps she had somehow been given Saramama’s by mistake but in truth her own two breasts were simply in proportion to the rest of her, and she wouldn’t have wanted Allpa’s problems finding a bra. Her wrists were ringed with bangles woven from the stems of plants dried and dyed in bright colours. Her eyes were the shape of almonds, ringed with black liner and deep brown in colour. If Disney had ever thought of making a major animated feature about Inca Goddesses, she could easily have been the template.
The god she was meeting, however, was cut from a different cloth. She sat quietly at their table as she watched him argue with the staff, who were insisting that all diners had to wear a shirt. His physique was seriously impressive, admittedly, but she had to agree with their view that not everyone wanted to eat their brown windsor in close proximity to an armpit. Muscles are still there, she thought, even if they are hidden by a length of cloth. He had a kind of tic, too, a small jerk back of his head and a flick with the fingers to keep his sun and salt bleached hair away from his face, which had strong, large features, and a beard in a ragged style that she assumed was deliberate.
The restaurant was seriously exclusive; but then she was meeting a relatively major god, so assumed he had some kind of pull. She would have preferred somewhere more down to earth, to be honest; she liked things that felt natural, she liked food that looked as if it came out of the ground, or at least ate things that did. This place was stiff and formal, and there was a cathedral-like silence broken only by the clatter of cutlery scraping on china.
She was weary and could have done without this particular meeting at this particular time. She hid a suppressed yawn behind a delicate hand. The day had been a real surprise, spent in the company of a roomful of goddesses, many of whom she had not met before, and almost all had proved to be lovely. They had all been a little wary of each other to begin with, unsure whether any of the company were going to start getting all powerful about things, but in fact they worked together really well, and Sun Tzu had been extremely complimentary about the quality of their co-operation. A long day, though, and without an answer. They reached the conclusion, admittedly, that they believed it would be worthwhile to play on the Devil’s vanity, but a long discussion as to how had not borne fruit. When they gave up for the day, she had politely declined their invitations to come for a cup of nectar and some Doritos, but was too shy to tell them she was heading for the first date thrown up by Dead Gorgeous.
The site was available all over the Afterworld, and she hadn’t made it entirely clear in her submission that she was a goddess, so she had had to decline a number of invitations to meet, including from a spot-welder from Baltimore USA; a legless Ukrainian lion-tamer, and a very hairy type with big eyes and teeth. He said that his hobby was hiding under bridges and attacking innocent passers-by. When she declined him he posted a number of entries on Faithbook saying that she was obese, bad-breathed, and a bit of a slapper. She thought she was the victim of an Afternet troll until she discovered that he was, in fact, just a Troll using The Afternet.
In the end, she came to the conclusion that it was a bit like film stars. The reason why they always pair up (for however short a time) with other film stars, is that no-one else really gets what their lifestyle is like. It’s all very well for a goddess, whether screen or actual, to think it would be nice to settle down in Leamington Spa with a chartered accountant, but your other half is bound to have his nose put out of joint when you rush off to simulate sex with Tom Cruise or to cause a massive crop failure in Ulan Bator. Hence the figure now approaching her table, tall and strongly built, preening his hair, now dressed in a small piece of linen that may have fit its true owner but made him look like he was auditioning for Robinson Crusoe.
“Poseidon.” He said, flopping into the chair opposite, his voice surprisingly ethereal from such an enormous frame, “and you must be Salamander.”
“Saramama.” she said sweetly.
“That’s it. My. You’re a little thing, aren’t you? I could crush you. Well, I mean. If I were to inadvertently…be flung upon you or something.” She held his embarrassed gaze. He reached to the table, flung open a napkin and stuffed it onto his lap.
“So, Saramama. And what do you do?”
“My name means ‘maize mother’” Her voice was like wind rushing through a field.
“Maze? I didn’t know there was anyone in charge of mazes. You should be able to help us find her way out of here then, heh?” He barked a laugh, the dense crash of a wave against a cliff.
“Maize.” She said. “I’m the Inca Goddess of grain.”
“Blimey. Is that a full-time job?”
“Seasonal.” She admitted. It was going to be a long evening. He blustered, tales of the oceans, how to select a good trident. She smiled long-sufferingly.
“You’ll never guess where I put all my details on Dead Gorgeous.” His voice was loud now. He clicked fingers at the waiter and made a sign for the bill. “Well, not all of my details. Some are just too big to describe, if you know what I mean.” Oh yes, she thought she did. “Well, I was in the Afternet Control Room, with the guy who invented it, in fact. They had this thing on the TV! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He was still describing the programme as they left. Tears running down his cheeks as he listed the hilarious costumes, the ridiculous games they played, the soakings and pratfalls. He tossed her her coat.
“My place?” He said, wiping his face with back of his sleeve. “Want to get a load of my undertow?”
“Don’t think so.” she said quietly, “Harvest.”
“Isn’t that in August?”
“There’s a lot of preparation.” She left him at the door, shaking his head, either at her refusal, or harbouring fond memories of men in polystyrene plunging into inflatable pools full of gloop.
11
René was keen to get going on the decoration of the other chalets, although there was considerable resistance on the basis that everyone was finding it difficult to locate the first one. There are no doubt times and places where a trompe l’oeil is apposite; to make a room appear larger, or to create the illusion of light, for example. There is less of a case to be made when, on a dark evening, someone under the influence of Goodtime’s Afterhours Ale is trying in to find the place they are sleeping.
René also had the disconcerting habit of turning up for work with an apple pasted to his face, a proclivity that caused anxiety particularly amongst the Visigoths, who had a morbid fear of fruit.
Ron hadn’t fully considered the possibility that the role of site foreman would require him to act
ually make decisions. His mind’s eye view consisted of the walking, the hat and blueprint, the pointing. He had even prevailed on Magritte to produce a blueprint simply in order to have such an item to roll up and hold.
“This is really hard, Ethel, “ he said, “I’m finding out how much work holiday camp designers put into creating the dream venue for breaks for the working classes.”
“Oh, don’t worry dear,” Ethel was massaging Ron’s right shoulder, which had become inordinately stiff from maintaining a hands-free grip on the rolled blueprint, “I’ll bet even Billy Butlin didn’t get it right first time. I mean, Skegness! What a ridiculous idea. Besides, everyone is having great fun.”
And they were. There were a dozen whittlers creating furniture for the chalets, from trees enthusiastically felled by the Visigoths. Ron made it clear what the template was, drawing on years of experience in caravans.
“Flimsy, that’s what we need. Don’t make the wood too thick, or it won’t feel authentic. And the edges have to be sharp, particularly the corners. If you make something and think it would be difficult to snag a cardigan on it, rough it up a little.”
Most of the furniture creators were incompetent enough to stick to the brief, being the sort of people who made torture racks, where the attention wasn’t entirely on the finish; shanty shacks in poorer parts of the world (although they uniformly bemoaned the lack of corrugated iron); or enthusiastic Do-It-Yourselfers, the kind who the check-out staff would see leaving with some lengths of four by two one day and returning for glue the next.
The Complete Afternet: All 3 Volumes In One Place (The Afternet) Page 72
