News from the Squares

by Robert Llewellyn

  ‘This is the Mkutano Mahali, our meeting place,’ said Nkoyo. ‘It is also sometimes known as the General Assembly, the nearest organisation I can think of from your era would be the Nations United in New York.’

  ‘The United Nations,’ I corrected.

  ‘Indeed, just so, so we are here to attend a very important meeting and you, the man from the cloud, are the guest of honour.’

  23

  Roar of the Weavers

  If the press conference I’d attended in the Institute in London was a training session in dealing with mass public exposure it wasn’t much use. When I first entered the cavernous hall that housed the Mkutano Mahali I momentarily thought I’d gone outside. This structure was above the scale of mere humans, it was just too big and too elaborate, the very fabric of the place was beyond anything I’d seen in London, so truly high-end in a world where I hadn’t seen anything low-end or even vaguely shoddy.

  I stood in the entrance to this palatial enclave and my mouth hung open wide. I don’t know how many delegates attended this meeting, without doubt many thousands. I don’t know where they came from, but judging by the styles of clothing and racial characteristics, I’d guess everywhere on earth. I scanned the many hundreds of faces I could see from my vantage point, a doorway at the rear of the room. Before me were hundreds of rows of spacious chairs, up above the chairs at the far end of the vast hall was a long desk type thing behind which sat maybe twenty women.

  I could see some men in the room, quite a few men who seemed mostly old, but they were definitely blokes. However, the vast majority of the delegates were women and they all, so it seemed, were looking at me.

  I followed Nkoyo down a long aisle between the endless rows of seats, I noticed that many of the people sitting either side showed a great deal of interest as we made our way toward the front of the hall.

  Two very tall women smiled at Nkoyo when we arrived near the front, Nkoyo gestured for me to sit down and I did so. I was staring around all the time I was sat there. This was a fascinating place; there was so much going on, so many people conversing with each other. Every now and then I would notice a huddle of women would turn and look at me before returning to their closed huddle.

  ‘This is amazing,’ I said to Nkoyo who had finally taken the seat beside me. The seats were very high so I didn’t get the feeling that hundreds of people were staring at the back of my head.

  I looked up in front of me and got a nasty shock, they might not have been looking at the back of my head, but they were certainly able to see my face.

  There was my mush, must have been eighty feet across on a huge screen above the people sitting behind the raised desks. I tried not to freak out but any tiny reaction on my face was enlarged hundreds of times, it was very disconcerting. I tried to work out where the camera was because I could see no sign of one, this, I soon realised, caused a ripple of laughter in the hall. I must have looked a right nutter, eyes darting this way and that to try and see evidence of a camera.

  ‘Try to ignore it, it’s very distracting when you’re sitting this close to the front,’ said Nkoyo, her thirty foot high profile was clearly visible on the screen as she leant toward me to whisper. She looked pretty stunning though, even at that size.

  I somehow knew as I sat next to Nkoyo that I was an attendee at The Congressional Investigative Committee on the Future of the Male. Hefty topic indeed.

  This was underlined very reassuringly for me by the screen changing from my face to a blue background with the words ‘2211 Congressional Investigative Committee on the Future of the Male’ in ten meter high letters.

  ‘Delegates, your attention please, the man from the cloud, Gavin Meckler is among us,’ said a voice, an African woman’s voice speaking English.

  This announcement was followed by such an incredible silence it almost hurt my ears. How so many people in such a huge space could remain that quiet is a testament to their incredible discipline.

  Again the voice could be heard, ‘Gavin Meckler is a man from the dark times, however, he has been thoroughly tested and is of no danger or threat to any delegate.’

  I started looking around the room for some source for this voice, it was very loud and clear but I couldn’t see anyone talking.

  ‘We have much to learn from this young man, not only about our history but also about the decision we are now facing.’

  There was a wave of reaction through the vast gathering, not so much the noise of chatter or agreement, more the impact of recognition, the crisis of the male population was clearly a bit of an issue with these folks.

  I raised myself slightly in the chair and looked at the vast rows of seats behind me, many people were still arriving and taking their seats but it was getting close to full. Suddenly a face I’d seen before became apparent to me in the row right behind me, it was Anne Hempstead; the woman I’d met in the Erotic Museum in London. She was staring at me intently, I nodded an acknowledgement to her but she didn’t react.

  ‘The Congressional Committee is now in session. Order please,’ said the confident voice. The room settled rapidly and I noticed some movement to my right. A very diminutive Asian woman move toward the large table directly in front of the row of raised desks on the sort of stage area.

  ‘We now call on today’s first witness, Mayor Nguyen Yen from Phnom Penh.’

  The image on the screen changed again, this time to a kind of wide shot of the women sitting behind the desks in front of me. They were near enough to where I was sitting for me to make out their individual features so this screen was clearly for the benefit of the huge crowd behind me.

  ‘Who are they?’ I whispered to Nkoyo.

  ‘Relax, and you will understand,’ came her familiar reply.

  ‘Good morning your Mayorship,’ said a white woman who sat near the centre of the group. ‘Thank you for joining us today.’

  On the screen above them a small inset box showed a close up of the smiling Mayor sitting before them.

  I sat back in my chair and tried to relax as I listened to what was going on.

  I knew I was sitting in hall twenty-three at the International Congress. The Congress itself was made up of seven thousand representatives from around the world. They sat in the Hall of Congress which was somewhere in the same building. Somehow, I knew that was situated about twenty floors above the hall I was sitting in.

  I knew this committee had been convened to try and discern the mood of the population to the coming crisis and weigh the opposing views of various specialists. The Congress would then create a report which would be sent to the Senate where the topic would be voted on, a law would be passed and the world would continue.

  ‘Your Mayorship, would you care to comment on a recent report?’ The woman speaking, this one clearly Chinese, looked down in front of her. ‘It’s item four thirty-eight in the evidence folder, with the latest criminal statistics.’

  After a moment of silence I heard a woman speaking in what I assumed to be Vietnamese, I could see her face on the screen even though she was sitting with her back to me. I started to fidget which I always seem to do when I can’t understand something.

  ‘Relax and you will understand,’ said Nkoyo softly.

  I sat back in my chair and tried to relax again, in a few moments I started to hear English coming from the tiny woman.

  ‘…as you all know, we have reached a crisis point and there is no hiding from it, we have to do something and we have to do it with urgency. The number of men in our world is very low. The number of fertile men is even lower. At current rates, and without intervention, there will be no fertile men on planet earth in sixty years’ time. I know some of you think this to be a good thing. We all agree that during the dark times, such a dream was held by many women. There was no question or argument that for thousands of years men were the c
ause of most of our problems. This, I will argue, is no longer the case. This man we see before us, this man from the end of the dark times is a wonderful example of how the orthodoxy of the Weavers has distorted reality. The man we see before us today, the man from the cloud is not a murderer, he is not a rapist, he will not swim through a river of snot to get to a friendly pussy.’

  I don’t know if you can really describe eyes as ‘popping out of your head’ but mine certainly came close. I sat utterly motionless on hearing that last phrase, it was so out of keeping with what this delicate and diminutive woman had been saying, it stopped me breathing. Could I be hearing a glitch in the translation system? I understood that I was hearing a very sophisticated language translation system as opposed to the real voice of the women speaking, but how could you mistranslate such a specific sentence, swimming a river of snot! It was gross.

  ‘It’s a famous quote from a political tract from a little before your time,’ Nkoyo whispered to me. ‘It’s from a document called the SCUM manifesto, SCUM short for the Society for Cutting Up Men.’

  ‘Oh my Lord,’ I said. ‘Sounds a bit heavy duty.’

  Nkoyo smiled gently. ‘Yes, that is a good term, it was very heavy duty, not unlike some of the women in this room.’

  She calmly turned and faced front again, I hardly dared move.

  Mayor Nguyen Yen continued: ‘It is perfectly true we now live in the most peaceful and prosperous period of all human history. As the report states, last year there were less than one thousand recorded murders on the entire planet of more than eight billion souls. We have had not one report of a rape, not one case of sexual assault against a child and very low property crime. Many women would have us believe that this is entirely due to the low numbers of men among us. However, let me say this, of that one thousand murders, over nine hundred and eighty were committed by women. Four hundred and sixteen of those murders were women killing men of whom they had no knowledge, just a random killing simply because the victim was male. Of the millions of men who have lived out their lives on this planet since the dawn of recorded time, only a very small minority ever committed a crime against women. Only a very small proportion of the male population were killers, violent offenders and perverts. I am not trying to deny their role, there have been many men in history who have proven beyond doubt the darkness in their souls, but a blanket reaction to such statistics will not help us. We are experiencing an imbalance that is bad for us individually, and bad for the health of our society. We must, somehow, breed more men. I ask you, for the good of the human race, let us be a human race, not just a female race.’

  The reaction to her final statement was instant and raucous, I could sense the room was divided but at a guess I would claim the majority were on her side. The cheer that sprang up was loud and prolonged, the hissing and booing was intermittent and short.

  I was beginning to get a better idea about what was going on. For a start, there really were forces in the world that wanted to eradicate men for good. There were also more balanced voices that wished to facilitate men’s continued existence. I started to understand my role in this huge and heated debate; I was a man from the dark times who, the pro-men lobby were suggesting, wasn’t all that bad. I think that was the gist of it. It felt like a bit of a responsibility, as if it was down to me to represent my entire gender and all their misdeeds from the year dot. Nice one.

  ‘Thank you, your Mayorship,’ said the white woman on the panel.

  I watched the diminutive Mayor Nguyen Yen from Phnom Penh stand up behind the table and bow graciously.

  The loud African woman’s voice came over the public address system.

  ‘The Congressional Investigative Committee on the Future of the Male now calls Professor Ruth Heilman from Boston.’

  An impressive figure stood up from a seat further along the row I was on, she walked to the gangway and stepped behind the table recently vacated by the Mayor of Phnom Penh.

  Professor Ruth Heilman from Boston was tall, slender with a gaunt expression on an ageless face. I could tell by her hands that she was probably over seventy years old but you would never have guessed from her figure, movement or stature.

  ‘Welcome, Professor,’ said the white woman on the panel. ‘You will know there are many among us, and indeed many in the Senate who are unsure of the aims of the Weavers. I would ask that we all try and remain calm today, that we stick to the questions and try not to resort to personal attacks.’

  ‘I have no wish to make any personal attacks,’ said the Professor. Her voice had an incredible authority, I knew if she told me to do something I’d probably end up doing it even if I didn’t want to. She struck me as someone you wouldn’t want to mess with.

  ‘Professor, you are well known for your advocacy of terminating the existence of men, would that be a fair assessment?’

  ‘It would,’ replied the Professor. I couldn’t help reacting a bit. I realised at once that the only thing she’d ever ask me to do was to stop being alive.

  ‘So would you have us exterminate all the men among us now?’

  I looked at the Professor’s gaunt but handsome face on the screen. She remained very calm.

  ‘I realise there has been much said about us that is, how shall I say, overly dramatic and reactionary. Of course we have no wish to harm any living creature, that is the whole point of our message, for surely it is only men who have ever harmed other living creatures, particularly women. No, we would simply allow them to die out.’

  ‘And how exactly would we allow such a thing to happen?’ asked another of the women behind the long desk.

  ‘Sisters,’ she said. Somehow the very word sent a chill through me. For a start, she had ignored the small cluster of men who were seated among the delegates, what about them?

  ‘As has been illustrated most informatively by Mayor Nguyen Yen we are indeed at a turning point. We are on the verge of something no woman coming from the same period of history Mister Meckler here could ever possibly have imagined.’

  She gestured toward me as she referred to me, but didn’t so much as glance in my direction. I was beneath her contempt. Indeed, I actually felt beneath her contempt. Unfortunately, as I was experiencing this particular emotion, my image was projected onto the screen. I froze in terror.

  ‘We are on the cusp of a new epoch in human existence and we are faced with a choice. Do we continue to live with the ever-present danger of men one day turning on us and reclaiming patriarchal power, or do we strive forward and end their influence on our thinking, on our society and laws once and for all.’

  There was some very energetic and clearly female cheering from the crowd, but again, I would suggest the majority remained silent. I turned to see the crowd in the area of the hall easily visible from my seat. I then noticed something that surprised me; a man in about the third row was clapping and cheering.

  ‘I am not a fool, sisters, I know there are men among us who are exemplary in their behaviour and attitudes. I want to say here and now that I wish them no harm. I am not suggesting any form of violent or even unfair treatment. I am not suggesting even the most benign curtailment of life privileges for men. It is not necessary and it would undermine what we are trying to achieve. No, what I am saying is let us continue on the course we are now on. As many of you will know, by the end of this century we could be in a position where there are no more men on the planet. I realise that there are many among you who find this prospect to be horrific, it fills you with terror, it fills you with the fear of the loss of the father. Most of the women in this room were raised by their fathers, we have been told since childhood of the importance of the father in our lives, but that importance was chiefly to make us more able to deal with the threat from men in our adult lives. What I am suggesting is this simple understanding. We are trapped by the father, trapped into the age-old patterns of submission and subser
vience to a weaker, less stable and intellectually deficient other.’

  Another small smattering of applause, almost apologetic in its brief existence; however, this limp response didn’t seem to curtail the impressive Professor’s determination.

  ‘Some women say they would miss the cock. How many women in the world now have ever experienced penetrative sex with a man? According to the latest statistics only about thirty per cent of the world’s women. How can you miss something you have never had? We wouldn’t miss it, we wouldn’t miss men, we would be able to breathe a sigh of relief after forty thousand years of oppression.’

  Once again, the eye-popping feeling was upon me, but I kept my head down, I didn’t want the delegates to witness my reaction. The Professor’s statement was greeted with applause from the crowd so I don’t think they were paying much attention to me. I had never heard any woman say she either did or didn’t ‘miss the cock’. I’d never thought about women’s concept of ‘the cock’ as some kind of entity independent of individual men. I suppose there was a part of me that understood that women wanted to experience penetrative sex with a man, but I had never really thought of it in such graphic terms.

  ‘But remember this, sisters!’ Professor Heilman bellowed above the racket in the auditorium, ‘it has only been a mere one hundred and fifty years that women have truly been in control of their destiny. It was women who steered this planet away from inevitable destruction caused by the short-sighted stupidity of men. Remember that stupidity, remember that oppression and bullish determination ruled and ruined the lives of women for forty thousand years. It ruled and ruined the lives of animals for forty thousand years, ruled and ruined the stability of the planet for forty thousand years. I do not forget the struggles and sacrifices of my fore-sisters. I do not forget the heartache and pain, the humiliation of rape, the violence, murder and fearful loathing inflicted upon us, generation after generation after generation. To that way of life, to that brutal patriarchy, I say we shall never return!’