2023: a trilogy (Justified Ancients of Mu Mu)

by The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu

  22:47

  FUUK-UP is still innocently orbiting the Earth, unaware its minutes are numbered. While the worm enjoys the apple.

  22:51

  ‘There were two dark figures in the ice-cream van. I could not see what they were doing, but they were not in the business of selling ice creams.’

  22:59

  Divine is still lying back in ‘her’ pirogue, gazing up at the sky while she is drifting down the Congo. But now the sky is a moonless black studded with tens of thousands of stars. She knows the names of nearly all of them. And she knows this has been the greatest day in her life.

  23:01

  Henry Pedders walks onto the stage at the London Aquarium. A big cheer goes up from the Tottenham Riot Contingency.

  ‘Some of you know who I am, some don’t. But that don’t matter. What matters is that we had a blinding set from Tangerine NiteMare earlier, and Drums of Death has been layin’ down the beats heavy. It was him that asked me to come up and say a few words before we have a very special closing number for you all.

  ‘What it is, is I keep having these dreams about the Shard. In these dreams the Shard has this big eyeball stuck on the top of it. This eyeball swivels around and sometimes blinks, but it is always watching me. Now, I don’t know what this means or why I have these dreams, but I know I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it. In fact, I think the Shard is everything I hate and loathe in the world as it is at the moment. And I know we are not supposed to hate anything now we have everything we want. But this morning I got this book in the post.’

  Henry Pedders lifts his copy of Grapefruit Are Not the Only Bombs up in his right hand.

  ‘I have no idea where this book came from or why I got sent a copy. And I can’t even tell you what sort of book it is. But I flicked through it and I got to a page that had only three words on it. And I will read them to you now: “BURN THE SHARD”. And I knew then that tonight I had to do it. Then I sent out a tweet, and I guess a lot of you here got that tweet. “Tonight we Burn the Shard.”’

  A big cheer goes up.

  ‘And then I sent out another tweet. It was, “We will march down Kingsland, through the City. Across London Bridge. We will be there by midnight. The Shard will Burn.”’

  A bigger cheer goes up.

  ‘But when I was walking down the Kingsland this afternoon, I began to wonder if what I was doing was the right thing. Was this just my madness? Had I not been taking my pills? Then I bumped into my new friend here, Moses. We were having a pint and we were discussing this and that. And what he suggested I should do is let the people choose. So that is what we are going to do. Those of you who think we should burn the Shard down tonight, please raise your left arm.’

  A mighty cheer goes up, as does every left arm in the building. As for the fish in the aquarium, they were lifting their left fins.

  ‘So I guess that is it. But before we go and get on with the business, there is something else I have to tell you. Moses here, when I met him this morning, was about to head off to rebuild Jerusalem where it used to be before the Great Intifada. I told him, “Forget it, mate, that will just kick off all those problems again. Why don’t you build Jerusalem here in England, like in the song, but up North where no one lives any more, and all you Yids can go and live there and make it into your new Promised Land?” And Moses reckoned it’s a good idea, so that is why he got some of his mates down here this evening with all their cool threads on and stuff. So after we have all sung “Jerusalem” together, with Drums of Death and Tangerine NiteMare backing us, and after we have burnt the Shard down, some of us are going to be heading up North to start building Jerusalem.

  ‘I will count us all in.

  ‘One, two, three, four:

  ‘And did those feet in …’

  23:07

  The tanks are still rolling.

  23:11

  There is a knock at the door.

  Yoko opens it. Winnie is standing behind her.

  ‘We are arresting you both on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence, if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  ‘What the fuck? Murder? What murder?’

  Yoko resists; she is handcuffed. Winnie comes of her own accord.

  Both Barney Muldoon and Saul Goodman know they have their women. They have all the evidence. It is open-and-shut.

  00:01 Tuesday 25 April 2023

  FUUK-UP switches off.

  Her descent and burn-up begins.

  The internet shuts down.

  All of it.

  Even your iPhone23.

  World-wide panic is instant.

  If you were to be looking down on London at this very point in time, the only light you would see would be the tongues of flame licking up the side of the Shard.

  08:59

  A new day has dawned.

  The birds are singing.

  The cherry blossom is full.

  A killer whale leaps through the surf.

  A crow flies across the blue sky.

  A squirrel runs up a tree to its dray.

  A fox topples a bin to find a feast.

  A mother grieves over her murdered son.

  Welcome to the Dark Ages.

  End of Book Two

  Nine Months Later

  BOOK THREE

  The Christmas Number One

  1: THE GLOSSARY

  05:21 Monday 24 December 1984

  Dear Diary,

  I have been living inside The Shipping Forecast for most of my life. The only respite has been music that might be called ‘Sailing Out’ or ‘In’ or maybe ‘Sailing By’. Ah yes, ‘Sailing By’, that’s it. And then at times I surface and I am in something called the World Service and I might be in Peru or Mongolia or Zimbabwe.

  But then I am back again in The Shipping Forecast.

  There are warnings of gales in Viking, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Plymouth, Biscay, Trafalgar, FitzRoy, Sole, Fastnet, Shannon and Fair Isle …

  This morning they brought me breakfast. It was still dark outside. There is an outside.

  They said it looked like we might be having a white Christmas.

  Christmas? When did that happen? When did I stop believing in Santa Claus? I blame my sister. I can still remember where I was standing, at the top of the stairs, when my big sister told me Santa Claus was not real and it was really our father and mother. Only we didn’t have a father and mother. But we must have had them once.

  South Easterly 5 to 7, increasing gale 8 at times. Rough or very rough. Wintry showers. Good, occasionally poor …

  The breakfast is the same every morning. Cornflakes; smoked streaky bacon – more streak than bacon – with cold baked beans; white thin-sliced toast with Golden Shred marmalade. The coffee is Camp Coffee, not even Nescafé. They put the sugar in without even asking.

  I asked the nurse, or at least the woman who looks like a nurse, where I was and could I go home yet. And she said, ‘Not yet, luv. You be a good girl and eat your breakfast. Matron will be around soon. We don’t want any naughtiness, do we?’

  ‘Naughtiness?’ I replied. ‘I was always a good girl.’

  And she said, ‘You know, like yesterday morning. We don’t want you upsetting the other patients.’

  Cyclonic 4 or 5, increasing 6 at times. Occasionally rough at first in Dover and Wight, otherwise slight or moderate. Thundery showers. Moderate or good …

  I looked out of the window. There was some snow falling. So I guess it must be Winter. Do they have Winter in Zimbabwe? It is nearly morning. I am not inside The Shipping Forecast and I cannot hear ‘Sailing By’ playing either in my head or anywhere else.

  But where am I?

  I wait.

  I listen.

  There are other beds with other people in them. I don’t recognise any of them. But I think they are always here.
Maybe they have been living inside The Shipping Forecast as well. Someone is snoring. Someone always snores.

  Westerly or North Westerly, backing Southerly later in West, 7 to severe gale 9, occasionally storm 10 at first in Sole, decreasing 5 or 6 for a time later. Very rough or high, occasionally very high at first. Showers, rain later. Moderate or good, occasionally poor …

  I am not inside The Shipping Forecast.

  The Shipping Forecast is somewhere else.

  I am in a hospital.

  ‘Matron, where am I?’

  ‘You are in Saint Crispin’s Hospital for the mentally insane.’

  ‘And why am I here?’

  ‘You ask me the same questions every morning.’

  ‘But where is this place?’

  ‘It is a hospital outside Northampton, in England, on the Earth, somewhere in God’s Universe. And tomorrow is Christmas and we are all going to be good girls today, aren’t we, Roberta?’

  ‘Can you bring me my diary and pencil?’

  ‘Only if you promise to write nice things and not try to poke your pencil in Jemima’s eye.’

  ‘Jemima?’

  ‘The nice lady in the bed beside you. She is always good.’

  ‘I only do that when she snores.’

  ‘Well, you be a good girl. And, as it happens, I have a little surprise for you. A parcel arrived for you this morning. Somebody must love you. Do you want me to help you open it?’

  ‘I will open it myself, Matron.’

  I think that was when I fell back asleep.

  Easterly or South Easterly 5 to 7, occasionally gale 8 in Fair Isle, decreasing 4 at times. Moderate or rough, occasionally very rough in Fair Isle. Showers, wintry in Fair Isle. Good, occasionally poor in Fair Isle …

  I always like it when we get to Fair Isle. The first boy I ever kissed wore a Fair Isle sweater.

  Matron left the parcel by my bed. It was wrapped up in brown paper tied with string – my favourite type of parcel. I also like wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.

  After Matron left I opened the parcel. There were two books inside. I like books. Books are my life. There was also a letter from Francis Riley-Smith. I remember Francis now. A nice young man. A good young man. If I was younger … I wonder if he ever wore a Fair Isle sweater.

  It was then I started to remember. It was then I started to write this entry in my diary.

  I am no longer in The Shipping Forecast. This is real life and I can remember – but what is it exactly I remember?

  I was living in a cottage on an island. A Scottish island. The Isle of Jura. I had been writing a book. That’s what I do. I write books. I am a writer. I am remembering and I am writing again.

  The books in the parcel are newly leather-bound with gold embossed lettering on the front. The first one has the title The Blaster in the Pyramid, and underneath the title it says ‘By George Orwell’.

  But who was George Orwell, I wondered. And then I remembered that I was George Orwell when I wrote books. The rest of the time I am Roberta Antonia Wilson.

  On the other book it said, ‘The Rotten Apple by George Orwell’.

  Then I reread the letter from Francis Riley-Smith, and I will quote:

  Dear Roberta,

  We all hope you are recovering and are well enough to enjoy this Christmas. And come the Spring you will be back up on Jura to finish your book.

  I hope you don’t mind that when you fell ill last April, I took the liberty of driving up to your cottage to clear some things out before the holidaymakers started to arrive. The floor was covered with scattered papers, all of them typed on. Flora, the cleaner, who came with me, was going to put them on the fire with the soiled bedding and empty packets of Digestive biscuits, but I decided to collect them all. I knew you had been doing so much writing. I thought they might be important to you and your family. And everybody still loves Fish Farm.

  I gathered them up into one huge sheaf and took them back down to my place.

  You might remember the strange tall man who was with the rock band called Echo & The Bunnymen. His name was Bill Drummond. He was still at the hotel that night and he asked me if he could read through what you had been writing. To quote him, ‘It’s mind-blowing. It might not be great literature, but I have never read anything like this before.’ Then my friend Jimmy, from Devon, the one who did the drawing from Titus Groan, you may remember? Well, he read some of it as well and thinks it’s brilliant. We decided there and then to see if we could get the two books printed and bound. Even if we only did a few copies of each of them. Jimmy said he would do some illustrations for the books.

  We had 23 copies of each of them printed. Bill Drummond knew somewhere in Liverpool that does this sort of thing. I think the illustrations Jimmy Cauty has done are superb. I hope you don’t mind but we hope to sell a few of the copies up here to cover the cost of having them printed and bound. And, of course, to cover your outstanding rent on the cottage.

  But most of all we all wish you a speedy recovery so you can get up here in time for the bluebells coming into bloom and you can then get Book Three done. I am sure when all three of the books are written and published properly as a complete edition, it will be at least as successful as Uganda, if not Fish Farm.

  Yours truly,

  Francis Riley-Smith X

  After reading this I could feel the tears well up inside me. I repressed them. I am still good at repressing things. I did not stick my pencil into the eye of the lady in the bed next to me as she snored either.

  I read his letter again. And cried some more.

  And then I picked up the first of the two books, The Blaster in the Pyramid. I knew I had written it. I could tell these were my words. I could not remember anything about any of it. But I was horrified to discover they had also printed my diary entries as well. This means they will have read them. It is too late now. Nothing to be done.

  Maybe some people reading it will just think I am some kind of post-modern character in the book and not really the author, and none of the more personal and somewhat embarrassing incidents I have reported actually happened. Let us hope so.

  But, in a way, I rather like the idea that I am a character along with the rest in my own book. This has cheered me up.

  Then I read the other book, The Rotten Apple. And it was the same with this one – nothing in my memory told me I had written it. What I did know was that there was to be a third book. If the third book does not get written, the world will self-destruct. And things cannot wait until the bluebells are in bloom or until I am back in the cottage on Jura. The book has to be written before the sun rises tomorrow morning. Before Matron does her rounds. Before it is a white Christmas. Before Santa Claus is not believed in by another six-year-old girl at the top of her stairs. Before another breakfast of bacon, egg and cold baked beans.

  But the trouble is, I know nothing about anything I have been reading in these two books I have been sent.

  My mind is clearing. The Shipping Forecast has gone. ‘Sailing By’ will not be heard ever again until …

  I have made a decision. I will read both of these two books again and make notes about the characters, artefacts and incidents, and these notes will be the basis for the first chapter in Book Three. They will act as a glossary of sorts for future readers who have found themselves lost.

  I once was lost but now am found

  Was blind, but now I see

  It will also be a handy way for those studying this book as part of their GCSE coursework to be able to just lift these bits without having to unduly worry about remembering or interpreting all of the book’s many backwaters.

  CHARACTERS, ARTEFACTS AND INCIDENTS

  Winnie Smith, or Winifred Lucie Atwell Smith, to give her full name, is maybe the heroine of the book. She lives at Victory Mansions, Dalston, London. She is twenty-eight years old at the time the book is set in 2023. She goes running. She acts on impulses. She left school back in 2011 to join the Occupy Movement, where
she lost her virginity. At the beginning of this book Winnie has just started to keep a diary – not a blog. She is using pen, ink and paper. She is filled with lust for a man putting up fly-posters. She has violent sexual fantasies about him that she tries to repress. She did have an affair with an older man, whose name was Julian Assange. She also has lesbian episodes. The first entry in her diary was:

  I HATE GOOGLEBYTE

  I HATE WIKITUBE

  I HATE AMAZABA

  I HATE FACELIFE

  I HATE APPLETREE

  But, more importantly, Winnie is working for Celine Hagbard. She has been since 2017. Winnie had worked out an equation that would end death – not physical death, but mental death. This was the final frontier and it was going to be smashed. All Winnie now has to do is hit ‘Send’ and death will be vanquished for ever. This is what this book is about – living life for ever. Winnie’s Mother left her when she was five. Winnie’s father died of cancer when she was twelve. Winnie is also an addict. Winnie is also pregnant, although at this point in the story she does not know it. Winnie also dreams of meeting her baby sister again one day.

  Celine Hagbard invented the internet. She built FUUK-UP – First Universal Uber Kinetic-Ultramicro Programmer. FUUK-UP became Google, which then became GoogleByte when she did the deal with Melinda Gates at MicroSoft. Celine Hagbard may have once had a sex change and she may have once had a submarine – a yellow one. She once worked for The Beatles. She lives in New York City.

  The Beatles were a band. They ended the Vietnam War.

  Michelle Obama was both the first female and last-ever President of the USA. She is currently modelling for Damien Hirst, who is making a pure-gold statue based on the famous Little Mermaid in Copenhagen harbour, but with Michelle Obama’s face and torso. He is keeping the fishy tail.

  Vladimir Putin was the former Czar of the Russian Empire (2017–21). Obama and Putin are going to go on a worldwide lecture tour together.