Chapter One
It was the morning of a dull, grey and soundless day in the autumn of the year 1721. Moses O Liathain left his apartment which he shared with the painter Christopher Lafferty, and nervously descended the many flights of concrete stairs towards street level. Finally, he made his way towards the gunmetal black door of the building. There had been many days of rioting following the decision of the government, The Liberal Futurists, to correct the phantom time hypothesis. For many, the phantom time hypothesis was an absurd conspiracy theory. One which was based on the notion that the Gregorian calendar was invented so that the Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII had collaborated so that Otto III would have begun his reign in the year of 1000 AD. The Liberal Futurists had set out to correct this historical anomaly, and as a result 297 years of history had disappeared over night. Moses O Liathian unbolted the door and cautiously made his way out on to the street. It was a cold morning. The pavement was wet from the rain which had fallen over night. The cold would deter the rioters he hoped. He quickly turned left and headed towards the East End where he would meet Orlaith Cunnigham. He ensured the bulky statuette, a prototype, of The Count of Emprapapakasalorious, which was the sculpture he had created and which stood outside of the Malala Yousafzai Educational Institute where Orlaith worked, was securely beneath his black faux-woolen overcoat. He intended to give it to Orlaith as a gift. He sincerely hoped she would like it. A small grey drone followed him as he walked along the street. This made him uncomfortable. However, he reassured himself that as long as the drone was following him, it was less likely that any rioters would throw acid in his face or stab him to death. Although nothing could ever be guaranteed. The streets were quiet. Several moments later, a silver autonomous car quickly lurched past Moses O Liathain and the drone turned to follow it. Over recent weeks he’d observed that cars designed like small tanks in dull colours had became increasingly popular. These were far removed from the slim and colourful aesthetic beauties, he had loved as a child. He thought that the change from the vulnerable to the brutal was indicative of the fear people were feeling. As Moses turned left once more, he noticed the decaying trunk of a tree peering out behind a concrete wall. A rarity, he thought. A child in a balaclava scurried behind. Moses glanced at the graffiti then moved along. He thought for a moment about Orlaith. He was excited to see her, but he tried to detach himself from that feeling. Before meeting Orlaith, he’d dated a 27 year old, small blonde, half Armenian woman called Sinead Barsamian-Poghossian. She’d started speaking to him after they met through the cousin of Christopher Lafferty. He’d felt an immediate connection with her. She was everything he’d ever looked for in a woman. Intelligent, creative, vivacious? Do people actually say vivacious? he wondered. A few days later they’d met for a date. Moses wanted to take her out for dinner, but the restaurant along the street which he’d planned to take her to was closed due to a burst water pipe. They went to his apartment and he felt pangs of guilt as he poured her a vodka and coke using Christopher Lafferty’s vodka. He wasn’t much of a drinker himself and the thought of Christopher Lafferty noticing and having to repay him, did trouble Moses somewhat. Moses handed the small woman the drink. She smiled a big smile. Then she kissed him. Moses was taken off guard, but he kissed her back, rather than going to sit on the sofa as he’d intended. Things escalated fairly quickly. Moses wondered why he was thinking these thoughts. Did he still have feelings for Sinead Barsamian-Poghossian? Why would he? Orlaith was similar in many respects. And if he was to accept that they were alike, then Orlaith was at least the more charming version. She didn’t have any of the coldness of Sinead. Not that he’d known how cold Sinead could be at the time. Nonetheless, it had left him upset and distrustful of all people and their motives. Not quite as upset as he’d been when Eleanor Gibbons had broken up with him when he was 21, and he’d subsequently bumped into her at a bar, Moses hated bars, and saw that she was with a tall dark haired man who looked well off, Moses hated bars even more, and he got drunk in a way he’d never been drunk before in his life or had ever gotten drunk again, since. And he’d ended up walking home with one shoe on. But upset, nonetheless. Maybes Orlaith would turn out to be exactly the same. Maybes he should turn around and go back. Why was he torturing himself? He asked. Regardless, he carried on nervously walking towards Orlaith Cunningham’s apartment hoping no-one would throw acid in his face or stab him. His mind wandered and he suddenly imagined he was with Orlaith walking the long walk towards Parliament Square. Perhaps they were going to overthrow the government and put time right again. Not that he was the kind of person who would do such a thing, besides, trying to overthrow the government with physical force was silly. A much better idea would be to… Anyway. Suddenly they were being chased along the road by some people in Spitfires. Moses panicked. So Moses imagined they were in a Spitfire, too. A faster one. But the Spitfires continued shooting at them as they blitzed, and turned in an aerobatic fashion — was aerobatic a word? he asked himself — along the narrow street past all of the new buildings which led towards the Parliament building. Moses and Orlaith’s Spitfire turned on its side as it narrowly avoid hurtling into the big silver Cenotaph which was quite phallic looking and he thought for a moment how he might design it differently. But then his mind wandered again and he saw that the Spitfire which he and Orlaith were in to avoid being hit by the other Spitfires which were shooting at them for no apparent reason had been hit, and it was crashing down towards the Panopticon building where all of the police and spies and other bureaucrats worked, at a rather alarming speed. But then as the Spitfire crashed to the ground, they were no longer on the long road towards Parliament. It was like all of reality had broken down. They were in a desert. But not an ordinary desert. It was a desert which was furiously hot, and they were surrounded by what looked like mauve coral. And there was a large pool of water, with extraordinary neon colours. And there was a man in a mask shooting at them from on top of a sand dune. Or it might have been a woman. It wasn’t right to assume gender. But suddenly there was a series of volcanic eruptions. And then he was able to make out the figure who was shooting at them more clearly. He looked at his hand and he saw the white, white, white bubble emerging. He had been burned. He turned his attention back towards the outgrowth and he saw a small wiry woman. She had a build which was suspiciously similar to that of Sinead Barsamian-Poghossian. He nervously took hold of Orlaith’s hand and they ran, but now they were in dense jungle. And they hid behind a large tree. And Orlaith put her hand on his shoulder and Moses became nervous at the thought of it. His mind returned to the street. Another small grey drone was circling nearby. And he noticed that there was now more traffic on the road. And he noticed that the closer he got to Olympe de Gouges, more people seemed to appear. He wondered where everyone might be going. Few people in this area had jobs. And there were no shops. Were the quickly moving images in his head of him and Orlaith being shot at actually some kind of defence mechanism? It was a strange thought, but was that not just the brains way of providing quick hits of dopamine similar to what you experience when you watch a movie where the image shifts every few seconds? After all, there wouldn’t be time to feel how upset he was about Sinead Barsamian-Poghossian if he was instead consumed with thinking about her attacking him and Orlaith. Sometimes feelings were just too overwhelming. The mind worked in some unfathomable and mysterious ways. What were the people on the street doing? Where were they going? Maybes they weren’t going anywhere. Maybes they were all wandering towards someone whilst being consumed with their own inner battles. Maybes they too were trying to repress how they actually felt with thoughts of being attacked.
Chapter Two
Orlaith Cunningham had spent the morning dancing around her front room to Bonnie Tyler. She picked up a dirty plate and cup and moved them to the nearby water faucet. She was excited to see Moses but was fearful that the small pox pandemic was worsening. She moved towards the small open window of what was her living room, kitchen and bedroom overlooking the East End Docks. Once a place of intrigue, mystery and menace. This place once echoed with the sounds of heroic characters and dastardly deeds. Smugglers, muderers, and the great and the good once called the shipyards, wharves and alleys home. There was a large gathering below and the local police watched from afar,
– Have you seen the news lately? Get yourselves inside, look after yourselves, she shouted down.
– Shut up came the reply from one of the youths.
– Can’t you move them on for their own good she shouted in the general direction of the police.
– Nothing we can do, the officer responded insouciantly. Dejected she walked to the sofa and sat down. She tried to lift her spirits by thinking about when she’d first met Moses in the coffee house. She’d looked across the room and Moses swiftly averted his gaze. He looked down at the cup of absinthe he was holding. Orlaith was curious about him. She wasn’t sure why. She just felt like she should say something. But what do you say? How do you feel about kidnapping people? How is your relationship with your mother? If you could live anywhere on the planet, where would you want to go? If you could change one thing about yourself, what would you change? If you could be any type of weather, which weather would you be? What kind of laptop am I? Maeve was deep in conversation with the young woman and her pro-Phantom Time Hypothesis mother. Orlaith worked up her courage. She stood up. Moses carried on staring at his cup of absinthe. She flicked her hair back and walked over.
– Hi.
Moses looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. And he forgot to respond. He stared a vaguely uncomfortable stare at Orlaith, which went on for several moments. Why was she speaking to him? Did she like him? Had she just came over to tell him he’d spilled mayonnaise on his shirt? Maybes she thought he was someone else. Moses thought she seemed nice and then remembered that he should probably respond.
– Hello.
– Well.
– Well.
– Well. I just saw you sitting here and I thought, I don’t know, that you seemed lonely. Actually, I might just be projecting and that might just be me. But I was just wondering, you know in those coffee shops where they write your name on the cup?
Moses looked confused. Nowhere had sold coffee in over a year, due to the trade restrictions.
She continued. This is going better than I imagined it would, she thought, sincerely.
– Well when I go to those places and I’m on my own I get an extra cup and ask them to write the name of an Aztec god on it and then I set it down opposite myself at the table.
She looked at Moses’ facial expression and ir explicitly said how am I supposed to respond to that?
– You know a place where you can actually buy coffee?
– No.
– But you just said?
– Yeah, well if I did, that’s what I would do, you see.
– Why? Wouldn’t you be worried that Huitzilopochtil might be offended by the Pumpkin Chai Mocha you bought her? Or that they might spell her name as Weezelo Pocky on the paper cup?
OH MY GOD, thought Orlaith, HE’S SO AMAZING, HE KNOWS ALL ABOUT AZTEC GODS.
– Well, Piltzintechutil is my favourite. He’s cool, she said coyly.
– Piltzintechutil?
– Yeah. He’s the Aztec version of Mercury, but you probably already know that. He was also a god of hallucinatory plants, including mushrooms. If I was going to be an Aztec God I would be Piltzintechutil. If you were an Aztec God, which one would you be?
Moses had exhausted his knowledge of Aztec gods.
– Well, I suppose I’d kind of like to be Piltzintechutil, too.
– We can’t be both Piltzintechutil.
– Why?
– I don’t know, we just can’t. You can be Xochipilli.
– Xochipilli?
– Yes, Xochipilli.
– Why Xochipilli?
– Because he’s the god of art, beauty, dance, flowers and songs. And you look more like Xochipilli.
– How do you know what Xochipilli looks like?
– I saw a statue once.
Moses looked across to the table where Orlaith had came from, and he saw that the fair haired woman Piltzintechutil had came in with was staring at him. Once more, he looked nervously at his cup of Absinthe.
– Why do you stare at your cup when you’re nervous? Said Orlaith. You don’t have to be nervous. We’re Aztec gods. I don’t think we should live in Mexico though. I think we should live in Florence. It seems nice there.
Moses looked up. Orlaith smiled at him. Moses wasn’t sure if he’d smiled back as he wasn’t always aware of his body, but he thought he might have. It was difficult to say. Why am I so weird? Thought Moses. Why am I actually thinking about how weird I am when there’s a woman talking to me who is so beautiful and well, weird? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I be like normal people? What can I say to her now. And all thoughts suddenly seemed to dissipate from his mind. And he started to panic. Oh, I’m so good at talking to strange men in coffee houses. I could do this as a career. Thought Orlaith. And then made a mental note to try and never say that out loud, because people would probably get the wrong idea. Moses felt nervous. He’d spent months thinking about Sinead Barsamian-Poghossian. He’d felt low, unattractive and that he had nothing to offer anyone. And now this strangely attractive, tall, blonde woman was speaking to him while he was just minding his own business, trying to drink his absinthe. And she seemed to like him. That was his feeling anyway. Unless this actually was just her way of breaking it to him that he’d spilled mayonnaise on his coat. He then quickly glanced at his coat to make sure. Orlaith was confused. Why had he stopped speaking? Why was he now scanning his coat. Maybes she wasn’t actually all that good at speaking to strange men in coffee houses after all. She looked over to Maeve who had now stopped speaking to the attractive ginger woman and her pro-Phantom-Time mother. She moved to walk back over to the table. Slightly embarrassed. Eventually, Moses remembered to respond.
– I’ve always wanted to live in Florence too. I went to Venice once. But I was only four. I only really remember it because my mother fell from a gondola into the canal. And then she refused to go near open water again, because one of the Italian men who dragged her from the canal was overzealous.
I AM GOOD AT TALKING TO STRANGE MEN IN COFFEE HOUSES AFTERALL, Orlaith thought to herself, rather relieved.
– Overzealous? How do you mean? Did he? You know?
– No, no. He grabbed her by the arm and she ended up with a sprained wrist.
– Oh.
– But she’s never been the same about water or Italians since.
– But the Italian saved her life?
– Well it was quite shallow, so she wouldn’t have drowned anyway. But she hates Italians, now. She’s a curator in an art gallery, and she once worked on a Paolo Veronese exhibit. She said it gave her nightmares and she ended up getting a warning from the gallery for being abusive to someone who said they liked the Venetian school.
– That’s really—
– Yeah, I know. What about you?
– What about me? Have I ever been rescued from a canal by an Italian?
Orlaith wasn’t sure why she said this, as it was almost certainly not what he was asking.
– No, I meant. He paused. I don’t know what I meant actually.
Orlaith smiled, because she didn’t know what he meant either.
– Okay, come and meet my best friend.
Orlaith grabbed Moses by the hand, and he scurried to his feet. Moses thought this was quite forward. Orlaith felt this was exactly the right thing to do and that she was moving things along nicely with Xochipilli by thinking outside of the box. For a moment, she wondered why people used the expression thinking outside of the box. Because first you had to put everything into a box in order to think outside of it. For her, there’d never been a box. Her thoughts then returned back to Xochipilli.
They walked over to the table where Maeve continued to glare. Moses looked away again.
– Maeve, meet Xochipilli.
– Hmm. I don’t think he’s Xochipilli, Orlaith. What’s your Sunday name?
Orlaith thought how brilliant it would be if his name was actually Xochipilli. That would be so, so amazing, I’d marry him on the spot.
– My name’s Moses.
MOSES, this thought was followed by a series of exclamation marks in her mind, and a pang of immense excitement.
– Oh, are you the person who created the sculpture across the street? Enquired Maeve.
Moses looked slightly embarrassed.
– Yeah, I suppose so.
Orlaith was stunned. She looked at Moses. Thoughts and feelings raced through her at what felt like a million miles per hour.
MOSES IS FAR BETTER THAN XOCHIPILLI.
– This is amazing. I love the sculpture.
– You can take her word for that. Maeve added in a tone which Orlaith didn’t quite approve of.
Orlaith gave Maeve a disapproving look for trying to embarrass her. I’m perfectly capable of embarrassing myself, thought Orlaith, indignantly.
– I don’t think it’s good, but it’s really nice that you like it. I’m not much good when it comes to sculptures, which is why his head looks like a turnip. So I’m sorry about that, I wish it was better so you could like it more.
Orlaith saw that his hilarious self-deprecation was entirely sincere. He genuinely thought the head of the sculpture looked like a turnip, while she thought it was the most striking thing she’d ever seen. Although she wasn’t entirely sure why she liked it so much. It stirred something inside of her. She realised that on some level, it was exactly the same thing she’d experienced minutes earlier when she first noticed him sitting across the coffee house, on his own, drinking absinthe. Whatever that feeling was, she liked it.
For their first date, Moses and Orlaith went to The Archers. A dingy bar on Olympe de Gouges, a few minutes walk from the East End Docks. It was small, grey and full of posters and band paraphernalia from times of yore. There was a vast mural of The Rolling Stones’ tongue and lips logo painted on the wall. Next to it: posters of Jimi Hendrix, The Doors and Tom Waites. Nationalist bunting hung over it all. The bar had an obscene selection of whiskeys. And a chalkboard sporting the cocktail menu. Moses couldn’t imagine anyone ever ordering a cocktail in a place like this. A man with one eye stared at him.
– Leave him be, will ye? Said Orlaith to the one eyed man. Did Orlaith know these people? Moses asked himself.
– That’s Cyclops. He’s nice really.
Moses tried to comprehend this. The one eyed man turned his one eye to the barmaid. A slender, dark-haired woman who could have been little older than 19.
– So anyway. Said Orlaith.
Moses was still thinking about the one-eyed man who moments ago looked like he wished to stab him. A red-haired woman in the corner of the bar started playing a tenor banjo. Another woman who also had red-hair —Moses wondered if they were related — started playing a mandolin. He didn’t recognise the jig. A small grey haired man sat besides them on top of of a wooden box, tapping it.
– Who’s that? Moses said. He’s not even keeping in time with the music?
– That’s Johnny Bongo. Said Orlaith.
– Is he actually with those people?
– Yeah. He usually plays the spoons.
Moses looked horrified.
– What were you going to say, before? Moses asked.
– So I was thinking. Orlaith paused again, contemplatively.
Although they hadn’t known each other for long, Moses had already given up on the idea of ever trying to guess what Orlaith was going to say.
– What?
– So, the world that we think we know, the world of our senses is just a tiny portion of an infinitely weirder universe. Do you ever think that our entire reality is only an illusion?
That wasn’t what I was expecting, thought Moses.
– I suppose. Sometimes. I used to think about stuff like that a lot but it filled me with so much anxiety and dread. I remember what time when I was eight or nine, I was sitting in the bath and I tried to think about how big the universe is, and thinking about the scale of it all and how in the grand scheme of things, well, anyway, I didn’t leave the house for three days.
– Really?
– Yeah, I was thinking about atoms, which to us are infinitesimally small, but atoms are almost entirely empty space. But isn’t that our known universe in a nutshell? We live in the centre – or the nucleus – which is bursting with energy, or violent thermonuclear reactions, depending on how you want to look at it. But what if our entire known universe is only a relatively small single atom, a single small, tiny block of something which is far bigger, something that is even more incomprehensibly huge than anyone could ever even try to imagine? So naturally, what is beyond that is what I always try to imagine. Even though it scares me to death thinking about it. That’s what my work has always been about you see? Well, except for that statue outside of the Educational Institute, The Count, although, I’m glad you like it. So I suppose it isn’t all bad.
Orlaith found herself slightly stunned by the scale of Moses’ perception. She had so many questions. She wanted to know what Moses thought lay beyond the boundaries of our known universe? Why he was thinking about atoms when he was eight? Did he still take baths? Did he want to go for a bath, now?
– Why do you dislike it so much? You’ve never actually told me.
Moses felt a lump develop in his throat.
– Because of how it came about, Moses said, hesitantly.
– What do you mean?
– I was dating someone. Orlaith felt a sudden pang of sadness. The idea of Moses ever being with anyone else felt unnatural to her. So anyway, she worked for Phantom Technology who own the Educational Institute, but she’s moved to the International Health Organisation now, he continued. Orlaith felt more dislike for Phantom Technology than she’d ever done before. Still, she thought, at least the current Phantom Time Hypothesis controversy had put a massive dent in their share price. No-one wanted to be associated with a company called Phantom at the moment. She realised Moses had stopped speaking.
– Did you create it for her?
– No, she got me the commission, even though I didn’t want it. That’s why the head looks like a turnip.
– I’m not sure I follow.
Moses looked up and noticed Cyclops staring at him with his one eye. Cyclops looked disgruntled. Cyclops then turned his one eye back towards the barmaid.
– They wanted me to do a representation of the Count, the founder of the company.
– Phantom Technology?
– Yeah, so I had to express how I feel about that. And how much it upsets me that these big technology companies are in charge of running the schools.
Orlaith smiled at this.
– So why a turnip?
– You know the Brothers Grimm?
– I love fairy tales.
– There’s a story about a turnip. It’s about two poor brothers, one of whom presented a prize turnip to a king and was awarded enormous riches. And the other brother became extremely jealous and.
– Moses! Do you believe the rumour that he killed his brother?
– I have no reason not to believe it.
Orlaith, stunned but smiling put her hand over his and laughed.
– I can’t believe someone commissioned you to design a sculpture and you designed one which symbolising him killing his brother.
– You’ve got to try and hold power to account some way or other, he said. She smiled and kissed him.
Back in the real world, the doorbell rang, she excitedly raced towards it. To see Moses.
Chapter Three
Ebullient and skinny, with a cigarette in his mouth Christopher Lafferty descended the stairwell. He turned his head towards the mucus green flaking paint, noting that it had still not been fixed as promised and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. As he reached the bottom of the stairway, dismissing the explicit no smoking sticker besides his head, he took the lighter from the pocket of his checkered pyjama trousers and moved it towards the cigarette which had hung gratuitously from his mouth for a number of minutes. As the flame approached the tip of the cigarette, producing a whiff of smoke he wearily watched the slim, dark figure inspecting the metal mailbox beside the door.
– Moses! He declared loudly, you missed quite the party last night.
Moses looked at Lafferty contemptuously.
– I’m sure I didn’t.
– You have to lighten up my friend. Moses noticed the cigarette.
– Do you have to? You’ll get us kicked out of this building.
– Au contraire, it’ll be that wicked little black ocelot of yours which will see us thrown into the hinterlands, long before the pious hypocrites next door complain about my smoking. Would you like one?
– I gave up. As you’re aware.
– Disgraceful! What kind of artist will you be, now that you have cast aside your self-destructive ways! But alas, you might be able to pay me the money you owe me!
– I don’t owe you any money.
– Moses! This deflection of responsibility may work with those harlots you are so fond of, however it will not work with a man of the world such as myself!
– I’m not actually following. How much did you have to drink last night?
– Moses! The water of life is all we have. A whiskey a day keeps the small pox at bay. Moses looked disapprovingly.
– Good to see you’re taking the threat of the virus seriously.
– You’re a fine one to talk. Where were you last night? Standing beneath the bedroom window of the Armenian with a rose in your mouth singing in the moonlight?
– You’d never make a poet or a comedian.
Lafferty took a long drag of his cigarette and considered Moses. He wondered where he’d been but if he wanted answers he knew he was more likely to get them from the flaking mucus green walls of The Customs House. Lafferty put his arm around Moses, and then began to sniff at the collar of his faux-wool coat.
– Well, well, well, I smell, smell, smell ladies Chanel. You sly fox.
– Get off me you oaf.
– Your lack of a gregarious manner shows however that you did not get further than her squirting perfume on your collar. Take myself for example, Charlotte and I engaged in several minutes of high intensity intervals this morning, as per government guidelines on exercise, and now I feel like I could conquer the world.
– That feeling doesn’t last long. You’ll be back to wanting to slit your wrists by the time you get back upstairs.
– And why would I do that? Death by small pox is far more romantic. Speaking of which, would you prefer death by small pox or shall I hand you the razor?
– What?
– As your friend Moses, I am just giving the option as your friend Flaherty is currently around the corner, he bombastically turned his body 280 degrees and gestured, and he’s ready to pounce like the ocelot. No I kid. He’s asleep on the sofa.
Moses looked at Lafferty with disgust.
– My friend? You’re a traitor inviting that bastard into my home. I wish I had a small pox infected razor so I could stab you with it.
– Moses, don’t be so aggressive, he said patronisingly, it’s not healthy to hold grudges. What’s done is done.
– I don’t accept that.
– Moses, Moses come with me. Lafferty took him by the arm and lead him up the stairwell towards the apartment. I wish they’d do what they said they were going to do six months ago and paint these bloody communal areas.
– You are not going to distract me by talking about paint.
– These are serious matters! More serious than your petty grudge? Moses freed himself from Lafferty’s grip and pushed him into the wall.
– My petty grudge? You know what he did.
– Now is not the time for this.
– Now is as good a time as any.
Lafferty paused for a moment and composed himself.
– There is never a good time. We are civilised people. Plus, I’ve told Charlotte that if you start fighting then she should hit you with a pan. She’s ready and waiting. Now settle down.
– Don’t tell me to settle down.
– Show some respect for the neighbours, Moses. Ready, steady— Lafferty pressed down on the handle of the white panel door with its crooked number 7 and entered. Moses followed behind. A small black cat stared at Moses then turned it’s back and ran towards a scratching post which occupied the centre of the large living room. Moses saw that Flaherty was asleep on the black and beige two seater sofa. He walked towards the cat and lifted it with both hands and then walked towards Flaherty and dropped the cat on Flaherty’s face. Flaherty was shocked into sitting up by the squeal of the cat. It dug it’s claws into his cheekbones as it immediately made haste towards the kitchen.
– What the?
Expecting further conflict, Lafferty grabbed Moses and pulled him aside. As Lafferty ushered him towards the bedrooms, Moses noticed the long brown hair of Charlotte Firth, wearing a loose cotton blue dressing gown.
– Not this again, she said.
– Moses, can’t you let it go? I thought you had a new girlfriend anyway said Flaherty wearily.
– You’re a treacherous, no good, philandering drunk and a terrible actor, Moses said as he went into the bedroom slamming the door shut behind him. It frustrated him how his mind was so often consumed with images of Sinead. Self-serving Sinead the bio-engineering specialist who worked for the International Health Organisation. And then there was Orlaith. Orlaith with her good heart, albeit slightly ambiguous concerning some of the friends she keeps. He thought about Maeve, her fair-haired friend with the vulpine face. There was something odd about her. Could Orlaith be trusted? He thought back to the previous night when he’d picked out a balaclava from down the back of her sofa and she’d claimed it was to protect her against small pox, although couldn’t explain how cutting the mouth section out of the wool would — he wondered if he was just being pedantic and this was a form of self-harm. He felt his phone ringing in his pocket. Orlaith. He answered.
– Hi, she said.
– Hi, how are you feeling?
– I’m just aware of how bleak and depressed everyone’s worldview is. Most people completely lack meaningful relationships, community, love. They’re trying to fix it by buying expensive branded luxury goods, and going to the gym. Take this place, it’s a grey concrete slab, surrounded by hundreds of closed shops. And the ones that are open are selling absolutely nothing of value. We’re surrounded by people who can’t figure out why their 50 quid brunches, which they photograph and stick on social media aren’t giving them any kind of fulfilment. It would be ridiculous to claim that people from outside of here are any happier. That isn’t necessarily true. But, there are a lot of places with a lot more humanity. Or at least places where people smile. When your life conditions aren’t satisfied, everything you focus on is much more real. See, that’s the problem with consciousness. The most unhappy people are often the most wealthy and the most privileged. They have time on their hands. They have time to think about how terrible, unjust and unfair everything is. While working people? People who are struggling to make ends? They haven’t got time to think about any of that stuff – they’re too busy trying to keep a roof over their heads, or find a roof to get under in the first place. It occurred to him that everyone he’d ever met other than Orlaith had responded to how are you feeling? with I’m okay.
– People in this country? People here.
– No, they’re the bottom end of our own fucked up, insular, isolated eco-system which we’ve created to put distance between ourselves and the rest of the world. Yeah, I know, the poorer ones when they have time will looks for simplistic answers to complex questions. Blame it on the foreigners. Blame the do-gooders. They’re part of that eco-system which has an emphasis on consumerism or romantic love. This place just feels like a bunch of people who are emotionally adrift. They’re lacking a sense that their life matters to anyone, or anything bigger than themselves. And then we diagnose them with a mental health condition and tell them they’re nuts because they can’t fix it with some cliche positive affirmations. And they’re not crazy. They haven’t got a mental health issue. Their brain isn’t broken. Life isn’t supposed to be like this. Whatever this is, whatever you want to call it, it has to die out in this generation. Humanity should probably just die out in this generation. Ridding the planet of a species riddled with a bloated, overinflated sense of self-importance. Let nature hit the reset button. My favourite way to view humanity is Sagan’s quote, We are a way for the universe to know itself. Ego is the obnoxious but necessary by-product that got us here. Maybes acknowledging that sometimes is okay.
– I see it in a not entirely dissimilar way. But is ego truly necessary, though? Fuck no. At least, that was the original sin in the Garden of Eden. To place ourselves above nature, and to assume the plateau of God. I’m a simple person really, and sometimes it’s difficult being burdened with these kinds of thoughts.
– I know you’re deeper than you let on. You can’t fool me.
– Well anyway, I’d personally say that ego is the consequence of human development. Ego isn’t the driving force behind it. That’s really the point I was making.
– Egos are what provide us with a sense of self importance. They give us the will to live. If our lives didn’t seem to matter, why not just kill ourselves then?
– Well, why not? We’ve lost sight of the fact that our only purpose is to survive and reproduce, so everything else, ego, has developed as a way to the burden of free time.
– We don’t have to hunt, we can have sex whenever we feel like it, and we have increasingly long life spans. So we have to find something to kill the time. Ego isn’t a necessity. It’s a coping mechanism to deal with our existential emptiness. I don’t want to get into nihilism here, because it can be seen as intellectual laziness. Even for a simple person like myself. But we’ve surpassed what we were designed to do. And further we push on, we’re no better for it. We certainly aren’t any happier.
– Assuming there’s anything we’re supposed to do at all is the opposite of nihilism. But if you mean that we’ve surpassed what we’ve biologically evolved to do, then yes. Absolutely. Or at least, we’ve surpassed the part which was inaccessible or a struggle to us.
– The point I was trying to suggest about nihilism, was that beyond the fragile reasons we create for ourselves to continue on in this life, when taken away, there really isn’t a reason why we shouldn’t kill ourselves, once certain conditions are met. At the animalistic level, once we’ve had kids and successfully raised them to a point they can survive on their own, there’s no real reason why, like an animal, we shouldn’t drift off into the proverbial wilderness to die. Which is my point. Ego gives us reasons not to do that. But it’s by no means a necessity.
Moses felt himself drift into a fugue state. As he often did when thinking about these things, and the sheer weight of existential dread became too much to bare.
– I’m more or less nihilistic. I don’t have any real moral issues with suicide other than how sad it would make the person’s mother feel. If we’re going to arbitrarily pick things to matter, and we are, then I pick respecting our mothers and remaining alive for their sake.
Moses couldn’t disagree. When all was said and done, that was as good a reason as any.
– How do we solve all the problems, though?
Orlaith smiled.
– That doesn’t mean we can’t burn everything to the ground.
– Really?
– I’m joking. Well sort of. It wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen.
– I used to want to save the world. But then I remember, we’re not Americans, we have to scale it back a bit. And whenever I feel like I’m not doing enough, I thnk of what the Talmud says: Whoever destroys a single life is considered to have destroyed the whole world. And whoever saves a single life is considered to have saved the whole world. We have to start small.
– As above, so below.
– Exactly.
Some time later after Orlaith decided that she wanted to sleep, insinuating she would call back, Moses realised he had to go to the shops. He would chance contracting small pox if it meant not being in this apartment. This place which was no longer his home.
The Body Cries Out 