December 04, 2003
The Reign of Terror
[See also: The Pups of War][See also: Dark Continent]
Hostilities begin:
Nostalgia sets in like gangrene; perhaps the wholesale amputation of individual and collective memories would stop the rot, but who is to perform such an operation? Certainly not Mr Alex Hickory, who is as prone to it as any in Bridgwater. In times of fear -- and fear sits now like a miasma of death upon the town, a partial adjunct to the coming of the ice but also present in, of and by itself as a near-permanent fixture, as over any town or city -- in such times our Alex is all too likely to seek refuge in glorified pseudo-recollections of times long past, and by all others forgotten. And what are these memories, here and now? What are his sources of comfort, as the town freezes and the flames of civil violence lick the streets?
My name, by a combination of ill fortune and parental cruelty, is Emerald Windows. I tell you this not to elicit sympathy, for many names are foolish, and all may be changed. Rather it is to help you understand: this stupid name is my crowning glory, it is the code by which I live.
It is dark now, on the river, and I can no longer see the insects which devour me -- oh, I can still feel them feasting, I cannot doubt that they are there -- only when the lightning brightness of a flare bursts overhead can the haze of flies be seen. I am travelling under the aegis of my name, and it is my name that keeps me afloat and alive in this seething place, much as it is my name that brings these parasites to sup upon my flesh and blood: Emerald Windows, wouldn't you like a taste?
I sing. It is what I have always done, and for a time, in a variety of places, it was my livelihood. My voice fed me and clothed me and then, like an errant parent, departed, leaving me to my own devices. My voice no longer pays its way, but still I sing, and I travel the ever more remote backwaters of this dark continent bringing music; music to allay, just for a few moments, the fear that is this land.
It is day again, and I see I am not being clear. What is the purpose of this message, which will be conveyed like the castaway's plea for aid on tides of infinite possibility to who knows what destination? What is my desperate cry, that it must be set upon the whims of fate, that no human ear can hear it nor human eye read it, that in all probability it must languish on the ocean floor until its very atoms are diffused across the globe, its information (but again, what information?) lost to entropy?
And what sort of person is Timmy? Like this: when he eats, he nods down his head towards a forked-up morsel; takes the food with his mouth; then instantly lifts his head back up and away, glancing furtively to one side or the other to see if anyone has noticed. When he speaks, it is invariably through a hand placed gingerly across his mouth, forefinger resting on the upper lip so that sound becomes muffled and sibilant.
I ask him why:
"Are you attempting to strangle the words before they escape and reach someone's ears? Or do you hope, by minimizing audibility, to ensure the concentration of your listeners, and weed out those who aren't properly dedicated to catching your every word?"
He gives a half-amused, half-offended smile, another of his trademarks; but if he answers his fingers keep it to themselves.
Hostilities begin; or at least shift into a new state of tangibility. For, after all, there are always hostilities: that threat, that aura of menace, lurk round every corner and under every rock; that hum half-heard as you walk, all unsuspecting and innocent, down those familiar streets, is the sound of hate and violence itching to break out into the open. Civil wars are being waged all around, unnoticed, taken for granted: that is the human condition.
But this now is something else, the opening shots of the uncivil wars; small, barely differentiable from the background hum, if at all; the act of aggression, the preemptive strike, seemingly just another round in the unending prizefight of the bland, the unexceptional, the everyday.
