This is one of the short stories from “The Blue Food Revolution”, about the magical-realist adventures of a couple before they finally get it together, which will be out later this year.
The other short stories from the book published here are:
- Reuters – click here
- Saastopia – click here
There was a country in a space and a time much distanced from our own where only the children were physically capable of even the most menial of tasks. The land was disease-swept with a virulent plague so lethal that no-one had reached the age of twenty in the previous five years. The average age of the population was seven years, four months and ten days.
Indeed, the prediction was that soon there would be no population there at all as there would be so few capable of procreation. Such predictions invariably prove to be wrong, but that observation did not negate the seriousness of the situation. Children as young as seven years old were commonly both providing and caring for three or four of their siblings having watched their parents die in agony over several months. The children had cold eyes and barricaded hearts. They also had guns because that was the only way they felt safe against the pestilence, and there was no use feeding them sob stories. They shot all those who threatened them, and many others besides, merely to exorcise their anger.
You could recognise their faces as they stared into the camera, automatic rifles slung nonchalantly across their hands. There was no argument you could put to save your life once they had decided to kill you.
There was no rule of law. There were no rules, although some of the older ones were trying to impose a few to their own advantage. Sad to say, even five year olds were capable of spotting such a ruse and spurning it.
There was no innocence in the face of such relentless brutality.
There were stories.
There were stories of children of five or six years old cutting to pieces children of their own age in the name of victory or food. Children that age care not for agriculture. Food must walk where they can accompany it.
My grandfather entered this country as part of a delegation from the neighbouring states to seek the means to end such a trauma, although how members of the delegation would ever be allowed to return to their native countries was not clear. It is possible that there was no such contingency. Life was so precarious in those parts that it was almost certain that the last member of the delegation would be crawling across the earth in the terminal throes of the fever, or simmering gently in a cooking pot, within a week.
Anyone who has ever observed children at their cruellest will understand what a whole land would be like if all the children there were at their cruellest all the time.
Nothing on this earth has ever been as terrible as this, not the pogroms and gulags of Russia, not The Great Leap Forward, not the Holocaust, not any number of genocides and massacres you can vaguely recall. Here were fifty million children torturing, killing and eating each other before they succumbed either to each other or to an illness as relentless as the landscape itself.
And yet, and yet …….
My grandfather entered the country in a heavily armoured convoy, furnished with the latest of every aspect of equipment imaginable. Predictably, hardly any of it was still operational by the first evening.
So, there they were, older than anyone in the country by at least five years, virtually unarmed, and surrounded by hungry, angry and voracious mouths.
“I have a plan,” announced the delegate standing to my grandfather’s right. “Let’s get the hell out of here, now.”
It might have been a good plan except that the exit was already blocked by seven or eight different child militias.
“I have another plan,” announced the man. “Let’s shoot ourselves and get it over with.”
Such was the climate of fear and despair, his suggestion was considered both seriously and respectfully. The delegation was soon drawing lots as to who would shoot whom first.
“I’m not shooting anybody, nor allowing anybody to shoot me,” declared my grandfather in counterpoint to the rest of the delegation.
“This is not a good moment to be a coward, John,” the leader pronounced scornfully.
“I am not a coward,” replied my grandfather, “I am an optimist, and that requires almost insane courage in a situation like this.”
“And …..?”
“And we can work our way out of this,” said my grandfather. “We can work the whole country out of this.”
Of course nobody believed him. Nobody even heard him. He was history. They cast him out with a gun and a few shoulder-loads of ammunition.
My grandfather was relieved. When extreme clarity and sanity are required, nobody wants to be cornered in the company of fools.
The first child my grandfather encountered was about five years old, with wild wiry hair, an automatic in her hands, another slung over her shoulder, swinging a large cartridge pouch from her belt scraping the ground and, with two grenades hanging around her neck. However, there was something in the demeanour of my grandfather which dissuaded her from opening fire immediately. As far as my grandfather could tell, she was alone, so he didn’t shoot either, not that he could have killed such a small child without provocation.
My grandfather did a magic trick. He did not know any magic tricks, but he improvised. The child did not think it was a magic trick, but she was charmed by the gesture. Producing a grenade from behind your ear in such a country was not so much of a trick. She smiled. My grandfather smiled. The child wanted to hug him. She had not had a hug for four years.
My grandfather knelt on the ground and bid the child to approach him. The child hesitated. Maybe she was being invited to be food. Maybe she was being invited to be violated.
My grandfather collapsed onto his back, and placed his hat over his face. At least the end would be expectedly-unexpected. The child moved closer. She spoke to my grandfather.
“Are you sick?” she asked. It was the first question on anyone’s mind.
“No,” replied my grandfather. “I am well.”
“So why are you lying on the ground?”
“I am hoping that you will jump on top of me. I need a cuddle.”
The child leapt forward, landing on his unprotected stomach with both knees, almost rupturing his spleen. The child hugged him.
“How old are you?” asked my grandfather gently.
“I am five,” replied the girl proudly.
“I was five once,” commented my grandfather.
“But I shall never be your age,” darted back the child.
“You will,” my grandfather assured her.
“I won’t,” retorted the child, her anger rising.
“I bet you,” challenged my grandfather.
“What do you bet me?” demanded the child.
“I bet you my soul,” said my grandfather.
“What is that?” asked the child.
“It is the most valuable thing I have,” replied my grandfather.
“Can I eat it?” asked the child.
“No.”
“Can I kill people with it?”
“No.”
“So what use is it?”
“Well,” my grandfather explained, “if you are going to live to be my age, you are going to need a soul. If you plan to die earlier, you do not need a soul. But nobody lives to my age without a soul. It is not possible.”
“Then I want your soul,” demanded the child.
My grandfather hugged her close. “You have a soul of your own. I can tell.”
That seemed to please the child.
“So now what do we do?” asked my grandfather.
“We go and hunt somebody, together,” the child declared.
“Anybody?”
“Anybody. There is nothing else to do.”
“How about playing a game?”
“What use is a game?”
“It means you have to shoot less people.”
“Shaku would not be happy with that.”
“Who is Shaku?”
“Shaku is our leader.”
“How old is he?”
The girl hesitated for a second and started counting on her fingers. “Shaku is ten.”
“Can we find Shaku?” my grandfather asked.
“Shaku will eat you.”
“I am guessing that he won’t,” my grandfather assured her.
Shaku was sitting on a rock surrounded by his acolytes. A small portion of Shaku’s face was already eaten away by the disease. When my grandfather and the child appeared, everybody raised their guns and started shouting frantically.
My grandfather gestured gently for them to lower their guns, enunciating the single word “Shaku.”
“Yes.”
“I have come to play,” declared my grandfather.
“Play?” spat Shaku with disgust.
“Yes,” said my grandfather.
“You are mad,” declared Shaku with dribble cascading from one side of his face. “You might not even be worth eating.”
“Have you never played?” asked my grandfather.
Shaku waved his one good hand across everything he saw. “Play?” he asked, wearily.
“It’s a grown-ups game,” my grandfather suggested.
“Death, you mean,” said Shaku.
“Not necessarily,” countered my grandfather. “It is about how you get to rule the entire country.”
Now that did interest Shaku. “How?”
“By giving your people a dream?”
“A dream?” Shaku absolutely did not understand.
“Yes,” my grandfather insisted, “a dream.”
“What do dreams do?” demanded Shaku dismissively.
“They lead people where you want them to go.”
“My gun does that!” roared Shaku, shaking his rifle.
“Not when it isn’t there,” said my grandfather. “Dreams work even in people’s sleep.”
Shaku still considered my grandfather to be deranged, but my grandfather was old, and still alive, and from another country, so he listened because he knew in his considerable intellect that there was more to life than this.
And what my grandfather knew was what Christ knew – unless you think as a child, you cannot enter the kingdom of children.
Within fifteen minutes my grandfather had the whole group playing a game of rock draughts. He was concerned for Shaku because he did not know how he would react if he didn’t win, and there certainly were moments. However, he needn’t have worried. Shaku’s companions in arms knew him very much better than my grandfather did, and made sure he won enough.
Shaku was thrilled to be anointed the Rock Draught Champion after a seemingly epic struggle.
After he had celebrated for about twenty minutes, and heckled all the others over how clever he was and how cunningly he had played as a master strategist, he turned on my grandfather.
“So how do I take over the country?” he demanded sharply.
“By teaching people to play,” replied my grandfather.
“They aren’t going to fall for that,” sneered Shaku.
“You did,” my grandfather shot back immediately. They were probably the two most momentous words of his life.
Snaku peered at him, and for a moment – several moments, in fact – my grandfather believed he was about to be ordered into the pot, maybe piece by piece, for gratuitous insolence. Shaku narrowed his eyes further. “Throw him into the pot!” he ordered, and the soldiers rushed in on my grandfather and grabbed him by all four limbs so that he was parallel to the ground.
Shaku stood over him. “So, you thought you could make a fool of me. Thought I would be too young to understand your cynicism.”
“No,” replied my grandfather, his voice unsteady only because his body was being wobbled around.
“What game should we play now?” crowed Shaku.
“Draughts,” insisted grandfather steadily. “Draughts are what will win you the country.”
“Yes,” responded Shaku richly, “but cooking is what will feed it.”
My grandfather could see the warriors starting to prepare a fire, or perhaps re-stoking a pre-existing one.
“So you still think that I can rule this country by playing games?”
“I am sure that you can,” persisted my grandfather. After all, any wavering at this point would have definitely proved lethal.
“Do you have any other games up your sleeve, while you still have a sleeve, that is?” demanded Shaku.
“It is not hard to get a list of games to play. There is bound to be a book somewhere.”
Shaku looked around him at the rocks, the scrub and the kilometres of wasteland that surrounded them. “A book ….” he mused.
My grandfather fell silent. In some situations, silence is more convincing the speech.
“Which games?” Shaku enquired.
My grandfather said nothing.
“Which games?” Shaku demanded.
My grandfather eyed him steadily.
“Put him down!” Shaku ordered the soldiers who were holding my grandfather. They dropped him, leaving him in considerable pain as he fell on sharp rocks. My grandfather drew himself to his feet slowly. When he had brushed himself off, he stood up straight and smiled at Shaku, humbly yet playfully. “Do you know how to play cricket?” he inquired.
“Cricket?”
“It is quite a complex game but once you understand it you become obsessed with it. A game can last for days. It will keep your troops occupied in times of peace.”
“Peace …..” mused Shaku.
“There will be peace one day,” my grandfather assured him. “One day soon.”
Shaku’s expression tittered “You are pulling my leg” within the frame of another expression which ranted “I am going to have you pulled limb from limb”.
“So how do you play this cricket?”
“Well,” my grandfather began, “first you need a head.”
Shaku smiled with relief. “Now you are being realistic,” he said.
“And a rifle,” my grandfather added.
Shaku guffawed. “This game is getting easier and easier.”
“And a shell case.”
Shaku’s eyes widened. “Are you making this up?”
“No,” my grandfather declared in his most sincere of voices. “That is how you play cricket.”
“So what do you do?” demanded Shaku, unmistakeably intrigued by now.
“Well, you take the head.”
Shaku beckoned to his warriors. “Give me a head!”
“We don’t have any heads,” the most confident soldier replied. “We have cooked them all.”
“A skull will do,” my grandfather suggested enthusiastically. “Indeed a skull is better. Pieces flying off would confuse matters considerably.”
The lead soldier motioned to another soldier who went off to delve into the pot. He came back, wiping the remains of flesh off the skull. He handed it to the leader, who handed it to Shaku, who handed it to my grandfather.
“Now we need a shell casing,” continued my grandfather.
“Will a live shell do?” asked Shaku.
“A live shell will do fine,” my grandfather confirmed.
The soldiers dashed off and returned with exactly the right size of shell.
“If you wouldn’t mind going over there a bit,” my grandfather advised Shaku. “That’s right – a little further, a little further, yes, that’s it, stop!”
Shaku stopped.
“May I borrow a rifle?” my grandfather asked one of the soldiers. The soldier looked at Shaku.
“Give him a rifle,” Shaku ordered. The soldier handed it over reluctantly.
My grandfather gripped the rifle by the barrel. “Now,” he said. “Try to hit the shell with the skull.”
Shaku narrowed his eyes in anticipation and took a couple of practice swings. On the third swing, he hurled the skull at the shell, my grandfather dabbed the rifle at it, and the shell was knocked clean over, just as the rifle nearly blew my grandfather’s elbow off.
Shaku roared with laughter. “What an excellent game. Did you mean to shoot yourself with that rifle?”
“No, that was an accident.”
“So you have much to learn about this game yourself.”
“I have,” my grandfather replied.
“Let me try again. Bokr, stand behind this man. Catch his bullets.” Shaku roared with laughter. Bokr looked extremely apprehensive but did what he was told.
My grandfather grinned. “That position is called ‘silly mid on’,” commented my grandfather.
Shaku roared all the more heartily. “I can see exactly why. Let’s play.”
Fortunately, and probably to Shaku’s considerable disappointment, the rifle did not go off again.
“I like this game,” Shaku declared. “We will teach everyone to play it.”
Which is why until recently, nearly sixty years later, Shaku was still President Shaku, and still only in his seventies. He taught all the children games – not only cricket – and he won them over, unit by unit, until he was strong enough to march triumphantly into the capital. He then proceeded to impose order, if not law, sufficient to obtain outside aid to counteract the plague that had destroyed his country. I cannot claim that his human rights record ever became acceptable; it was rumoured that many of his opponents were stored in his deep-freeze, often being thrust in there alive, but now the average age of the country is fifty-three years, two months and twenty-three days, which marks such a significant improvement as to justify his consistent, if ritual, honorary title, the ‘Father of the Nation’.
* * *
My grandfather stayed on with Shaku for three years until his government was fully-established. He was Shaku’s first Minister of Education, Propaganda & Sport. Sport was propaganda, and propaganda was education, and education was sport. Alongside the sport, my grandfather managed to slip in a few other lessons around reading and maths, but it was all linked to sport – the sport results, sports commentaries, league tables (which deliberately employed a highly complex scoring system), days since important games, days to go to important games, arguments about how many people should be in the squad, and so on.
I asked my grandfather what his abiding memory was of being a government minister. “I felt like a kindly gentleman’s butler,” he replied. “Like Jeeves, taking care of their needs, but never forgetting that Bertie was in charge.” He even nicknamed Shaku ‘Bertie’, and Shaku went on to adopt the name, describing himself as ‘Uncle Bertie, Father of the Nation’, which was somewhat logically confused as titles go, but which seemed to work increasingly for his subjects, until the day when an assassin stepped out of the shadows and shot ‘Uncle Bertie’ through the head, at which point the tribal wars broke out all over again.
So, the country is back to anarchy, and starvation, and a renewed wave of pestilence which is rapidly reducing the expectancy of life.
I asked my grandfather whether he was disappointed that all his achievements had come to nothing. He smiled resignedly. “For sixty years they came to something. No-one lives forever.”
* * *
The other short stories from the book published here are:
- Reuters – click here
- Saastopia – click here
