London When it Rains Read online

  1.

  “So what happens now?” asked The Old Man, looking clearly uncomfortable and not at all sure what he should say or do next.

  The Manager scratched away at her notepad and said nothing; not a word. There was just the grating sound as the nib of her pencil ground away under the weight of her authority. It didn’t sound promising and it was worsened by how mean her face looked - scrunched into an unpleasant scowl. She looked as if she were being berated, mocked, or offended by whatever it was that she was writing. She didn’t look disinterested - not in the slightest. She looked disgusted, disheartened, and dismayed.

  No, none of this was promising.

  The Old Man stared at the clock that hung above the door. The minute hand hadn’t moved since a quarter to nine; and the second hand was caught in some rhythmic spasm, jerking back and forth between the same goddamn second. How long was this going to take? How long had he been here? If he were to die right now, who would feed his cat? He wished he had the courage to just get up and leave.

  He wished, but he hadn’t.

  “Do you have any questions,” asked The Manager.

  Her page was full of scribbles and geometric doodles. There were hundreds of notes, maybe even thousands but there was not a single answer to any one of her questions. Still, The Old Man breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Yes,” he said, thinking he had already born the worse.

  The Manager put down her pen and turned her attention to tired looking man before her. She tilted her head ever so slightly to the right as if she were leaning into the apex of her avid concentration.

  “What do think happens when we die?”

  She smiled. Maybe she wasn’t expecting such a rudimentary idea.

  “We cease to exist,” she said, plainly.

  It was a tone that did not exaggerate because it did not have to.

  “Do you believe that there could be more after life?”

  “I believe that there is a great deal more in life that we are yet to discover and a great deal more to explore. I believe that there are depths of perception and physical dimensions that at the moment are merely theoretical, but that the human race will one day acquire and traverse with as much normality as we do in crossing the once impassable mountains and seas at the merry whim of our evolving and explorative ingenuity. But death is death. Inexistence is not figurative, nor is it explorative; it is definitive.”

  “Do you believe that there could be some kind of order – like a centre to the universe, a point from which all life expands? But one that is outside of time and space.”

  “Inexistence?”

  Now it was her that looked confused.

  “God,” he said.

  She gave him a look; the kind of look you gave to crazy old men, the kind that had just lost their wives and been abandoned by their children, that, like mangy old dogs, wandered about purposeless, cursing and ranting about how things used to be and how terribly they had changed; and who behind their barking mad personas, wanted nothing more than some quiet attention, and maybe a cup of tea or a scratch behind the ear.

  “Which one?” she asked.

  It was obvious that she was well read. You could see it in how her head tilted to the left as if her creative and imaginary side were now dominant and limbering itself to stretch and exaggerate at its own merry and poetic will. I bet if he asked her, she could name them all.

  “Any,” replied The Old Man.

  It was hard to read his indifference. He sounded like any sound and rationale person who - for some unforeseen reason - was asking a completely unsound and irrational question. Maybe there were too many gods from which he could choose. Maybe it was something else; something he would prefer to keep a secret.

  The Manager looked over her shoulder before she spoke. An air of apprehension settled on her skin. The tiny hairs on her arm stood up on end; as did those on the back of her neck. She was scared, and she every right to be.

  “I’m sorry,” said The Old Man. “It was a terrible question to ask. I didn’t mean to question your character. I humbly apologise.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, cutting his words short so as to quickly compose herself before his rambling apology exposed how she really felt. “I read a lot when I was a child. Mostly about windmills and freight trains, and a little on aerodynamics; but I was always interested in ancient cultures and the mythology that died along with them. I must confess,” she said, now straightening herself up so it was almost impossible to know if she were telling a lie or the truth. “I preferred the primitive mythology; where the upper-worlds and under-worlds ran like factories with a god at the helm of each department of mankind’s dire wishfulness. Though I can’t imagine it myself, I can understand how all those cultures gambled their civilisations on continuity.”

  “Would you trade it?”

  “Trade what?”

  “Where the hell was he going with this?” she thought, “The crazy old bastard.”

  “Inexistence for eternity,” he said. “Nothing for everything; and the physical for the spiritual - that which lies outside of time and space.”

  “The contrary to life is not eternity. The contrary to life is death. The contrary to eternity would be if it were a plausible premise, inexistence. But you and I exist and we will most certainly one day die.”

  “Some sooner than others,” said The Old Man.

  “So if there is life, what we experience now, then the contrary to that we know is death. It is inexistence. It is simple binary. The opposite of one is zero. The opposite of two is zero, and the opposite of one trillion is zero. No matter the size of the number or the measure of the mass; its absolute contrary is zero. And life is no different. There is existence and then there is inexistence. Zero and one. There cannot be an afterlife - if for the simple fact that we exist.”

  “But would you?”

  “Would I what?”

  “Would you trade inexistence for eternity?”

  Her heart was starting to flutter and thump, and she could have sworn it skipped a beat. She didn’t dare turn to the door, though, lest that give her away.

  “Would you?” she asked, turning the tables.

  “No,” he said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No,” he said again.

  She didn’t look at him, she couldn’t. Instead, she licked the point of her pencil and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, she wrote a word. They both sat there silent for some time – she; staring at the word on her page and him; dying to know what it was.

  “Was that a trick question?”

  The Old Man sounded nervous. No, nerves would suggest there was something at stake; that he was building to some expectant conclusion. No, he wasn’t nervous. He was impatient.

  “There is no God,” said The Manager.

  Her tone suggested that this was something he should have known.

  “And there’s no Devil too. There are no angels or demons. There is no Valhalla, no Eden and there is no Aaru. And there is no Heaven, just as there is most certainly no such place as Hell – outside of fables.”

  “Well then, what is there?”

  He cursed himself for being old – for how he clung to tradition.

  “There’s nothing.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  He knew the answer but he wanted to hear her say it.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Her look was still and expressionless. It wasn’t wrinkled or contorted by factless opinion. Her eyes were not glassy. Her face didn’t redden. And her voice was calm and helpful for that matter; as if she were stating an absolute truth – which of course she was. There wasn’t even a hint of debate in how she sat or in how she spoke. The questions he
asked did not rile, and they did not get under her skin.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  What an absurd question.

  “We really should get back on track,” she said.

  “But I still don’t know if I want the job or not.”

  “Well, then why are you here?”

  There didn’t seem to be an appropriate answer – nothing that he could have said off the cuff anyway. And even if there was, would it really matter?

  “Can anyone answer that question?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes they can. Because they’re all here for a reason, Erik, even you.”

  The Old Man looked at his left breast.

  “That’s not me,” he said stuttering. “Well, I mean, I’m not him…I…”

  He looked lost, as if he had just discovered evidence of an hour in the day that he had – until this point in his life – not known existed.

  “I must have picked it up,” he said, twisting the name badge. “Sorry.”

  The Manager made a mark on her page. It looked as if she had scratched something out. The Old Man wondered what that could have been. What is more favourable or not, now that he was no longer who she thought him to be?

  “Whether you know it or not, you have a purpose and it’s no accident that you’re here right now at this point in time.”

  “Then what’s my purpose?”

  “That’s for you to tell me.”

  “Well, what did the others say?”

  “Ambition, obligation, necessity. They are all here to either serve themselves or someone else. But they all have direction. They all adhere to a fitting purpose.”

  “Why should I have a purpose if life itself has none?”

  “A life is defined as having been lived, Erik.”

  She stared oddly at the name badge on his chest once more.

  “Silly old fool,” she thought.

  “Then why am I here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  There was an awkward silence. It was maybe a second or two before The Old Man got up and thanked the lady for her time, and then apologised to her for the things that he had said. What a horribly uncomfortable second it was.

  “If you like…..”

  The Old Man turned.

  “Take this with you,” she said, handing him a half torn piece of paper. “It’s good for one large order of fries.”

  The Old Man smiled and tipped his hat.

  “What is your name?”

  “I’m not sure that it matters anymore,” said The Old Man, closing the door.

  II

  It was the year 6 N.E, and it was any particular day really. The weather was fair - as it generally was at this time of year, and downtown was a flurry with people looking busy, doing exactly what busy people did. There was a great deal of cussing going on, just as there were gestures that could easily be taken the wrong way. The sidewalks were more tussle than they were bustle, and they required a great deal of patience, courage, and grit just to get where one hoped they were going.

  Traffic was at a standstill too, and that had a lot to do with the commotion that was building only two blocks away. Then again, traffic was always at a standstill in this city. That you could count on. The trains, trams, and buses ran late without fail; and there was always a car or a truck broken down in the right lane. There’d be a flat tyre or an engine would have caught on fire, or it’d just be stopped for no good reason at all. Yeah, traffic was always at a standstill – always. It seemed like nobody was ever getting anywhere on time.

  But it was the year 6 N.E and it was a grand era; one built on the backbone of promise and praise. It was one of wilful determination – for a city to strive to do good for its people, and for its people to do the very best they could for every new era to come. It was an era of presence and accountability. It was one of cause and prescribed effect. It was an era that not only embraced change, but it was one that sought it out; wishing to distance itself from the tumultuous events that had transpired barely a decade before. It was an era of hard work and austerity, and it was one of little reward for such taxing compromise. But it was an era which was so unlike any before it; and by its own definition, different from any that it would beget. It was an era that promised to be just and humane; not only to those who voted it in but to the generations to come whose votes had yet to be heard. It was a grand era indeed – one of untold potential; but in the year 6 N.E, it was a new era that had failed to deliver upon any of its elected promises.

  “For six years we have seen this administration do little more that coddle and favour those whose actions, thoughts and principles were the very reason that we – as civilised, secular people – were driven to point of absolute extinction. For six years we have seen promise after promise being labelled with excuse after excuse. War and famine are still epidemic; disease is rampant, and the gaps in the social divide continue to forever widen. Unemployment is at the worst since before the new era. I see factories closing every day. That’s honest and hardworking people like you – people with families; people with lives’ at stake – being thrown out onto the street with not a penny in their pockets to put up food for their families, or even get the last bus home. So where are our taxes going? It’s not going to roads. It’s not going to the rail. And it sure as hell ain't going to the schools or to the hospitals. And none of it is going back in your pocket. So where is it? After six long years – six arid years – what do we have to reap? Where is the fruit of our labour? Where is the promised and goodly end that justifies this seemingly endless tirade of sacrificial means? Where have our taxes gone? Do you have them? Do you?”

  The Orator stood on a stage that had been built on the steps of City Hall. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he wasn’t unattractive either. He was average build and average height and had a face that was as common as any other. Were he not on the stage, he would be barely distinguishable from the faces that stared wide-eyed and hungered upon his every word. He wore plain black clothes that were neither impressive nor drab; and his hair was trimmed – practically short.

  Behind him, members of The Administration piled up at each window, eyeing -with a great deal of caution and dread - the ruckus and commotion that was going on below. They looked like a pack of small, harmless critters, crammed into the last rotting tree, watching as a great and wrecking fire swept up below them.

  The Orator looked like any of his followers. He did not have any striking features or any eccentric demeanours. He was as common as common could be. But what did differ about him was how he spoke and how – in the midst of delivering even the banalest passage – he seemed indomitable as if nothing on Earth – nothing man made at least – would ever be able to quench the inferno that raged in his heart.

  He stalked the stage; pacing back and forth. And when he said ‘you’, you can be sure that he was pointing right at you and that he wasn’t speaking to the ‘you’ as a collective; he was going one by one and he was speaking to each and every person whose eyes met his, and he cursed like a madmen at those whose didn’t. But that was rare; for even those who were in absolute discord to the fervour of his ideas were inexplicably drawn to his discourse - whether it be at their doorstep or on the other side of the world.

  When he spoke, a certain kind of magic happened.

  “Your money, my money, all of our money has been spent on rehabilitating the very people whose senseless endeavours wreaked havoc on our economy and our society as a whole. A vote was cast. We all voted. Even they,” he said, turning his attention to the worrisome faces cramming up the windows in the building behind. “They voted too. We all did. We voted for a new way – a society on moral and rational intellect; one of just goodness that is abated from the scourge of fear and superstition – a society and an ordering rule that does not discriminate. And yet why is it, after six arduous years, all we see is the opening of more rehab centres and the closing of emergency rooms? There is more palliative care in religious deprogramming right now than ther
e is in paediatric oncology. And I don’t blame the doctors, I don’t. They’re being poached by this guilt-laden administration whose focus is only on securing votes and keeping themselves in office. How is it that all this money is spent on helping the very people who caused our near demise, and yet we - who were this way from the beginning and who stepped in when our race needed it most - we are not only offered nothing, we are left with nothing? Where is our coddling? Where is our just reward? Are we not the ideal? Well? Aren’t we? Then why are we treated like peons? Why are our days forever potentially numbered? Why do our feet ache as if we’ve walked to the ends of the earth only to be told to move to the back of the line? Why do our hands sting as if we have been toiling day and night, picking thorns from flowers for those who despise us and for centuries, kept us enslaved to their contemptuous and vengeful ways? And why are our hearts constantly breaking every time we have to tell our children that we are unfortunate for having been right all along? Why do we go without so that they can have so much? Why? Why? Why do we – the right and just citizens – pay the toll? Why?”

  He turned to The Administration building.

  “No more,” he shouted, pointing his finger to the eighth floor. “No more.”

  And then, those two words became a mantra or a call to war as thousands of red-faced and vein bulging followers joined him in throwing their rights hands back and forth like swinging axes – pointing their jagged fingers at the only window on the eighth floor.

  “No more,” they chanted, over and over. “No more.”

  It was deafening at first, but it quickly turned hypnotic.

  From inside their offices, members of The Administration stared out of their windows, dumbstruck as the chanting grew louder and louder, and along with it, the threat of imminent danger.

  “What should we do?” said one party member to another.

  “I’ve no idea,” said the other in return. “Police? Army?”

  In the only room on the eighth floor, The Administrator paced back and forth racking her brain for some type of a quick fix to this furore – to this spiralling polemic. No amount of pacing would suffice, though, for she was not a woman of quick fixes.