Lights Out in Wonderland

by DBC Pierre

  When we turn back to the street a familiar figure approaches. Gottfried waits still, ever so slightly nodding: “Piratenburg must have closed.”

  “Haa.” Gerd waves. “Nearly forgot our fireworks!”

  Gottfried looks to me before glancing at his watch. I know he’s thinking about the plane.

  “Northeast,” I answer instinctively. “Helsinki.”

  Gerd steps up, lanky from beer but falling quiet as he enters our airspace, seeming to sense our altered mood. At this, hauling us by the shoulders into a trio, Gottfried leads us slowly away, head hung as if to confess, till a few paces down the road, as a gust stirs our hair, he looks up into the night and softly says: “By my calculation, gentlemen—the fireworks tonight will be over the Baltic.”

  My senses withdraw before I hear Gerd’s reply. Instead I rocket above the clouds, watching the last inch of a fuse burn away. This along with a hiss of speed through the air brings a perfect knowing—that what I watch is the last inch of innocence, the fizzle of a childhood burning away to its death. And there’s no time left to ponder. I detonate, shattering like a pane of glass, and in the lucid trance that follows, from a hallway rug sticky with blood, I take stock and feel a new force: a breath nearby, and the weight of an arm—not a doctor’s arm, nor a rich man’s—just another human arm, a friend’s solid arm over my shoulder, and another beyond it, and another and another, till I’m a thread in a mesh of fellows spanning all the world, spanning all of time before and after me, a shawl of unbreakable fibers. Of my fellows, in my world.

  Finally, gingerly, I stand up from that hallway rug.

  I stand pulling out shards, and throwing them down.

  And after a moment, in a vivid dream, bloodied shapes begin to rise all around me on an infinite rug, that place where all childhood pain came to rest—small undaunted shapes in Pooh pajamas, kitten pajamas, whale pajamas, teddy-bear pajamas, wiping themselves off, smiling up into a sky that bursts with brilliant colors, popping and flashing and banging, spewing cinders through the clouds, dropping cogs of spent frustration, depression, and shock. And like a boy just landed from Mars I stand gazing in awe across this mass of junior comrades, eventually spying a ruffle among them, and soon a little figure carving a wake from afar. He runs barefoot, in cowboy-gun pajamas, with his tan fresh from Cape Town:

  “Cunts!” he runs singing up at the clouds. “You greedy cunts!”

  Grins break over our faces, but just then, as if I could soar any higher, as if my grin could stretch any more, a small hand slips into mine from another world, another time, squeezing to pull me forward like it was my first big day at school:

  “Pff,” she says. “I guess that’s a normal Friday night for you?”

  “Pretty much.” I nod. “Though sometimes I go out for a drink.”

  LIGHTS ON

  The Lada rattles along with its smells of old tobacco, plastic, and economy soap toward Berlin Tegel Airport. In my captive state between Gottfried and Berlin, a profound and quite pleasant fatigue settles in, akin to ten milligrams of Valium.

  I flop back in the seat watching Gerd maneuver through a sparse rush hour, craning and jerking at the wheel. He wears an amalgam of clothes, a self-image carousel that never stopped at an outcome. Still, it’s a casual carousel and his movements are freer, more loping and relaxed. In fact, a holiday ambience starts to lift the car, rising like the first notes of a dance, though only two of us will be traveling.

  “You’re sure we’re back in time for Tatort?” grunts Gottfried.

  “Ja, of course. We can see it at Dieter’s, on the way home from the airport—if his television’s working, you know what it’s like.”

  “If we went to a bar we could watch it in color.”

  “Well, or a bar, ja. The problem is that people will talk over it.”

  Gerd catches my eye in the mirror. “Did you see Tatort? Great German crime series, national institution. On Sunday nights all Germany stops to watch.”

  He turns to Anna as rain starts to dot the windshield: “Are you fine doing the wipers? Sorry to separate you lovebirds, but Gottfried has arthritis, so he’s excused.” The wipers scrape to a stop every six or seven passes, and Anna reaches out to shake them. “The mighty Lada.” Gerd slaps the wheel. “Built for Siberian conditions, just look—three hundred thousand kilometers and still going like a tank.”

  “Pff, tank is right.” Anna tightens her coat around her.

  As traffic thins, Gottfried reaches into an old Lufthansa bag at his feet and pulls out a beer, uncapping it on a door panel. He hands it over the front seat to Anna. Doing the same for me, then Gerd, he seems to observe a hierarchy of hospitality, making no sound apart from a wheeze as he reaches between seats.

  “That’s a known entry drug.” I glance at Anna’s beer.

  “Must’ve gotten a bad one, I’m not even bleeding yet.”

  “Gott, at your age we used to drink vodka,” says Gerd. “We would wake up green. Eh, Gottfried? We would wake up green!”

  “You weren’t doing it properly.”

  “Eh? There’s no properly with vodka. You end up green.”

  “The eighty-twenty rule applies. Eighty percent of enjoyment comes from twenty percent of drinks. The art is to only drink that twenty percent.”

  “Oh, so you only want twenty percent of Gabriel’s wine?”

  Gottfried remains still, his mouth slightly open in a smile. “No—I’m having ninety-nine percent, as you’ll certainly be on the floor after one glass.”

  “Haa”—Gerd thumps the wheel—“fighting words, Herr Pietsch, fighting words.”

  Skin creases around Gottfried’s eyes, the seat crackles back with his weight.

  “It’s the reverse of your old system.” Anna turns to me: “Eighty percent of drinks is one percent of enjoyment, and the remainder is throwing up blood.”

  “What?” I scowl. “That’s unfair. You saw me on a bad day.”

  Gottfried’s brow rises knowingly. “With the Englander it wasn’t about drinks. He chased something else, a feeling.” He looks at me: “Am I right?”

  “Hm—I guess it’s true.”

  “I know what it is,” he says. “But actually it’s here in front, the place you’re looking for. In the moment just before.”

  “Haa, hear that, Frederick? Learn from the masters. Watch us next time, the next major party can be your debut.”

  “Ah, yes, yes.” Gottfried rests back his head to muse. “We all have to grow up in the end. And actually enjoyment grows, once you master the secrets. I don’t know when growing up became so unfashionable. When I was a boy we were expected to be little adults already. A better system, because you learned all the disciplines early, then at adulthood things suddenly got fun. You could have a drink, spend money—every door opened up.”

  “The markets would hate it,” I say. “Half the economy is fed by children.”

  “Hnf, well. Maybe half your economy is fed by them. Half of my economy would be spent sending them early to bed.”

  “Ja, ja,” says Gerd, “in Pietschland things would be different, eh, Gottfried?”

  “Excuse me—things will be different. They’ll be very different in my land.”

  “Ach, come on. Admit it, you’re stuck with the world as it is.”

  “What?” Gottfried leans forward. “Nobody is stuck with anything as it is. We all must stand up and take control.”

  “Bah—it’s easy to speak for a population of one.”

  “What do you mean, one? I have a foreign envoy.” Gottfried nudges me. “Comrade Englander will take the mission overseas. He can’t be depressed at the state of things, Britain is in a great position. They started this commercial experiment, so it’s natural that they collapse first. It means they might be first to rise in the future. Naturally they have auth
oritarianism to come, but in the end it’s always overthrown by the people. Now is the time to plant seeds for after that.”

  “Ach,” says Gerd, “you’re telling Berlin’s story. The concept of the People was planted before the fascists came.”

  “You see? History has its rhythm.”

  “So, Frederick”—Gerd looks over his shoulder—“I warned you he would try and recruit you. You should warn your friend when he comes from Japan—watch out for Gottfried, you never know with him. He might look like a statue, but by the time you know him it’s too late. When does your friend arrive?”

  “Thursday night.” I sip at my beer.

  “Another recruit,” he tuts. “Watch out, mein Gott. And then comes your mission for Pietschland, eh? What will you carry back with you for such a mission against the forces of decadence? Apart from a hangover?”

  I ponder this while they laugh. “Well, decadence itself is now in a hangover—but I’ve taken a few notes, it’s a small start.”

  “Pff.” Anna turns. “You mean the little book? For monkeys and poets or whatever? The first paragraph said there wasn’t a name for your situation because you were going to kill yourself.”

  “Eh?” says Gerd. “Not Frederick.”

  “Symbolic,” says Gottfried. “He must be talking about the culture, the markets. Now all he has to do is put the same paragraph at the end, but saying that he’s going to live. Then it’s a perfect cycle—just like life.”

  “And what about Anna?” Gerd nudges her: “Are you joining Pietschland, am I facing a mass exodus of everyone I know?”

  “Depends. If there’s going to be a kiosk there, then no.”

  More japing carries us into the airport, until boarding passes are collected and we mill as people do around a departure gate, looking vacant, saying unimportant things, and even then leaving our sentences unfinished. When the flight is called for boarding and strangers start to crowd, I wonder if I detect a tear in Gerd’s eye. We draw together, Gerd with the smile from his portraits, Gottfried with his stony glare, and we say the last-minute nothings that are the traveler’s lot.

  “See you Sunday,” says Gerd.

  “Tschüss,” wheezes Gottfried.

  Anna and I wave back—“Enjoy Stuttgart”—and a squeeze throbs between our hands, maybe the same lusty promise passed between parents when their kids leave them home alone. “Say hi to Gisela.”

  “Ah”—Gottfried turns to Gerd—“do you have the diamond?”

  “Ja”—Gerd nods, “but keep quiet about the rest, she might come back too soon.”

  We laugh, and they bumble to the gate like a pair of maiden aunts, turning for a last wave from passport control. From the corner of my eye as I wave back, I spot a familiar shape entering the gate beside ours: with a jolt I realize it’s Didier Le Basque’s ominous form. I try to catch his attention but he vanishes without seeing me, leaving Gerd and Gottfried wondering who or what I’ve spotted. Then, before I can call an explanation, a second vaguely familiar figure appears.

  I run a search of memory, and the answer lights up in a flash.

  “Pike!” I call out. “Hey, Pike—what’s the ending to the story?”

  The man turns, frowning, trying to make me out.

  “There you were,” I say, “the sea was blue, the sky stretched tight, the air hot, you can smell the girl, the leather, and the sea. Ecstasy was guaranteed.”

  And as I watch, and now Gerd, Gottfried, and Anna watch and wonder, the man’s face relaxes, his eyes narrow and sparkle such that I almost feel him touching the scene, scanning it emotionally, a hand in mine, real comrades nearby, adventures fresh behind us, and all the night and all of life ahead of us to come.

  “ ‘It doesn’t get any better than this,’ ” I prompt. “And then?”

  He takes a moment, nodding gently to himself. And says:

  “I was right—it didn’t.”

  Whoosh.

  There isn’t a name for my situation.

  Firstly because I decided to live.

  And then because of this idea:

  I don’t have to do it all immediately.

  The End

  Terms & Conditions

  We will all be destroyed

  whether we like it or not.

  I say let’s like it.

  May this small book of

  certainties from a short life be

  your compass in a decadence,

  your mentor in times of ruin,

  your friend when none is near;

  And may its poking from your

  pocket be a beacon to all who

  share our spirit in these end times.

  The odyssey raises a goblet to:

  DAVID BODLAK,

  who could have said more than this over a coffee.

  “They come as God sends them.”

  Pony Hütchen and the bear of Berlin.

  Chef de cuisine David Spanner.

  Clare Conville.

  Jill Bialosky & Norton crew.

  The Aniversario De La Muerte.

  Xavier, Hildegaard, and The List.

  Baras, Strawberries, Carnales Baras.

  Trinity College Literary Society.

  * Ah, cocaine: this marvelous carbon-neutral alkaloid shares a family with coffee and tomatoes, and is famed for sharpening senses to a crisp and purposeful limbo. It aids missions, not random intoxication, though it can rescue bacchanals which peak too early. Still, beware: being also subject to markets, not much coke on our streets is cocaine. Check it: coke has a polystyrene sheen, sparkles with a pinkish hue, and should smell of either kerosene or ether. If your coke is floury and bitter to smell, if it's dull, or too sparkly, like glass, it could be poison.

  * This glow around saints is the crucial clue to humanity's mission. Recall the moments when drink, music, and good company lit you full of fraternal love, forgiveness, and joy, then think: according to every doctrine those are the highest states we can reach as human beings. Whole faiths are dedicated solely to achieving them. They are qualities of Jesus and a countless majority of prophets and gods. Therefore never has a ritual been more above argument than intoxication for the purpose of raising a nimbus.

  * We're chastised for speaking badly of others, though we're born knowing that many are dumb. Of course, it's a hierarchy of stupidity, in which we also hold a stupid place, but it has a border, which is the point at which a stupid person is no longer humble. A person making allowances for their ignorance, and remaining polite, is a type of natural aristocrat. But beyond the border are the truly stupid, who also feel entitled. Worse, they don't suspect their stupidity, and can't imagine a greater intelligence than theirs exists. These are the dangerous masses which capitalism has empowered and set loose, sheep who respond to all things with the same bleat—and we should call them what they are at every chance.

  * Why die now? The practical reasons for my death are as follows, and will be the same for you. We should admit that the knocking by these reasons on our doors has progressed to banging and smashing and jimmying with tools. In my commitment to death I've found the impetus for the life of sweet vigor and confidence I always wished for. With oblivion ahead, my angers and hurts are sated and quiet, and I am free. Life now has a predictable time, in the form of an elegant cone, and I can methodically furnish this time with the beauties and dares I imagined I might pine for in old age; because we never do the things we must, never foreseeing our ends—whereas if death had a date we would hurry to do them all.

  * When it's profitable to deny things to people, culture devises a reward system for automatons and spoilers. The attendant would otherwise see reason in letting me board the carriage, and would certainly be nice enough to do it—but instead of reveling in doing an innocent good turn, an
d wielding discretional power, she gains her reward from doing a "tough job," which means conquering logic and good nature, and finding refuge in those customer-management skills formerly known as meanness.

  * Human constructions only ever mirror the human body & its behaviors: Look at any system designed by humans and you will see that it unconsciously copies a working dynamic of our own body. From governments to cities to restaurants to banks and instruments of credit—all are models of the supply and demand of oxygen and food, and of their transport, conversion, and removal. Then note the reverse: that our bodies come to resemble society around us. Is it healthy, is it fit, is it cheery or polite? Look around you on a train: there is culture laid bare.

  * It seems the manner of our death concerns us more than death itself, allowing fear to form a barrier. A limbo can't really take off until you're secure in managing the manner of death. This could account for a very low number of suicide limbos, as it calls for consideration in cold blood. Therefore, unless you plan to go under a train, I recommend a practice run—or at least a close romance with your chosen manner and its pains.

  * Let's briefly state the obvious: drinking exists for the glorious purpose of loosening stays to this earth and ascending to the gods and Enthusiasms whence our spirits were born. When practiced with a fair heart, intoxication is a noble state of Homo sapiens, and the source of much divinity. While religious fervors, engorgement with sex, and certain drugs and foods can also achieve this state, remember: Jesus drank, and look how far he went.

  * Despite this being a grubby decadence, we've responded correctly as a culture. It's been emphatically promised that a hamburger delivers happiness, togetherness, and security. That a sofa and credit card deliver them. But all that truly delivers them is a drink. Since we worked this out, the government has actually stifled drink advertising. But not sofa advertising. To quote from our day: you do the math. The key to consumer markets is unhappiness, individualism, and insecurity—where promises shine brightest.