Acid Rain

by R. D Rhodes

  “But it does come back to socialism,” I said. “I think, like Jesus was a socialist too, socialism is a state of mind, or maybe it needs to be. It’s not necessarily this rigid social structure. It’s about considering others. Putting others first, before yourself. Loving your enemies as you do your friends and neighbors. Not being selfish.”

  “But how do we get to that stage?” Alex said. “There’s hierarchies everywhere, in the animal kingdom too. And they just fall into place themselves.”

  “Raised consciousness” I was about to say when Harry snapped firmly, with a slight snarl on his face, “Bring it all down!” His black pupils gleamed with the statement as he looked away from Alex and into the fire.

  But Alex’s eyes remained on Harry, knowing and dubious. The look lingered as he gazed out into the blizzard. “I’m going to need to go and check on the car soon.” He said. “Maybe when the snow stops. You guys wanna come?”

  Chapter 65

  W e spent the rest of the day in the camp, doing activities around the fire. Harry whittled away at his rabbit figure. Alex wondered around preparing things and tidying. And I mostly read Harry’s Moonwalking with Einstein book. It was about some guy who came from nowhere to coming fourth in the world memory championship, in only a year. The author talked about neurons, and synapsis, and some guy called Stiffre who spend two months living in a cave but thought only one month had passed. He mentioned Confucius too, the first intellectual, he said.

  It reminded me again of the hospital. Of the library. Of the ghost. I wondered how all the people we left behind were doing.

  The snow stopped falling. The day after, we ambled out to Alex’s car. The sky was grey, the world an arctic landscape. We reached the road at the other side of the loch, coming across the frozen body of a large rabbit on the way. Alex stashed it in a bush, saying it would be a good dinner.

  His car was hidden under a thick sheath of snow. He popped open the boot, took out a lamp and locked it again and we headed back, picking up the rabbit. We ate most of it that night. The little that was left we cut into strips and smoked.

  But that meat too, was quickly gone. And we were back to rationing our food. Harry and I moved permanently over to Alex’s site and the weeks rolled by, talking, fishing, fixing up the camp. Meeting Alex had given us a new lease of life, but by the third week I was again feeling a bit listless. I was still going out alone regularly to meditate, but for some reason the connection didn’t feel the same, despite me seeming to do nothing differently than I had before.

  Maybe it was the winter and its feeling of sleep and death. Maybe I was a bit restless, eager to get a move on towards the life direction that Alex was in- wanting to work with children, or in conservation, volunteering, helping people in some way or other. But whatever it was, I wanted out of the glen for a while. I wanted something different. And I wish to God I hadn’t, but I can’t change it now, but that was why I said yes, and made the decision to join them on that trip to Inverness. When everything went wrong.

  Chapter 66

  H arry jumped in the front seat with Alex and I went in the back. The engine kicked on and the radio too. A gentle guitar strum came through the airwaves.

  “No Code!” I said. “This is one of my favourite albums.”

  Alex’s eyes looked back from the rearview mirror. “Mine too! You ever saw them live?”

  “No.”

  “They're amazing. Best band I’ve ever seen.”

  He pulled the car out onto the road as Off He Goes played. The soft, reflective rock sounding a perfect soundtrack as we drove alongside the tranquil loch and dripping branches and melting snow.

  We left the glen, going past the dam and power plant, through the village and the plantation forests, then alongside the hills by the wind turbines.

  “What’s your favourite song?” Alex asked.

  “Smile, or Off He Goes.” I said.

  He played both again before we reached the A82. Then he switched to the radio, flicking through the countless adverts and posh people speaking. Liam Gallacher whined away on Radio one, some terrible eighties tune on Radio two, -Mike Jack died today at-

  “Mike Jack is dead?!” Harry exclaimed.

  Alex turned it up.

  He had died the night before. Presumed drug overdose. The newsman gave all the details in a somber voice, then the report cut to the public opinion. “The man’s a legend!” one hysterical fan cried. “The biggest musician of all time.”

  “It’s a really sad day for music,” another added. And a third person said- “I was stuck in a traffic jam in London. The Earth Song came on, and all the drivers at once rolled down their windows and leaned out, and sang it to each other! It was just surreal! Incredible!”

  Harry burst into laughter.

  “Oh my God.” He shook his head incredulously. He looked at me in the back seat, then at Alex, “Imagine it. Sitting in their cars, engines running, pumping tons of carbon into the air. Whilst singing The Earth Song. Is that not the definition of hypocrisy?”

  I stayed quiet. Six months ago, Mike Jack had been labeled with all sorts of accusations and names. Sullied and verbally abused and beaten down. Now the media had suddenly changed their minds, and he was a hero and a musical legend. Is it just because he’s died that they’ve changed their opinions so much? I wondered.

  The story finished and they reported on tuition fees and government policies instead. “Change it, please.” I asked, and Alex put No Code back on, first Habit, at full blast, then Lukin.

  The greenery outside was replaced by the dirge of grey. Long grey roads. Grey buildings melding into each other. Grey roofs under the grey winter sky. Further on, department stores and fast-food joints competed for space on each side of the motorway, along with numerous new construction projects.

  I felt my heart sink a little. Why did I come? I thought.

  To get out of the glen for a while. It’ll do you good.

  Alex pulled off into one of the huge car parks. The Wall-Mart sized building was split into four separate stores with different coloured letters above the entrances. He drove towards the one that said Dave’s Sports and Outdoors, navigating through the packed aisles as he glanced around for a space. He dimmed the music, “I’m just going to get some supplies from here. I’ll be twenty minutes at most.”

  “Supplies? You make it sound like crack.” Harry smiled.

  Alex smirked. “Yeah, that’s what I’m getting. They keep it next to the rucksacks.”

  Harry’s smile widened. “Nah. I’m okay. I’ll come in with you, though.”

  The eyes in the rearview mirror turned on me.

  “Yeah, I’ll come.” I said.

  “Cool. Ah, here’s one!” Alex reversed to go into the space. “I can’t be bothered with the town centre today if I’m honest. The crowds will be mental for Christmas. I’ll just go here, and Tesco?”

  “That’s fine with me.” Harry told him. “We just need food, that’s all.”

  “Fine for me too.” I said. “Watch the wing mirror.”

  “Oh, shit!” He pulled the car back out and reversed in again, snuggling tightly between the cars on either side of us. He killed the engine. An old man with a walking stick went by the back window.

  We all squeezed out and headed towards the store, Large, Long and Little in a line with Alex on my right, me in the middle and Harry to my left. Queues of cars crawled the lanes, the faces staring out a combination of stress, sadness and exhaustion. One of the drivers let us cross and we walked over to the entrance of the store as its huge electric mouth opened and closed. It was eating and spitting out hundreds of people a minute, in their jackets and boots and winter hats, and their many shopping bags. Those people had to push and squeeze through the crowds standing chatting in the doorway over their Christmas plans. I saw the advert on the window- 50 percent off.

  I changed my mind and held back. “Actually, I’m just gonna wait out here.” I said.

  “You Sure?” Alex asked
.

  Harry gave me a quick, searching look.

  “Yeah. It’s like feeding time in the zoo in there. Just meet you back out here?”

  Alex’s lips pinched into a smile. Harry’s eyes still searched me, but he seemed satisfied that I was okay. He nodded, “Aye. Back in twenty minutes.” And they meshed into the crowd then I saw the top of Alex’s head disappear through the doors.

  I turned back to the car park, looking at the sprawl a mile left and a mile right and half a mile ahead of me to the motorway. The Shoppers streamed past on their way to and from the other three stores and their cars, stampeding in a line on the right of the pavement and stampeding back the opposite way on the left. I waited for a pause and quickly stepped through to the side of the building, out of the way of the door.

  I pulled my beanie hat low as people gabbed away on what toys they were going to get, and what phone was the best, and how they were just glad it’s the holidays. The lines kept coming and going. It reminded me of London, just before me and Mack had left. I was surprised such a small city was so busy, but there was only four days left till Christmas.

  Most of them didn’t pay me any attention. But then one man in a business suit noticed me as he came forward with the line. He looked me slowly up and down-in my muddy hiking boots, baggy jeans, my greasy hair loose under my beany hat- in obvious disgust, like I was a piece of shit on his shoe. I held his stare. I knew it was just because I was free and he wasn’t, and his sneering face eventually looked away as he went off somewhere with the crowd. At that moment, I heard Bullet in the Head by Rage Against the Machine playing, but I couldn’t see from where, or from which car amongst the armies of patrolling traffic.

  Those cars were blocking everything. Humans were blocking everything. All bobbing along everywhere like floating debris in a concrete sea. I felt like an alien. The distant buildings reached up to swallow the sky. The machines on the motorway tore away at the world. Hundreds of bulging plastic shopping bags bumped against my legs, and these crowds, crowds, crowds coming and going in and out and in and out. The smiling couple in the window behind me were advertising new camping equipment alongside white-teethed families promoting identical designer jackets. I felt sick, yet again, and anxious. All those months of meditation, and for what? I thought I was past this! I thought. Fuck’s sake, Aisha. What was the point in you going out to nature if you can’t reintegrate? This is the world now.

  No, it’s not! I just wish they could see and feel what I have.

  Oh God, what was I thinking, coming back here? It’s one extreme to the other- The peace and quiet and greenery. And solitude and sacredness- To the crowds and the noise and the superficial and greed. But what’s superficial? Ah, I don’t know. I know nothing. I am fucking nothing.

  Yes, you are nothing. They’ll be a while yet. Go for a walk.

  Why am I so sensitive? Why can’t I handle this? Because you know where all this is headed. No, I don’t!

  I filed in with the people on the left in their stampeding factory processing line, along the building's side, towards the other stores. The next one up was a bookshop and the window displays were full of Buy One Get One Half Price stickers on all the books. Someone coughed and spluttered to my right and I glanced at him as he covered his mouth, and my eyes were drawn to the parked Land Rover next to him, and at the Indian Dreamcatcher hanging above its dashboard. An image of the Tar Sands spurting black oil everywhere slammed into my mind, and I thought of the stinking hypocrisy that everyone was guilty of but couldn’t see. And the dreamcatchers long white feathers reminded me of finding that feather outside the tent, which was still in my pocket, and I reached in with my right hand and rubbed it between my fingers. And something about the feather and the crowds made Confucius the next thing to jump in, and I saw him two millenniums ago- in his robes drifting from scene to scene throughout countryside’s and towns- bowing to kings, bending in respectful piety outside temple doors, and chanting sacred songs and mantras to nature and to the ancestors. And I thought I understood him more, now that I had lived in nature a while, and knew that there was actually some kind of magic to life. I had just needed to try and get into his shoes to feel it.

  I kept walking, passing the doors of the bookstore. But we’re all on our own paths through life. Every being is tied up in this thing we call mass consciousness. We are from and return to the thing we call God. Yes, yes, what does that have to do with anything? Fuck’s sake. Consciousness determines environment. Yes but- something just then made me look up at the store window- and there on display was Confucius! Hardback- £12.99. A jolt went through me. My fingers were still rubbing the feather in my pocket as I stared in astonishment at the Chinese man in robes on the cover. Shit! Just when I’ve been thinking of him! I thought, when suddenly another vision flashed like lightning; of a black ladder going up, to a ceiling, and a figure at the top of the ladder, trying to break through the ceiling with their fist. But they-he or she, I couldn’t tell -couldn’t get through. They were slamming at it and slamming at it, punching and punching, but the ceiling wouldn’t open up! The image gripped my every nerve. I was suddenly acutely aware of everything in and around me; of myself, the grey clouds drifting slowly above me which I was strangely a part of too, and the bodies going past me which I didn’t feel part of at all, and the rock hard pavement under my feet which seemed to be the only thing holding up my skin and bones. That ladder burned in my mind, demanding to be noticed. What’s above that ceiling? I wondered anxiously. What does it mean?

  Then the image slowly faded, and I kept walking alongside the building, trying to figure it out. Was that about me? Is that my consciousness, evolving? A metaphor for my consciousness? Or the world consciousness? That we can all evolve and go up a level in our minds? But you’re just being crazy. You’re stupid and know nothing. Yes, I am, but why are those people looking at me like that? Especially that old couple? Do they think I’m crazy? Does it show in my eyes?! Haha, maybe I am. But look at that sky now. It feels like it might rain. Good, that’s what I need. I should go back now, in case they are out. I should go back. C’mon rain. Douse these people. Douse these streets. Wash us clean. I’ll turn back. Wait! Was that a raindrop? I just felt it? And another! It is bloody raining! Did I just predict that? But why do I feel so nervous today? Aw, fuck- look at that poor guy on those crutches. He looks in pain. Oh, it’s a shame. Life is so harsh. But you don’t know what he’s feeling! It could just be a sprain. No, it looks worse. I wish I could help him. Oh, that old lady’s sad eyes too! The desperation. Look at the way she’s clutching onto that handbag like it’s a fifty-kilo weight. Fuck! All the pain. So much fucking pain. Am I feeling her pain now? Why this energy? Is this all their energy? No, you’re just too sensitive. Ah, fuck it’s stupid. Physical pain especially, it’s so nonsensical. But there they are-

  Alex and Harry were standing on the roadside, just beyond the pavement. Alex had a little box in his hand.

  “Alright?” Harry grinned happily. His black eyes were warm and looking back at me with kindness. His familiar face, his friendship that I really valued, it had only been twenty minutes or so but I was overcome with happiness to see him again. For some reason I thought it could be the last time I would see him. I smiled back and threw my arms around his shoulders.

  He chuckled and held the hug as the crowds moved by us, the spittering rain coming down over our heads. After a few seconds he stood back with a wide smile. “What’s that for?”

  “Just for being my friend.” I told him earnestly.

  He laughed and the three of us all turned towards the car park at the same time.

  “I love you, man.” I said.

  “Haha. I love you too.”

  “Get a room.” Alex muttered at Harry’s side.

  “We’re not together.” Harry said.

  “You’re not?”

  “No. We’re just pals.” I confirmed. “What, did you think?-”

  “Oh! Well, yeah. I just assumed you were.” A
lex stared at the road in what looked like thoughtful interest.

  “What did you get?” I asked him.

  He looked at me, then at the box swinging in his left hand. “Ah, just another sheet of tarp. The cooking pots were too expensive. Will get one in Tesco instead.”

  We squeezed into his car. Alex turned on the engine and reversed out.

  “Tesco then?” he asked.

  “Tesco.” Harry said.

  Chapter 67

  T he music’s volume was down low. The CD playing but barely audible. Alex veered through the middle of the parked cars, and then his big arms spun the wheel like a boat captain, and we were out down the teaming mechanical river of the motorway.

  I watched through the back windows as we sped by the retail parks and factories. My body felt light and full of nervous energy. A guitar rhythm started in my head, and I realised it was the song I’d just heard in the car park, the Rage Against the Machine one. The intro rhythm gave out to the lyrics of a song I’d probably only heard about five or six times in my life,

  Nuthin proper bout ya propaganda,

  Fools follow rules when the set command ya.

  Harry and Alex sat quietly in front, calmly looking through the windscreen as intermittent raindrops landed on it. But I felt like I was getting pulled further and further away from both of them, almost as if by some invisible force. I felt totally alone, yet I didn’t feel like speaking. I was wrought with nerves and didn’t know why. I squirmed. My mind was pacing. I looked left at the cars on the opposite side of the motorway going the other way, and I can’t explain it, but I got the sudden strong impression that it was the right way that they were going. That we were going the wrong way. Like we were going against the tide or something. I tasted a burning acidic phlegm in my throat. I couldn’t understand the fear and energy that was taking hold. Was it a premonition? I don’t know. But I had the feeling that this would be the last time the three of us would be together.