Scotland Before the Bomb
Page 4
by Hugh on the mic!
Our Cuisine
Fried eggs, bread, and beans
in three configurations:
our stomachs salute!
Our Minds
We channel our thoughts
along the beautiful node
toward the HughMind
Our Peasants
Building our houses,
keeping our streets clean and safe
for free: or else, Hugh!
On Seeing Hugh in a Crowd
A fleeting whisper
of brown blazer, purple tie
sends us into spasm
On His Autobiography
An infinite work—
at seven volumes per month
Book of Hugh expands!
On Forgetting to Praise Hugh One Morning
Negligent worship
I take the whip and lash hard
my arse for two weeks
On Pleasuring Hugh
An hour’s light rimming
precedes a vigorous hump
and soft teabagging
On Being Overcome with Love for Hugh
Take a moment to
stop and breathe then continue
to love Hugh always
On Falling Ill
Fear not, Hugh-lover!
Loving Hugh is better than
costly medicine!
On the Hugh Tax
Ten percent is nought
when one observes that chin on
a passing billboard
On Showing Weakness in Hugh’s Presence
He might not notice
or he might authorise the
flaying of your skin
Further Praise for Hugh
1
A lover supreme,
a Technicolour wet dream.
Hugh: A Man Entire
2
One man matters here.
Neither Robert nor Peter.
No! That man is Hugh!
3
From the sack of time
one man takes a colossal
leap: Hugh is his name!
4
Astronomical
super-splendiferousness!
This sums up our Hugh
5
Nice to meet Hugh? No.
You will never meet Hugh Galt.
He cannot be met
6
Take a few minutes
to stop praising Hugh to praise
him at twice the speed
7
Sometimes the best words
in a senryu for Hugh
are simply: “Love Hugh!”
[From The Official Book of Senyrus Writ for the Praising of Hugh, George Hughson and Melinda Hughsmith (eds.), Hugh Books, 2053.]
“InfoJog”
[CLACKMANNAN]
RACHEL RECOGNISED her slouching tendencies and fought hard to keep pace with her social jogging group, despite being three months pregnant and desperate for a triple-chocolate muffin. The leader, Jenny Plover, liked to boast that she had been running 5K when seven months along and that her kid had the most incredible energy as a result (neglecting to mention her kid had ADHD). Rachel loathed and idolised the spandex-clad super-mum—she longed for the same stamina and outlook minus the smugness and staggering absence of self-awareness that rendered Rachel’s barbs useless against the power of her anti-negative agenda. Her best friend Denise was also a member. Since rising to the managerial heights of her profession she had little time for Rachel’s criticism of all inferior beings on the planet or her polished anecdotes about her husband Sean’s hilarious shortcomings.
“We’re going for the puuuush here,” Jenny said, sounding her extra u’s like a camp ghost, “are you sure about proceeding, Rachel?”
“Yuuuuuus, thank you.” She wasn’t sure—the second éclair at lunch had been a mistake and she suspected she might throw up at the cathedral checkpoint—but maintained the illusion by punching the air (and, by proxy, the face of Jenny’s invisible twin on whom she inflicted mental horrors every few seconds).
Denise resumed the monologue she had started at the park entrance. Unlike the meticulously mapped jogging route, her anecdotal style took detours, heading in two directions at once, never quite alighting on sense. The sound of her pally prattle was soothing to Rachel, who had always triumphed at conciser modes of discourse such as insults and sarcastic sneers, and who enjoyed listening to people failing to communicate a single meaningful thought in the space of several hours.
“I couldn’t have a tot myself,” Denise said, “I couldn’t bear peeling back those nappies to the horrors beneath. How can you stand that daily drool, piss, and poop? I can’t be doing with screaming and shrieking and that neediness.”
“You will.”
“Before I forget, do you want to sign up to this new InfoJog scheme?”
“What new InfoJog scheme?”
“It’s the latest thing. Joggers pass information between each other during their runs. External information exclusive to us.”
“What information?”
“How do I know? It’s the latest thing is all.”
“It’s the latest thing to exchange random information from unspecified sources while jogging? In other words, gossip?”
“No no. I have the pamphlet in my gym bag. It’s the latest facts and information from the highest sources. It’s kind of an incentive from the government. To get fatties off the couch and out into the park.”
“I’ll take the pamphlet.”
“Do.”
Rachel was correct in her prediction and ducked into the cathedral garden upon arrival to release her chunks in a hedge.
“Jogger down!” Jenny cried. She signalled to her second-in-command Fiona for an official stopping of the pedometer and sprinted to Rachel’s aid once she’d finished her business to begin the patronising.
“I told you it wasn’t a good idea in your state to make the puuuuush.”
“Yuuuuuus, I know.”
“Let’s find you a nice sitty place.”
“Sitty?”
“You should rest up. When I was running with Gregor, I had a regime of stops-and-starts to keep the foetty fit but not exhausted. I would be sure to have breaks for breathing and flexing before pushing towards the big one. But that’s not for everyone. You should nip home for a nap.”
“I don’t want a fatty foetty. I’ll be OK.”
“As leader, I encourage you to—”
“Oh fine. I actually wanted to sit on the couch gorging on chocolate and crisps this morning. I should do that.”
“Funny!”
Back on the couch she opened a pack of salt and vinegar kettle chips and put her feet up, hurling invective at a mirthless chat show host who patronised his uneducated guests. If some miscreant with a shaven eyebrow wanted to resume his heroin addiction while his obese wife fell pregnant with their fourth kid, it was none of the host’s effing business. She cheered on predetermination and booed the host’s attempts to strangle their lives into some sort of coherence through abusing their free will like some authoritarian thug. After the break was a couple who refused to take their kid to school because they hated pompous teachers and favoured street wisdom at the School of Hard Knocks. Rachel applauded the couple when they told the host to go fuck himself after he accused them of being layabouts milking the state, and flung crisps at the audience when they ganged up on the rebellious duo.
Denise had passed on the InfoJog pamphlet and Rachel had a read during the commercial break: InfoJog is a government-sponsored incentive to improve the health of Clackmannan. By offering joggers the opportunity to receive the latest developments in science, politics, education, and entertainment, we hope to encourage a more inclusive attitude to healthiness. Beginners can build their knowledge by taking a brief run around the block, recording their mileage on a special pedometer so we know which materials to send out to the fittest performers! These materials include discs, booklets
, and CD-ROMs where the active participant can keep their knowledge base topped up.
“What an incentive! Because the one thing couch potatoes want to do most is to learn,” she said, scrunching up the pamphlet and hurling it towards an audience member who had served in two wars and worked in a museum for three decades despite the memory of the dead making his every day a living heck.
Rachel was into her second week of bumgrooving. She had grooved her cheeks on the left cushion, now she required another fortnight to do the right. Denise arrived for a visit during the bum’s settling period and opened her dialogue with two paragraphs that were too prattle-filled to be transcribable. Rachel nodded along and offered a coffee.
“No thanks. I have my energin right here,” Denise said, sipping from a hip flask.
“Energin?”
“It’s a mixture of a sports drink with a wee alcoholic leveller. Lowers bubbles in the blood rate or some such thing. Oh and what did you think of the news? Shocking wasn’t it? I had always been a big fan of his.”
“What news?”
“You not hear? Rowan Atkinson died in a bus crash with fourteen other people.”
“Mr Bean died?”
“Yes. Horrible.”
“That’s strange, I watched the news ten minutes ago. It wasn’t mentioned.”
“Oh. I heard it on this morning’s InfoJog tape, not the TV. Perhaps he isn’t quite so famous any more, doesn’t get reported on TV? Anyway, this InfoJog programme is amazing. I learn so much information about all sorts of things as I run. It’s an intellectual and physical workout. What could be better?”
“Cake?”
“Careful with that stuff. You don’t want to end up a Fatty Filomena after you’ve given birth, do you?”
“Meh.”
Denise soon cracked under threats of cake and left to sprint away the temptation. As Rachel took her second bite of her fourth slice, Sean returned home to announce that his workplace was implementing a compulsory keep-fit scheme. He had never attended a gym in his life and preferred beef dinners with extra spoonings of mash to wheezing his lungs out on a running machine. His company was being sponsored by InfoJog to keep their employees up to date on the latest business developments, meaning if Sean refused to participate, he would fall behind his colleagues and be up for the chop.
“Enforced fitness? What is going on with this InfoJog bullocks?” Rachel asked.
“Their logic is that everyone wants to be fit. So why not combine fitness with working? That’s the not the whole story, though. InfoJog withholds information from the slovenly masses. It’s not an incentive at all, it’s a way of whipping the unfit and feckless into shape, or else. It’s a Final Solution, with sweatpants.”
“No kidding. Denise told me that Mr Bean died. It wasn’t on the news.”
“I heard it on the headset as I was panting for my life on a running machine.”
“Oh poor you. Tubby men shouldn’t be made to run. It just shows quite how awfully they have let themselves go.”
“Thanks for that, my lovely.”
“I’ll polish off the cake, shall I?”
Curling up on the sofa with a tub of Tummilicious Toffee was not an option under the InfoJog scheme. Rachel relied on her harassed and exhausted husband to relay the news upon his return, on those rare occasions he managed to remember half of what he heard. Business information during work hours, the latest news developments during after-workouts. Sean returned so shattered he had to slap himself awake long enough to finish his dinner, falling at the final forkful, up and alert at 2am and dreading the morning ahead. Rachel was unable to converse meaningfully or take part in any connubial activities—the twin poles of sex and television that married couples cling to before children— and forced to call up her married friends and bore them with the highlights of her day (flinging crisps at the TV) and try to glean whatever information she could about what was happening in the universe.
It soon became apparent the informational flow was being dammed up. She watched the television news daily and noticed the increasing trend for the trivial to be featured first. The bulletins would begin with relatively minor crimes—a stabbing in Sauchie or a manslaughter in Menstrie—moving on to a chip pan fire in Tullibody, ending with an extra two or three stories of kittens up trees, old ladies being cared for by neighbours, or millionaires donating 2% of their incomes to charity. One evening Sean came home and informed Rachel someone had tried to stab the Queen of Clackmannan.
“What?!”
“I heard it on the treadmill. A fanatic republican flung a knife from the crowd. It ripped her dress after narrowly missing her right thigh.”
“Why wasn’t this on the news?”
“I told you. InfoJog. They’re saving the most important news for those who get on their bikes.”
“This is mental. So those of us condemned to sitting on their lardy bums don’t deserve to hear about the Queen being sliced into sixty pieces?”
“Yep. I need to sleep.”
“Sean, you need to stop this. You come home and mumble facts at me, I spend half an hour poking you awake so you can shovel frozen chips into your mouth. Then you’re up at 2am stomping about and too stressed to shag. This sort of pattern doesn’t bode well for our future, does it honeybumptious?”
“No. I need to find something else. I’ll hand in my resignation tomorrow.”
“Good lad.”
“After I quit, I’ll have vigorous sex with you, I promise.”
“You’d better.”
Over the next few weeks, Sean and Rachel dropped off the planet informationally. Sean resigned and spent his days frantically searching for a replacement drudge position in an office for less money. He was dismayed to notice that a new system had been put in place at the Jobcentre where exercise machines had been added to the search terminals, showing more desirable or appropriate positions to those who pushed themselves the hardest. He allowed himself to be swallowed up by apathy, exhausted at the mere thought of having to exercise for work. TV news had skinnied down to the most rudimentary stories—two cars meeting in a one-way street, a photogenic salamander posing for tourists, Z-list celebs and their toenail infections—any vapid viral content on the internet had come to dominate the news agenda to the point where newscasters were leading with clips of old ladies falling over while trying to drunkenly do the Charleston at their granddaughters’ weddings. The internet was also finding ways to censor content. New InfoJog ‘pantwalls’ had been erected where you had to enter your miles-per-day total to access the latest news, verifiable through entering one’s official pedometer number.
“There’s nothing for it. I’ll have to get back on the running machine,” Sean said.
“Not only you. There’s a scheme in place for preggos too. But look, who cares about any of this? Why do we need to be kept up to date on the news? Who cares what politician is lying this week or what rock star snuffed it last week? Can’t we get on with our lives for a while until this stupidity blows over?”
“It won’t blow over.”
“Let’s ignore it. You look for work elsewhere. I’ll read books instead of watching the TV. That is, so long as they don’t make you do a triathlon before you can check out a Jane Austen.”
“Don’t tempt fate.”
The world continued unchanged until one afternoon the neighbours began sandbagging their front lawns. Sean confronted them about this weirdness but neither was willing to explain since InfoJog was for users only.
“It’s The Third World War. It’s been declared while we were sitting here eating Doritos,” Rachel said, eating a cheese one.
“I think I’m losing my mind,” Sean said.
“The world has lost its mind. We’re trying to hang on to ours, without having to squeeze our fat arses into lycra.”
That night, they went to bed in a dry bedroom. In the morning the place was flooded up around Sean’s ankles. The thought had crossed their minds that heavy rainfall might explain the san
dbags, but the skyline had been clear the day before. Marooned upstairs in their house, Sean looked out the window to the drowned village, where rescue rafts were being distributed to residents.
“Hey! Send one of those our way, would you?” Sean shouted to a man in a rescue boat. He blanched when he noticed the logo embossed on its side.
“InfoJog password?” shouted the man.
“Don’t have one.”
“Then we can’t issue you a raft, sorry.”
“Can I sign up for InfoJog then please?”
“Hang on,” the boatman said. He consulted with an operative holding a tablet who made swimming gestures. Sean knew what was coming next.
“You need to do a mile-long swim.”
Rachel pushed Sean aside.
“Are you fucking kidding? He’ll fucking drown if he tries that.”
“Sorry, then we can’t—”
“What do you expect us to do, drink the water down with a straw?”
“We can’t authorise a raft, sorry.”
“I’m pregnant, you fucking robots!”
At which point the boatsmen resumed helping the InfoJog account holders. Rachel went into the spare room and dragged the mattress from the single bed. Sean cottoned on and came to her aid. They forced the mattress out the window and tested for buoyancy. As Rachel attempted to keep it steady against the window, Sean flung himself on face-first and gripped his hands around the two corners, keeping himself afloat by being flat. Once the rocking stopped, Rachel clambered onto his back and managed to swivel around so her body was lying in the opposite direction. Using their arms as oars, they struggled to steer the mattress towards a safe place, following their neighbours in the rafts.
“Why don’t you have an InfoJog account?” one neighbour asked.
“Because we didn’t realise God was going to restage The Flood right on our front fucking door,” Rachel replied. She proved a more efficient paddler, and kept the mattress from spinning around on their way to shallower ground.
Having reached the unflooded portion of the village, they set off on foot to the church to join the bivouac. Sean predicted things were about to get worse. He went inside first so Rachel didn’t make a scene. After thirty minutes, he emerged panting and red-faced with a few sandwiches and a bottle of water between two.