Here I Stand

by Amnesty International UK

  When I looked up again he was gone, though I was sure he never walked away.

  Day after day from the time he disappeared, I went to Harmless Joe’s shack looking for him. And I seen Rita on the street one time with the baby in a pusher. She said to me, thank you, Tyrone, and asked if I knew where Joe was, as she wanted to thank him too. But he never come back. Joe was too smart for such attention.

  One day, in the winter, I took the bloodied mattress from the shack and set it afire with petrol. Then I took Joe’s old broom and swept up the shack and put some wood in his stove and lit the fire and sat on the floor feeling the room warm. I thought bout him and where he had got to. Goruk – the magpie.

  “I wrote this story as a way of focusing on those among us who we push to the margins of society – and, in doing so, strip of their humanity. The concept of community has no tangible value unless it is inclusive in the fullest sense of the word. Without community we cannot survive.” Tony Birch

  PUSH THE WEEK

  Jackie Kay

  If I had cash, I could get some cassava gari

  Down Great Western Road, shop in Solly’s

  And make some sukuma wiki; stretch the week.

  But this card don’t buy me African food

  Or let me shop in Marie Curie

  (although they have nice things in there).

  Only in the Salvation Army store.

  (Where the clothes are a bit of a bore.)

  You think just because you’re an asylum seeker

  You don’t care what you wear?

  And from eating the wrong food, my stomach’s sore.

  If I didn’t just have this card to use

  I would buy some maize meal flour, avocado, yam.

  If my mother were here she would say:

  That woman is not my daughter.

  Even I don’t know who I am.

  If I had cash I could buy some corn pones,

  dried fish, beef … curried mung beans…

  Kachumbari, my God, how I wish!

  Expand the chest. My spirits would lift, eh?

  Not so worthless, not so angry.

  Ugali would make me less depressed!

  Not so homesick. Nyama choma.

  But the Home Office never consider

  How it feels to be dispersed to Glasgow.

  No cash for cane row, no money for Makimo.

  No dosh for monthlies. No pounds for sweet potato.

  The week repeats. We are scattered families.

  Now it’s HIV. No TV. Just CCTV – watching me.

  Non-stop scrutiny. Anyone shouts, Asylum seeker,

  Bash them with your saucepan. Man stealer!

  (I have yet to see one to write home about!) Cassava!

  In your imagination, you have new friends to dinner.

  You picture a cooker. A table. You light a candle.

  You shine some cutlery. You see your face in it.

  And you say, Stick in till you stick oot, and you say,

  Help yourself. Go ahead. Have some chapati, mbazi, gari.

  Here’s what we eat in my country. You see.

  ROBOT KILLERS

  Tim Wynne-Jones

  So Val says, “How about Robot Killers?”

  Costa nods, vaguely, and stares into the middle distance, thinking of some drawing, a logo, maybe. Ahmed frowns. Estelle glares one of her if-looks-could-kill best.

  “It’s sort of like Drone,” says Val.

  “But it’s not Drone,” says Estelle. “We’re Drone – or we were Drone.” She turns up the glare until it is definitely an eleven.

  “It’s not my fault,” says Val. “I told you! Crying Out Loud blew it. They invited two bands named Drone to the festival, and because the other one’s way bigger, we’ve got to come up with another name.”

  “Robot Killers, plural?” says Ahmed. “With or without the?”

  Val shrugs. “Whatever,” he says, but his eyes go all shifty.

  Estelle never misses a sudden shiftiness in a guy’s eyes. “Val?”

  He swallows, can’t meet her eyes.

  “Val, you didn’t!” She hits the roof. (Well, Costa, actually, cos he’s sitting on the floor next to her.)

  Costa says, “Ow!” and rubs his arm, right where he has the blue bird of happiness tattoo. Such irony.

  “You already gave them the name change,” says Estelle, in full-bore, pitch-perfect accusation mode.

  Val visibly diminishes in stature.

  “This whole ‘let’s-try-to-think-of-a-new-band-name’ thing was a total waste of time,” she adds. “Admit it.” She makes quote marks in the air around her stupendously long adjective, but the quote marks turn to fists as they land like dead birds in her lap. Although they obviously don’t look quite dead enough, because Costa skitters his butt out of reach and leans against the wall.

  Val finishes flinching. “Sorry,” he says, looking at Estelle pleadingly. “They needed a name right away, OK?”

  “Not OK.”

  “They’re making posters, putting together press kits! I just thought it was, you know, a reasonable substitute.”

  Estelle growls. It’s something she does sometimes when she’s singing, and it sounds cool … onstage.

  Costa, still rubbing his arm, says, “Posters, Stelle. Somebody’s actually paying for a poster.”

  “And it is kind of like Drone,” says Val, again.

  “Technically, no,” says Ahmed. “A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle under real-time human control, whereas a killer robot identifies, tracks and destroys a moving target without human intervention.”

  Costa claps. Ahmed bows. It’d be pretty impressive but for the fuzzy Ewok hat he happens to be wearing.

  Estelle crosses her arms and throws herself back against her amp.

  Mood swing: irritation and defeat, nicely accentuated by her Littlest Mermaid T-shirt. Except she’s wearing it with camo pants and spiky blue Docs.

  “Sorry,” says Val. Again.

  “There shouldn’t be a the,” says Ahmed. “Because there are lots of killer robots.”

  “Robot Killers,” says Val.

  “Sweet,” says Costa.

  The band Robot Killers, formerly known as Drone:

  Val Rydell – drummer and guy with a large shed, dec-oratively but only somewhat effectively insulated with egg cartons. Guy with a van. Guy who gets the gigs and does the paperwork. Destined to be a local politician.

  Costa de Leon – bass player, back-up vocalist and artist extraordinaire, as can be witnessed on many bridges, railway carriages, toilet cubicles and fire-escape doors in the vicinity. Destined for art school and/or jail.

  Ahmed Tahan – keyboard player and human search engine. Destined to beat Deep Blue at chess.

  Estelle Seymour – singer/songwriter and lead guitarist. Destined to truss Val Rydell up like a chicken in chains, shove him in a sack and throw him off a very high bridge. Very soon.

  The Crying Out Loud Summer Rock Festival draws some pretty big names but they always leave a couple of spots for up-and-comers. Estelle, at home in her room, glares at her computer screen, aiming a death ray at the festival’s home page. It doesn’t burst into flames. She has looked up Drone – the other Drone, who are actually The Drones. For a minute she thinks this could be a loophole, but she can’t see herself fighting it out with the festival organizers over a definite article and an s.

  She throws herself back on her bed. Why is she so angry? It’s not just Val. Val works his tail off for the band. Not only that – he puts up with her! Her father once asked Val if he offered seminars. But this… This…

  She pulls out her phone.

  “Hey,” he says. He sounds wary if not exactly frightened. He’s safe at home three streets away.

  “I’m not phoning to apologize,” she says.

  “Good,” he says. “Because I’d drop dead from surprise.”

  “I never even liked Drone,” she says.

  There’s a pause while he regroups. “What
do you mean?”

  “What I said.”

  “It was your name.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Ahmed was going on and on about how we should call the band something to do with black holes or—”

  “The Schwarzschild radius.”

  “Right, and I said, drone, drone, drone, and everybody said, that’s it!”

  “Yeah, because it’s totally cool.”

  “And kills people.”

  “But it’s not like we were advertising. Hey, everybody, go out and buy yourself a drone and kill people. Anyway, there are useful drones. One day soon they’ll be delivering the mail.”

  “And killing people.”

  “Anyway,” he tries again, “we’re not called that any more.”

  “So now we’re something even more deadly. A robotic death squad.”

  “Stelle,” he says. “They don’t even exist yet. It’s sci-fi. After you left—”

  “You mean stormed off in high dudgeon.”

  “Eh? What’s high dudgeon?”

  “Apart from a way better name for our band?”

  “Stop, already.”

  “OK, outrage… That’s what high dudgeon is. Maybe I’ll change my name to High Dudgeon, or did you already give them the names of the musicians, too.”

  Val swears, colourfully. “After you skipped out,” he says patiently, “Ahmed gave us one of his patented hour-long lectures on lethal autonomous weapons systems and artificial intelligence and blah, blah, blah, and he said it was still, like, years before anyone would be deploying anything like that.”

  “So not entirely sci-fi. Come on, Val. Killer Robots?”

  “No,” says Val, exasperated. “Robot Killers. Why don’t you listen to me?”

  “Whatever.”

  “No, there’s a…” Estelle hears a voice at Val’s end. Corinne arriving. Distracting Corinne. “Listen,” Val says, “I’ve got, you know, homework.”

  “Never heard it called that before,” says Estelle and clicks off.

  Her sleep is disturbed by dreams. Of rifle-waving terrorists and refugee camps. Wastelands. TV newscapes of fallen places, bent metal skeletons and smoke. And because she did her own research on killer robots, which people are making, no matter what Ahmed the human search engine says, she sees them emerge from the smoke, prowling on tractor treads across no man’s land. Little R2-D2s with machine-gun turrets instead of cute heads.

  “Stop!” cries her nightmare robot. Then fires anyway.

  She wakes into semi-darkness, angry and frightened.

  Mood swing: rage dissipates to helplessness. Angst. The sense of waking up somewhere she never intended to be. Nowhereville. It’s not yet three, but words are lining up in her head, hurling themselves into one configuration after another. It’s like an injection – an intravenous feed of Red Bull. She phones Ahmed at six.

  “Call me in England,” he says groggily.

  “What do you mean?”

  “In England it is eleven o’clock in the morning. If you phone me there I will answer you.” He hangs up.

  She phones him at eleven. “I had this terrible nightmare,” she says.

  “No, you didn’t,” he says. “I was the one who had the nightmare.”

  Planet Wrong

  It was the wrong house on the wrong block.

  Inserted my key into the wrong lock.

  Kicked off my shoes in the wrong vestibule.

  Turned on the tube in the wrong living room –

  I’m a girl in shock,

  Since you gave me the news.

  I can hardly breathe the toxic air

  I’m so confused.

  You were so short,

  When you said so long.

  And left me here stranded on Planet Wrong.

  Woke up this morning on the wrong side of the bed.

  Buttered my toast on the wrong side of the bread.

  Cop flagged me down, said, “Girl, can’t you read?

  You’re goin’ the wrong way down a one-way street.”

  I’m a total wreck,

  Since you lowered the boom.

  Bumping around like some blind fool

  In a darkened room.

  It had been so clear,

  Our love was so strong.

  But now we’re at war here on Planet Wrong.

  Band practice. Working on the song that got her out of bed. “Needs a chorus,” she says.

  “Needs a B-3 solo,” says Ahmed, doing an arpeggio on the yellowing keys of his chipped and stained old Hammond. The sound comes out of the Leslie speakers as a tremulant squeal.

  “What makes it do that?” says Costa. “Sounds like an ambulance streaking past.”

  “Doppler effect,” says Ahmed, chopping out some kind of a break.

  “There’s a good name for a band,” says Estelle. She glares at Val, who makes a sour face but with just enough eyebrow to it to let her know he’s only going to suck this lemon for so long.

  “Good song, Stelle,” says Costa.

  “Yeah, whatever,” says Estelle, taking off her beat-up Fireglo Rickenbacker and hanging it on its guitar stand.

  “Time for a break,” says Val.

  Estelle ups and leaves.

  She walks down to K Street. Wishes there was an O Avenue that crossed it so she could stand at the corner of OK, just to see what that would feel like.

  Planet Wrong. Alienation.

  That’s what this has been about – this feeling – but she only finds the word now. She wonders why other people can find the right word for something so easily and she has to write a whole song to find it.

  She looks around and scowls. People out on a mild summer evening. Then she unscowls. They’re not the enemy. Val’s not the enemy. Even the folks at Crying Out Loud aren’t the enemy. It’s this thing that happens. Somebody takes your name. Just like that! Gone. And it’s not necessarily that you even liked your name, but it was yours and now it’s not. It’s about … what?

  Expedience.

  This time the word does come. She’s not even fully sure what it means. She leans against a lamppost, pulls out her phone, looks it up. The situation in which something is helpful or useful, but sometimes not morally acceptable.

  Ka-ching!

  As in, it would be expedient for you to change your band name because there’s a bigger Drone out there already. Or as in, it would be expedient for our country to attack your country since you’ve got all those oil reserves and we want them. Or, it would be expedient for us to eradicate your people because they’re not the same as us.

  People in the world are really suffering – it never stops. And is it always about expedience?

  “Get over yourself,” she mutters.

  A guy passing says, “Wha…?”

  And she shakes her head. “Not you,” she laughs.

  He looks like he might make something out of it but then just walks away, looking back in case she’s a killer robot or something. Yeah, well…

  It gets to her. She lets it get to her. But it’s not like she wants it to.

  Mood swing: I can’t do anything about this. What’s the point? So, stay in your room. Try to write words. No words come. And words are all you’ve got. Basically, you’ve got sweet boo all. So…

  1. Blow off Mum.

  2. Blow off Dad.

  3. Blow off Val.

  4. Stop answering the phone.

  5. Repeat.

  Saturday. Two weeks until Crying Out Loud. She has blown off three rehearsals. Where has all this come from? Had it always been there? This sense of indignation. High dudgeon. Whatever.

  “Yeah, but a bad time for it to surface,” says Ahmed. He’s been phoning so often, finally she has to answer.

  “When would be a good time?” she asks.

  Ahmed cannot think of a reply. Imagine that?

  “Estelle,” her mother calls. “Costa’s here.”

  “Is this a concerted attack?” she asks Ahmed.

  “Yes,” he says. “Check your wi
ndow. A drone from Val should arrive any moment.”

  Estelle growls and hears Ahmed tut, tut, tut as she hangs up.

  Costa stands in the hallway, resplendent in a new T-shirt. One he has clearly designed himself. It’s black, except for a white circle in the middle. There’s a killer robot in the circle – something silvery from some fifties B-movie. But Costa has put the red circle-backslash “No” sign over it. He smiles and turns around. Estelle approaches him to read what is written on his back.

  Asimov’s Laws

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

  2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

  Estelle turns him back around to face her. “Asimov, the science fiction dude?”

  “Who wrote I, Robot,” says Costa. He looks down at his chest, holds the shirt out so he can see it better. “He wrote the laws in 1942. Can you believe that? And the UN is sort of adopting it as a code of conduct or something.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  He shrugs. “Did some googling. There’s this thing called Killer Robots and the Rule of Law written by a woman at the UN.” He looks up. “This is OK, right?”