The 2084 Precept

by Anthony D. Thompson

"What's wrong?" he asked.

  "What's wrong? How do you mean, Jeremy?"

  "Well, why would so many human beings want to kill themselves? And every year you said."

  "Ah, a good question, Jeremy. It's mainly because they don't think that this planet is a good place to be. Being controlled and managed as it is by what, for them, is a pretty stupid and horrifying species."

  "But they are members of that species themselves."

  "Ah yes, but they don't want to be. And so they opt out."

  "O.K.," he sighed. He went to fetch himself some more coffee, came back and sat down again at the table.

  "Of course," I said, "there are the suicide bombers as well."

  "Suicide bombers? What do they do?"

  "Well…they kill as many other human beings as they can while killing themselves—usually by blowing themselves up in the middle of a large crowd. And usually for religious reasons. They believe what their religion's human representatives tell them, namely that this is what their god wants them to do, and they believe that they will receive some kind of superb posthumous rewards for doing it."

  "Now why would they believe that?"

  "Because some other human beings have told them to believe it."

  "That is why they believe it? There is no other reason?"

  "That is why. There is no other reason."

  “But…”

  “Religions, Jeremy, with both their promises of huge rewards and their threats of terrible retribution, are used by a minority of humans to influence and coerce other humans. Take Sati for example.”

  “Sati?”

  “Yes, Sati is a tradition of certain Indian religions. Newly widowed women immolate themselves on their dead husbands’ funeral pyres. Irrespective of whether they have children, and even if they are still only teenagers.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason: because other human beings have told them they should. Sati, in fact, was the name of a Hindu goddess, but as a practice it is alive and well not only in India but in several other religions around the world. Burying these widows alive is also an accepted alternative ritual.”

  “Burying alive? You are using the present tense, Peter?”

  “Indeed I am. But the fact is, in India the practice of Sati has gradually been made illegal. Unfortunately, flap, flap, enforcement of the law remains inconsistent. So there are still such cases today.”

  “Today? You mean now, this year?”

  “Yes, this year. But things are improving. In the old days, hundreds of wives and concubines would be buried alive with their husband’s body, or would immolate themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre, a famous example of which was Raja Suchet Singh’s death in 1844.”

  "Extraordinary. Extraordinary. I think I would like to leave this whole matter of killing if you don't mind," Jeremy said. "In fact, I would like to cut this meeting short. I hope you understand that I have to do a lot of research on what you have been telling me today; the subject will be such a volatile one that I must ensure there are no exaggerations. Do you think you could merge any other major human interaction items into the subject for our next meeting? Social and Organizational Characteristics?"

  "No problem, Jeremy. As subjects, they more or less overlap anyway."

  "Good. Would you be able to meet again this Friday?"

  "Yes. At what time?"

  "Let's leave that open, Peter. You will be calling me in any case about anyone following you and we can arrange a time and place depending on that." He certainly sounded somewhat disheartened. Dejected. Today's few facts and figures clearly did not depict a particularly benevolent species. He presumably would have preferred a more harmonious bunch of life-forms for his doctorate work.

  "Understood," I said. And the meeting was over. We stood up, shook hands and I headed for the exit at a fair rate of knots.

  Little Miss Goodall was sitting there, typing away and diffusing her erotic aura all over the place without appearing to notice. Well, she wouldn't need to notice, she knows it's there day and night, no matter what she's doing.

  "Thank you, Jane," I said with a smile. See how she reacts to my use of her first name.

  "Oh, Mr. O'Donoghue," she replied with a smile that would incinerate the cockles of your heart, whatever, as I tend to remark, they may be. "That was a relatively short meeting."

  "The name is Peter, Jane. Yes, so I'm off now. Take care, see you next time."

  "Oh…well…hope to see you soon. ´Bye Peter."

  I gave a little wave of the hand and hopped through the door, down the stairway and out onto the street. Lit an overdue cigarette, a great alleviator of neuron stress. Jane must be puzzled. This is a courteous male client. But he is not drooling at the mouth, he is not attempting any useful conversation, he is seemingly unaffected by her charms, to use a polite term for her seductive wares, and probably, therefore, not necessarily interested in said wares. Which, as it so happens, I am not. There should be a message by now from Céline. I'll check when I'm back at the hotel. Even so, it will be interesting to see what Jane gets up to with the courteous Mr. O'Donoghue next time we meet. Peter she calls me now and hopes to see me again soon. Unless, of course, she has started up with boyfriend number thirty nine by then.

  That man was there again. In a doorway. I caught sight of him out of the corner of my eye. Stamped my cigarette out and sauntered off in the direction of Tavistock Street. I knew exactly where to go to check this out, there was no need for a trek over the Thames. The ground floor entrance to the 'En Passant' has a recess for trash bins in the short hallway before you go through the door and up the stairs. I would speed up when turning the corner and get in there before he could see me. He would also turn the corner, see I wasn't there and presumably start checking the entrances on both sides of the street as he walked along. But my entrance would be empty, I would be tucked into the recess and he wouldn't be able to see me. I, on the other hand, would be able to see him as he passed on. Because the recess was on the left as you walk in and I would have come from the right end of the street. So all I had to do was leave a couple of centimeters of vision to observe anyone passing on to the next doorway.

  I didn't look behind me, nor even sideways, just to show him that I had no idea he might be following me. I sauntered around the corner into Tavistock Street. And then I sprinted along to the 'En Passant' and into the recess and waited.

  Not for long. There he was, passing by, nothing in this doorway, and on he continued down the street. I calculated two minutes for him to get to the end. I then calculated another half a minute for him to stand there looking back before deciding that he'd probably lost me, but that it would be worth a cursory check of the next street just in case. And I added another half a minute for that.

  And, exactly three minutes later, I peeked out. There were quite a few people going to wherever they were going, but there was no sign of my sleuth. So I left the doorway, vanished quickly around a couple of corners and kept going until I found an empty cab and directed the driver to my hotel.

  I checked my mailbox as soon as I got to my room. No message. And no calls during the day to my mobile either. This I did not like. But maybe she'd had a difficult time with her fiancé. Maybe I would get a call sometime tonight, maybe she would be on a flight to London tomorrow. I didn't like it, but it wasn't the time to bug her with another email. Which, come to think of it, was the only way I could contact her. How come I hadn't got her phone number or her address even? Shit, I don't even know her surname. My mind must be clogging up, losing its grip at the early age of thirty eight.

  I was tired. I had dinner in the hotel, a Côtes du Rhône with it, an expensive one this time and it was as good as the good cheaper ones, and I finished the IHT and went to bed.

  DAY 13

  I woke up in not such a good mood. Céline had not called or sent me a message last night. If I heard nothing from her during the day, I would have to figure out what kind of a message to send this evening to find out w
hat was going on or what had happened.

  I cheered myself up with my poached eggs, my Chivers and my Lavazza. I went back to my room and called Jeremy on the alien phone, as my neurons had decided to refer to it, punched the green button.

  Abracadabra—a cabbalistic word originating with Moses—the phone worked, no problem. "Good morning, Peter," he said, sounding not quite as depressed as when I had left him yesterday.

  "Morning, Jeremy. Just calling to let you know that I am indeed being followed. I checked it out. It was the same chap. Amateur."

  He thought about that for a moment.

  "Well…let's find out who he is or who they are. And what he or they want. Confront him, ask him."

  Pretty logical. "Will do, Jeremy," I said. "I'm off to Slough again now. I'll give you a call later in the day and let you know what happens. Cheerio."

  "Have a good day, Peter."

  And so it was the M4 again. A warm day, sunny, but I drove as slowly as if it were raining, checked for a blue Nissan. But I didn't see one, and I didn't see any other car that appeared to be following me. I pulled into Clark's and checked the road for a couple of minutes. Just normal traffic, no blue Nissan.

  I smoked a leisurely cigarette and went inside, received a good morning from the guy at the desk. Surprise, surprise. He greets people. And a sunny day without him being off somewhere having a smoke.

  I went along to Ron's office.

  "Good morning, Peter," he chimed. "That set-up reduction initiative of yours is going great guns. We've set up the groups, the guys are really into it, they’re off to a great start. One meeting a week but they're looking at things every day, thinking about them, coming up with all kinds of ideas. And two of the groups have found the reasons for a couple of quality defects as well."

  "I'm pleased to hear it, Ron. Have we got any suppliers coming in today?"

  "Yes. Joe has fixed up one for this morning and one for midday. Four more tomorrow, I think."

  Joe Braithwaite was the purchasing guy and he had one assistant. They reported to Ron, who as far as I could determine devoted perhaps one hour per year to this responsibility of his. Well, as I have already mentioned, that was going to change before the year was out. But first, I would be accumulating some data to be able to prove exactly how badly things had been managed in the past.

  I went along to Joe's office. I liked Joe, I liked his honesty. He always said what he thought, but at the same time I had never heard him say anything really nasty about any other person. I couldn't say the same for myself of course, even if I don't allow my dislikes to escalate into anything worse.

  Joe was an ex-rugby player with the nose and the ears to verify it. He was going bald on top, not a problem for a guy cemented into a marriage with four kids running around all over the place. A happy marriage as I understood it, a rare enough accomplishment given the nature of our species, and particularly these days, given the fact that most women are no longer financially dependent on their husbands. It cheers you up to come across such relationships from time to time—although they are not for the likes of me of course.

  Hi, Peter," he said. "We could only manage to fix two meetings for today. But we've got four for tomorrow, two in the morning and two in the afternoon. Here are the two summaries for today's visitors. The first meeting starts in half an hour. We've got the big meeting room, drinks and coffee arranged."

  "Great, Joe. I can see you're busy. See you in half an hour, O.K.?"

  I got myself a coffee from the machine and took it outside, lit up another cigarette. Warm and sunny, transforming the Slough industrial estate into just an awful place instead of an appalling one.

  I thought about Céline again. Something had to be wrong. It could be that she has decided she prefers her fiancé after all. Or it could be that she found that poem to be really weird, making me a weird kind of guy to be avoided at all costs. I shouldn't have sent it, bloody stupid come to think of it. I should have cobbled together a couple of romantic lines and complied with the red wine promise that way. Or it could be—heaven (whichever one you prefer) forbid—that she's had an accident or fallen ill. Or it could be that her email isn't working and she doesn't have a mobile phone. But that is ludicrous, it would mean that she doesn't have a home phone either and is allergic to mobile ones. No doubt about it, emotional stress has the ability to reduce one’s neurons to a worthless morass of unusable static.

  I strolled across the parking lot to the exit, checked the road. No blue Nissan.

  I went back inside and into the meeting room. Joe was there arranging drinks for two guys in suits and ties who were both fiddling around with their mobiles as if suffering from some kind of recently evolved electronic disease. Lots of them about these days, you see them everywhere. Take away their mobiles and you would have to construct a few thousand additional clinics specializing in disorders of the central nervous system.

  Joe introduced me to them and I handed each of them a card, took theirs in return. One of them was their sales director, Michael Crawford, one of those guys who have no heads, they are connected to their torsos by necks wider than your average oak tree, makes them look like a single, solid block of flesh. The other guy was a finance manager, David Price, a thin-faced guy with a long beak of a nose, presumably the underdog today. Both smiling and pleasant, however. And so they should be, we are the customer.

  I explained how satisfied we were with our business relationship, how we intended to continue the partnership long-term, blah, blah, blah. I asked them how they found the relationship.

  "Fantastic," said the block of flesh, "excellent." A sales guy, this Michael, what else was he going to say?

  "We need your cooperation," I said. "Times are hard, our profits are gone, we have to achieve savings. The savings we need to achieve on raw materials purchases have been calculated at 10.2%. This is the result of an in-depth analysis and has been mandated by our general manager. This is the task that Joe and I here have been given. That is the situation in a nutshell and we would be grateful if you would provide us with any comments you may have on that please."

  Michael began to waffle about restricted margins, difficult market situations, rising costs, 10% is unfeasible, and all the rest of it. When he finally stopped, I said nothing, I just stared at him. Not nastily, not provocatively…but with that piercing look for which I am renowned, or would be if there were any piercing-look championships. Silence is a powerful weapon, no doubt about it, it embarrasses the other party, it makes them feel nervous, it makes them feel obligated to say something, the void must somehow be filled.

  "I think," said Michael with a sideways glance at his colleague, "that we could possibly go to 5%. A big stretch for us, but I think we would be prepared to make that sacrifice to demonstrate how we have valued your custom over the years and how we continue to value it."

  "Michael, I repeat that we are not threatening to switch some or all of our orders to one of your competitors." Ha, but that is exactly what we are threatening; maybe he suspects that or maybe he doesn't. "I repeat," I continued, "that we are very pleased to have you as our supplier. You provide us with good quality, you meet your delivery deadlines and our relationship is overall a very satisfactory one. We are most definitely not saying give us 10% or we won't order, and I would not want there to be any misunderstanding on that point. Please."

  He and his partner David looked relieved to hear this. They didn't think they were showing it, but their body language, the cursory relaxing of the posture, the slight easing back in the chair, the faint but noticeable slackening of the muscles around the mouth, these all are signs to which I am well attuned. And that of course is my aim, to have them thinking that although we are going through tough times, we are civilized and agreeable people, not given to unpleasant or menacing discussions, compromises are the rule of thumb. We and they are all just a bunch of great fellows, chewing the fat over the table in a courteous and harmonious manner. Yeah, right.

  "Well, Peter, I und
erstand perfectly and I wouldn't have interpreted otherwise. But even so, I think I can still say that we are prepared to cooperate with 5%. Our two companies are, after all, in a form of partnership, and in a partnership there has to be some give and take on both sides. And, in view of your request, I think that this is one of those occasions when we, as your supplier, have to give. As I have said, it won't be easy for us to do, but we would like to show that we are prepared to cooperate."

  "Michael, thank you, I appreciate that. However, this certainly makes things difficult for Joe and myself. As you know, we have invited all of our suppliers to visit us, one on one, and we are expecting to achieve the 10.2% target we've been given by our boss. This applies particularly to our longer term partners. Now…we're a very good customer of yours, as you know, and we always pay. Not only that, but we always pay on time, not something to be taken for granted in these unaccommodating times. In fact, I am sure you would love to have thousands of customers just like ourselves. Your profits would simply pour in—regular orders, no cash flow difficulties, no bad debts and absolutely nothing else to worry about. The problem you are giving us, Michael, is that 5% from you means that Joe and I would have to obtain 15% from someone else with the same transaction volumes. And 15%, as I am sure you agree, would probably be unattainable."

  No way does he want to lose a customer such as Clark's. It wouldn't do him any good back at the ranch. On top of that it wouldn't help him reach his sales target for this year—a major risk to his annual bonus, if he gets one.

  "I understand that," said Michael, nodding his head. Or trying to, his head couldn't move much on that neck of his.

  "We may not be your biggest customer, Michael," I continued, "but, as you know, we are not a small one either and we order faithfully and regularly, year after year, we pay, and I am sure you count us as one of your best customers. And now we are asking you and your company for help."

  I stopped, I looked at him and I let the silence roll again.

  He looked back at me, and then he looked at his colleague and then he said, "This is very difficult for us. I would like to discuss this outside with Dave if you wouldn't mind. Would you kindly excuse us for a moment? We'll be back in five minutes."