by Ben Elton
Trafford worked for NatDat, the National Data Bank, which existed to collect and store information about the population. Historically NatDat had been a branch of the Home Office but it had long since grown so huge that the Home Office had become a branch of it. Every single recordable fact about every single person in the country was logged at NatDat. Every financial transaction, every appearance on a CCTV camera, every click on every computer, every quirk of every retina, every filling in every tooth was captured and entombed in the mainframes of NatDat and subsequently encrypted on to the little black strips on the back of people's Temple membership cards.
This was not an exercise in mass observation, nor was it sinister evidence of an all-knowing police state. The police had their own data bank with which to combat terrorism and terrorism continued unabated anyway, it having long since become clear that no matter how much information was stored about people they would still be able to detonate themselves in public places if they were really determined to do so. In fact the vast majority of the population (including most potential terrorists and random killers) published every possible detail of their lives on their Face Space pages anyway and lived in hope that somebody would read them. In a world where a desire for privacy was proscribed as a perversion and a denial of faith, there was little point in government sponsored mass observation.
Yet NatDat continued to grow, employing more and more people, simply to record and to store more and more information. To the best of Trafford's knowledge, nobody ever looked at any of the information he stored. He had never been called upon to supply any of it to anyone. He merely processed it, as did a million others like him, moving it from machine to machine like a great shifting sea. Sometimes, in his dreams, Trafford imagined a sudden information tsunami, a moment when all the electronic movements, the As and Bs of a trillion zillion micro-communications, would coalesce into one vast unstoppable tidal wave and drown the population in the virtual version of their own lives.
Despite the clarity of this vision and the fact that the recounting of dreams was a major element in both social intercourse and spiritual worship, Trafford did not share this dream with anyone. When invited to describe a dream at Community Confession or over chocolate lattes at social hubs on Fizzy Coffs, Trafford never told the truth. Instead he made up dreams, taking elements from other people's interminable sagas and stitching them together – a startled rabbit from one, a sense of falling from another, a sudden overwhelming awareness that it was 'all good' from a third, until he had enough to make an acceptable tale which would see him through until he could legitimately pass on the microphone.
Nobody ever noticed. Most people were simply itching to tell their own tales. Trafford did not keep his dreams a secret because he thought they were in any way significant; they were meaningless to him and hence must be doubly meaningless to anybody else. He kept them a secret simply in order to enjoy the sensual pleasure of having a secret. Of not emoting. Any secret was exciting to Trafford, no matter how banal. Something which he alone knew. Something which he did not share.
3
With weary resignation Trafford joined the crowd that was attempting to get into the tube station. No matter how much tidal planning the authorities imposed upon the commuting population, there was always a crowd at the entrance. There was a crowd at the entrance to everything and a crowd inside everything and as often as not a crowd assembled separately, in a holding area, awaiting access to the crowd that was waiting at the entrance to join the crowd that was inside. People spent so much of their lives shuffling forward at a snail's pace that it had become part of the physical characteristics of the population; they shuffled even on those rare occasions when there was not somebody jammed up in front of them and another person pushing them from behind. The authorities often ran public health campaigns urging people to straighten their backs and to take proper strides instead of pigeon steps. This would, they assured everyone, be good for their spines and enable them to look to the horizon with clear-eyed zeal. Nobody took any notice, sensing perhaps that there was little point in taking proper strides when it simply meant that you would arrive more quickly at the next people jam.
Trafford hated people jams. He had heard stories from his mother (who had perhaps heard them from her mother) of a time when it was possible to find solitude, when even in the cities there had been green places where one might sit and not smell the sweat of half a dozen other human beings. But that had been in the wicked years BTF. Before the country had shrunk under the vengeance of the Love and all the population had been forced to squeeze into half the space it had previously enjoyed.
Trafford shuffled forward, watching the gates opening and closing as the platforms beneath them emptied and filled. He knew that he should not complain, that he was lucky to live near a functioning tube line with an effective pumping system. But he didn't feel lucky, crushed in among the shuffling crowd, struggling towards the start of his utterly pointless day. Exhausted after a night spent in a tiny room with his even more exhausted wife and a screaming baby, he did not feel lucky. He felt numb.
A voice called out his name. 'Trafford. Trafford Sewell. Come share with me!'
Trafford knew the voice well. He also knew that he would have to go share. He would have to relinquish his place in the mass shuffle (despite being no more than two gate closures from the entrance) and go where he was summoned. It would make him late for work, of course, but this would not lead to his being counselled and encouraged to reconsider the decisions he took about what time he left the house. No employer would ever expect a person to disobey their Confessor's invitation to share.
Trafford turned and began to push back against the human tide.
And there was so much tide to push against. So many people and so much of each person. And almost all of it on display. So much flesh. So much sweating near-naked flesh. Huge women in the tiniest of crop tops and panties, combinations that were basically little more than bikinis. Some were bare even at the bosom, the big, baby-sucked nipples pointing accusingly at Trafford as he struggled past, pink and brown signposts reminding him that he was going in the wrong direction. Men in short shorts and trainers, in vests, or bare to the waist. It was often the largest bellies that were the most exposed, thrust forward like great battering rams, proud bellies, bellies of size, topped off with pendulous, quivering, hairy man breasts.
Trafford held his arms aloft as he attempted to penetrate the almost solid mass of flesh that faced him. He did this for fear that his hands might accidentally brush against a breast or, worse, get lodged in a crotch as he attempted to prise his way past. The merest touch could so easily be wilfully misinterpreted.
'Are you fiddlin' with me?' a voice would shriek. 'Did you disrespect my booby?'
Always it seemed to Trafford that the larger and more naked the woman, the more likely she was to scream that her breasts had been disrespected. Yet in such a crush and with breasts so very, very large it was difficult to avoid disrespecting them. Breasts like beach balls, bursting out of tiny triangles of shiny cloth, with great burned-brown semicircles of half-revealed nipples loomed inches from his face.
The inevitable happened.
'Pervert!' someone shouted. 'The fucking station's behind you.'
Trafford did not attempt to find from whom the voice had come. He knew that the last thing an outraged person wanted to hear was reason and so instantly he turned ninety degrees and pushed sideways against the crowd. He had to get away from that voice: the word 'pervert' was but a short step from the word 'paedo', and once that word was uttered in a restive, sullen crowd the stakes mounted.
It was astonishing how, in crushes where there was scarcely room to scratch one's nose, space could suddenly be found to kick a man to death.
'Sorry, sorry. Excuse me,' Trafford muttered, his arms raised and his chin on his chest, touching nobody's boobies, catching nobody's eye. 'My Confessor called me, I have to get through.'
The angry voice receded behind him and
then, all in a rush, as if breaking through a dense jungle canopy, Trafford popped out of the wall of bodies and almost into the arms of his community spiritual guide, Confessor Bailey.
'Hey, hey, hey!' Bailey laughed, big and jovial as always. 'Steady there, steady. More haste less speed, Trafford, as a wise man once said.'
'You called me, Confessor. Was there something?' Trafford asked, trying to look as cheerful as the Confessor was pretending to feel.
'Something? Something! Of course there's something, Trafford!' Bailey shouted, enfolding him in a fierce bear hug. 'Congratulations is what there is, brother! Congratulations and love salutations! I understand that the Lord of Life has blessed you and your lovely, lovely, sexy, sexy lady with a beautiful baby girl kiddie. Am I right?'
Confessor Bailey continued to hold Trafford in his huge embrace. The preacher was a big man; the top of Trafford's head came barely to his chin, Trafford's cheek was pressed against Bailey's chest and the smell of expensive designer perfume and scented toilet products mixed with sweat was nearly overpowering. Bailey wasn't naked, of course: he was dressed quite modestly, as befitted his senior position in the community, in tight, pure white satin hot pants, white knee socks and a white Lycra cycling jersey. The jersey was emblazoned with a glittering golden cross spotted with winking pin lights. Above the cross was a rainbow, also illuminated, and within the rainbow a hologram of a dove in flight. On his head Confessor Bailey wore a tall mitre studded with costume jewels and bound with more strings of lights.
'You are right,' Trafford stammered into Bailey's chest, trying not to breathe in too deeply, 'we've had a baby.'
'All good, I hope. Chantorria well? Strong? Proud? In control? Working on getting her figure back?'
'Yes, yes, of course.'
'Then I say Go, girl! Praise the Lord. Praise the Love!'
'Praise the Love,' Trafford echoed dutifully.
'Kiddie doing fine?'
'Yes, very well, thank you, Father,' Trafford replied. 'She's gorgeous.'
'Of course she is. Made in the image of her precious sexy mother and as such in the image of our Creator. And does the gorgeous darling have a name?'
'Well, we thought perhaps . . . Caitlin.'
Confessor Bailey frowned. Formal, traditional names were not fashionable any more. The past itself was not fashionable. Everybody knew that it was in the past that society had made its mistakes. The past was a place of ignorance, heresy and dark, dark sorcery. The past was a place where man was taught that the ape was his brother and where Christian ministers claimed that God was not a real person at all but merely a metaphor for goodness.
'We haven't absolutely decided yet,' Trafford continued hurriedly, his courage deserting him. 'Chantorria thought perhaps Happymeal.'
'You should listen to your lady,' Confessor Bailey replied firmly. 'She has a clever head on those strong, womanly shoulders. Cute too, and great boobs for naturals. Big and proud.'
'Thank you, Confessor Bailey, I shall tell her that you said so.'
The Confessor smiled but his mood did not lighten.
'I checked your Face Space page, Trafford,' he said sternly. 'I also checked your board on the Community Space site.'
Trafford looked at the ground, knowing what was coming. There could be no other reason for Confessor Bailey to summon him from the crowd.
'I even Goog'ed you up on the WorldTube and yet . . .' Bailey continued, his voice getting sterner by the syllable, 'I found no birthing video.'
Trafford's head remained bowed. He had only hoped to keep the secret for a short time, just while he and Chantorria got to know their child. He had intended to post the required video that very evening. It had been just his luck to bump into Bailey. He stared fiercely at a rotting remembrance card that lay between his feet.
Fanta: Gone to Heaven but always in our hearts.
'Problem with your broadband, Trafford?' Confessor Bailey asked icily. 'I find if you just turn it off at the wall and wait five minutes . . .'
'I didn't actually post a birthing video . . . yet,' Trafford admitted. It was always better to confess, the Temple knew everything anyway. Everybody knew everything.
'Chantorria reminded me to but . . . well, I just haven't got round to it.'
The priest smiled but it was a hard, joyless smile. 'You just haven't got round to it?'
'No.'
'You did not feel moved to share this beautiful and most special Lord-given event, which is like no other and after which you will never be the same, with your community? With the world?'
'I announced it,' Trafford protested weakly. 'I put it on my blog.'
Now Bailey was not even bothering to smile.
'You announced it? You put the birth of a kiddie on your blog? And that is all?'
'I wrote about it! I described how beautiful—'
'You described it!' The priest was angry now. 'The Lord has blessed us with digital recording equipment with which we can capture, celebrate and worship in diamond detail the exactitude of every nuance of his creation and yet you, you in your vanity, think that your description, the work of your lowly, humble, inadequate imagination, can somehow do the job better! You believe your description, your fiction, to be a better medium for representing God's work than digitized reality!'
Suddenly Trafford was scared. He had not expected Confessor Bailey to put this spin on his excuse. Fiction was not a word that was used lightly. Fiction was a sin, fiction was sacrilege. Everybody knew that invention, the act of creation, was the prerogative of the Love and only of the Love. God created reality and man worshipped it, that was the way of truth. Men created only lies.
'No!' Trafford protested. 'Not fiction! Just . . . a description, that's all. A description of reality . . . reality in words.'
'Why didn't you record it? Why didn't you broadcast real reality instead of your own paltry efforts to describe it? When you shave in the morning do you use a mirror?'
'Well, yes, of course I—'
'Exactly, you do not rely on a description of your face. You do not apply the razor to your flesh guided only by the printed word! Because if you did you would soon cut yourself to pieces.'
'Well, no . . .'
'So real reality is fine when it comes to your own personal comfort but when it comes to celebrating the divine gift of life, a description of reality will suffice. Is that it?'
'No!'
'Why did you not Tube a birthing video, Trafford?'
Trafford knew the answer but he could never say it. He could not possibly confess that his decision to delay posting the birthing video on the net had been the result of a strange force deep within him which desired a moment of privacy. A longing to keep something to himself, even if only for a short while.
He could not say that. Nothing was more offensive to the Temple and to the community in general than privacy. Why would anyone wish to hide any aspect of themselves from the gaze of others? Was it not their duty to celebrate themselves? Perhaps Trafford was ashamed of something? Or perhaps he thought he was in some way special? Better than his fellow men and women, too good for them?
'Privacy,' Bailey stated with quiet menace, 'is a blasphemy, Trafford. Only perverts do things in private.'
'I know that, Confessor.'
'If you have nothing to be ashamed of, you have nothing to hide.'
'I just didn't think anybody would be interested,' Trafford stammered. 'You know, there's so much going on in our tenement besides us. Goodness knows, Galaxy Starlight at Number 8a is having sex with her husband's dad but her husband still loves her big time so now it's a threesome and they're streaming it live 24/7. Why would anybody want to look at—?'
'Is something wrong?' the Confessor broke in, his face suddenly a picture of desperate concern. 'Is the kiddie deformed?'
'No!'
'Thank the Love.'
'Thank the Love.'
'Say hallelujah!'
'Hallelujah!'
'Was it a difficult birth?' the priest we
nt on. 'Did Chantorria tear?'
'A little but . . .'
'If so, all the more reason to share and to emote. Tragedy and pain are lordly creations too, sent to test our strength and try us. Be proud of your pain! When we share our suffering we learn and we grow and we share our connection with God.'
'Everything's fine, really . . .'
'Say Love!'
'Love!'
'Say Everlasting Love!'
'Everlasting Love!'
'Let me hear you say Ev Love!'
'Ev Love!'
The Confessor had raised his face to Heaven for these ringing incantations but now his fierce glare returned to Trafford.
'Then why have you not done your duty by your community and posted a birthing video?'
There was simply no answer. The truth would have resulted in a public denunciation at Confession, perhaps even a whipping. Once more Trafford stared at the ground. A new thought occurred to Bailey.
'Is Chantorria ashamed of her cooch?' he asked suddenly.
'No, Confessor! Certainly not! It was me who . . . forgot to post the vid.'
'Eve had a cooch! Mother Mary had a cooch! Diana had a cooch! Cooches make kiddies. Chantorria should be proud to be a strong woman with a kiddiemaking cooch.'
'She is! Of course she is, Father. Very proud. Proud to be a woman.'
'A strong woman! A woman of faith.'
'Yes, of course. Faith is at the centre of our lives. Nothing is more important to us than our one-on-one relationship with the Love. We talk to him all the time.'
'Then why has she not shown the cooch the Love gave her to the world in its time of greatest creativity? Does she not wish to be a role model? To empower others? To help them to celebrate and to learn from her Lord-given experience? Does she not think that she is beautiful and that everybody should watch her, share with her? Applaud her?'