London When it Rains

by C. Sean McGee

XXIX

  “Hi, welcome to Eco-Awesome, I’m Charisma, that’s Charisma with a ‘k’ and there’s a silent ‘y’ at the end. So I’m your super-duper empath, and I’m also the chief talisman I suppose, like a goddess version, and your spiritual everything basically. Basically, in short, consider me your guide and you advisor, and I also make scarfs and protection bracelets, so don’t forget to pick one up, but oh wow, welcome, wow you must be drained. Here let me give you the traditional custom welcome.”

  Charisma then went prisoner to prisoner and painted a small smiley face on their foreheads before attempting to kiss each one of them in all seven of their chakras.

  “So, we don’t really get guests. In case you didn’t know, we are an awesome community that is self-sustaining. And everyone is so full of love and light – like beams of awesomeness.”

  Her guests were anything but. Their clothes were torn and each of them reeked like a men’s urinal. They all stared at Charisma, but neither of them was entirely lit up by her charm. The five prisoners stood blank and lifeless in hot sand, expecting this crazed lunatic to cut off their hands, or to bury them up to their necks in the sand. What they weren’t expecting was this.

  “Oh! My! Goshala! Interpretive dance. Awesome.”

  Behind her, about a dozen barely clothed natives came jumping out of the brush. Each of them had their faces and stomachs painted with flowers and mandalas. They pranced around the prisoners in a circle until eventually they held hands and took the form of a heart. They made whooshing sounds as they rushed back and forth as if the heart were beating. And the prisoners all bit their tongues.

  Charisma was full of praise. “I did not expect that,” she said, jumping up and down on the spot. Not big jumps – little ones. Lots and lots of little jumps. And she was clasping her hands too as if her joy were a kind of glue that kept them so terrifically bound. “And that’s one thing,” she said with a maniacal grin on her face, “you can always expect something completely unexpected to happen. It’s like the essence of life really. For example…”

  She went on for an hour. In that time, The Driver loaded five small sacks with personal possessions. In each one, he put a small canister that was said to be filled with the tears of Jesus Christ. Along with each canister, there was a small crucifix, some rosary beads for those who so worshipped, and two versions of the Christian bible – one of which was a picture book with a pop up in the middle. Before Charisma’s speech touched on aliens and sexual energy – the midway point – The Driver had already loaded up the bus and left his prisoners to do their bidding.

  He drove off slowly and didn’t bother acknowledging those he left behind or those whose acquaintance he had only just made. As he headed on down the road, the thought finally occurred to him that it was done. He had kept his cool for so long. He had subscribed to so many schools of thought. He had deranged himself in the ideals of soulless psychopaths, just so this day could come to fruition. He could not stay for he had no place in the birth of the new Christian god. He could not return either to the secular Babylonian hell.

  He drove, listening to the engine splutter and watching the sun slow setting through the overhanging branches and leaves. He could hardly believe that it was true. The last three years had been the worst that he had ever endured. His faith had been tested every single second. But he did not falter. He did not side with the Devil. He merely suffered day in-day out in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. His mind had been a battlefield, and his heart and soul bore the bloodied wounds of his fight. But here he sat - a victor.

  As he drove, the pile of explosives behind him started to tick and beep. That didn’t bother him, though. His whole body shivered. They were not shivers of fright or fret, no, they were shivers of fanciful delight. They were the same shivers he would have as a young boy, creeping down the stairs on Christmas morning. They were very same shivers when – years later- he promised himself to the church, and years later still when he promised himself to martyrdom. It was the same shiver he got whenever he saw a child being baptised. It was an exciting shiver. It felt as if God were dancing up and down his spine.

  He tried not to think about all the people he had killed and those that he had had no choice but to maim and torture. All of it had been done in the name of God almighty. All of it had been done for his son’s return. It would never have been his will to do such things outside of this sanctimonious crusade, and therefore he carried no guilt for the great deal of horror and heartache that he had cast upon so many people – and so many of them children. He carried no guilt and he carried no remorse for those lives had chosen, by their reckoning, to live soulless, heathenistic existences. They were chaos and vermin dressed in human skin. They were without God, and thus they were without morality. He felt no guilt for that which felt no kindness or sorrow. He felt no remorse for that which could not feel.

  The red light on the fuel gauge turned on. It wouldn’t be long now - not until the end. He was tired, it was true. Today, especially, had been exhausting. But the seeds of God had been planted. There was not a native community that was not playing host now to the word of Jesus Christ. In time they would do their work. They would spread the good and holy word, and out of the ruin of a secular state would the phoenix rise. The sun would be born again. Jesus Christ would once again live in the heart and soul of man and he would guide humanity on the righteous path towards divinity.

  The beeping now was loud and erratic. The engine too was starting to splutter and shake. The Driver smiled as he thought of what would become. He thought about a world with only one god. He thought about a church inside every home. He thought about children playing hopscotch in the street, and he thought about their mothers and fathers, and how happy they were just to be able to watch. He imagined rainbows in the sky and lots of birds tweeting too. He imagined the whole world with smiles that could not be erased for the love of God shone in their hearts. He imagined – as the bus guzzled the last drops of fuel – humanity having been saved.

  “So, oh my goshala,” said Charisma. “It’s just the best to have you here and…”

  Boom!

  The air shook. The trees shook too. Far away in the distance, there was a flash of light, and then a plume of black smoke rose up into the sky. The natives all huddled. Even Charisma was a tad startled, but not enough to stump her cherry smile. She didn’t look happy, though. It wasn’t that kind of smile. She looked like a cow with a hand up its arse.

  “Well that was unexpected,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “And we love unexpected, don’t we guys?”

  The natives all jumped up once more.

  “Sure do,” they all said, jumping back over the scrub and continuing their dance inside a large mud hut at the centre of their community.

  “So, you have stuff. That’s cool. We don’t really have stuff if you know what I mean. Everything is communal – our clothes, our food, our jewellery, even our beds. Everything belongs to Gaia – to mother earth – so, not even my body is my possession. But you can have stuff if you like, you’re coming from the ‘object’ world, and I know it’s really tough to break this physical type bind. But don’t worry, you will – everyone does.”

  She talked and talked and talked. And sure, she had a point, but it was in the centre of her message and she went about it in circles, each time getting further and further from the crux of her message. Somehow, though, she always came back.

  “So we are a completely self-sustained community. We don’t need a government or a police or even electricity. We have our own schools where we teach the real essences of nature and existence, and we have the best peach and lentil cake recipe on earth – you just have to try it. And you will…”

  She talked about cakes for some time.

  “So how many of you are there?”

  The prisoners looked at one another. Neither of them bothered to count. Neither of them could participate in anything greater than catatonia.

  “One, two, three, four….hmmm. Five.”<
br />
  She looked stumped for the first time.

  “Five? Oh. Oh, ok. Hmmmm…. Well… Ahhh... Hmm... Five…”

  The prisoners looked at one another again.

  “Is there a problem?” asked The Cardinal.

  “No. No problems. We don’t have problems here in Eco-Awesome. There are no problems, only awesome challenges and things to do and figure out. Wow, yeah, no, no problems. So, five? Ok, so wow, yeah, awesome. Well here’s the deal. We are an awesome self-sustained community, but…and I hate to say the word but… but… we have the best houses and crops and everything…”

  She sounded nervous or confused, but she was still smiling.

  It would take a tragedy to break that smile.

  “So we have space really for four, not five. But that’s not a problem, though. That’s an awesome challenge. Yeah. Wow, that’s so amazing. It would have been super awesome if you were four, but hey, welcome to our community.”

  She ran and embraced each one.

  “First thing first, let’s get you all some beds.”

  She took them through the brush and scrub where on the other side, there was a vast array of small mud and clay huts. And in and around those huts, there were scores and scores of men, women, and children – all of them either running about and dancing or painting or swimming or make pots and spoons or even having sex, as some of them were in what looked like a class of some sorts.

  “Hmmm,” said Charisma.

  Four of the prisoners were spread out in the community, sitting on their hard clay beds. There was still one prisoner, though, who still had no bed.

  “Well…”

  Charisma now sounded polite, yet a tad coerced.

  “What they hey, you can have the bed that I sleep in. That’s super cool, no problems whatsoever. Awesome. Yeah, cool.”

  She didn’t sound super cool, though.

  There were definitely some negative vibes.

  XXX

  The camp itself was an achievement in some regard. There were many huts, some of them for sleeping, some for recreation, some for learning, some for cooking, and others for sex, yoga, and ayahuascan meditation. Their structures were primitive but they were astounding nonetheless. Their high roofs helped with the stifling heat, and their built-in fireplaces – which channelled below the ground – provided ample warmth on those rare cold nights.

  There was little comfort to be found, especially in those places that were designed just for that. The beds were only slightly higher than the floor, but that was their only difference. They were terrible to curl up on and even worse to jump into, and they did little to deter the scorpions which wandered freely, crawling under the natives’ warm bodies as they slept.

  The toilet was a minefield of small holes that was just a small trek from camp. It was close enough so that at night, one could find it by scent alone. And on the other side of camp, there was a quiet slow moving river and quite a large vegetable garden.

  There were no animals aside from what was natural to this part of the forest, but apparently, some of the children liked to dress up as lambs and wolves and pretend like they all got along.

  It had probably been an hour or so before The Old Man had strangled his first native. He hadn’t intended on it. It wasn’t even to suffice any of his urges. He actually spent the first couple of hours relaxed for the first time in a long, long time. Maybe it was the fresh air, the light hint of cabbage and peas under musky compost, or maybe it was just the feeling of being away from the city for a while, and not having to have a take on any particular side – and to have to support this or be against that or care about whatever the hell was particular at that time. It just felt good to not have to think.

  So why did he kill that poor native?

  “Settled in?”

  There she was with that incredibly large smile. It was hard to tell if it was put on or not. Maybe it was a birth defect and she built her whole personality around it, or maybe she had found a way to so unexpectedly pleased with every facet of the world in which she inhabited.

  Though she was looking at The Old Man, he couldn’t help but feel that part of her attention was on the bed. He would have taken the floor if she’d asked. He could have parked up behind the trunk of a tree. For some reason, though, he felt a little guilty taking her bed as he did, but he also angry that she acted like it was no big deal when apparently it was.

  Charisma jumped down beside him, not an inch away, and stared right into his eyes, still smiling away. “So tell me all about you guys. I’m like mega intrigued. Everybody here has such an incredible story and they’ve all made such amazing transitions from the people they were to the enriched spiritual light that they are now – all of them.”

  As she spoke, her voice was almost drowned out by the sound of dry retching.

  Still, she smiled.

  “So…”

  She had that retarded innocence of a grown woman with the reason and comportment of a young child. It was hard to take her seriously and even harder to want to do her harm, no matter how cheerful she was. The Old Man though knew he couldn’t mention anything about the cuffs of the chains, or how it was that they ended up here. There was no way her simple affectionate mind could take it. He thought about telling her, just for a second. He thought about starting right at the beginning – from his every first kill. Then he imagined talking in passionate address and in incredible detail about, not only his urges and the wake of death he had left behind but of bloodshed and turmoil that had led to him being imprisoned, which in turn had led to him being here, on her bed. He thought about it, not because he thought she should know, but because he wondered if at all it was possible to rid that girl of her smile.

  “We’re like a family,” he said. “It’s very hard to pin down really.”

  Her eyes were like two headlights. The light from them exuded her soft and caring warmth. She took The Old Man’s hands, cupping her own around them. She titled her head to one side and she started nodding before he had even begun to speak. It was clear that she was expecting tragedy. She was expecting heartache and sadness. She was expecting the very worst of which only she could deal with – for only she had the power to heal.

  The Old Man sensed this.

  “It's…ughh…”

  He bowed his head and shook it lightly.

  “That’s ok,” said Charisma, almost crying for him. “You’ve said more than enough.”

  They both stayed silent for a moment or two. It was long enough for The Old Man to grow impatient and bored, and just a little disturbed by the sound of constant dry retching from one of the clay huts. They both sat there – she staring longingly into his eyes, and he looking back with a nervous and uncomfortable twinkle in his eyes. Normally he would have up and left, especially in the presence of a hippie, but for some reason, he felt like he owed her his attention. Maybe it was taking her bed like he did, or maybe it was killing that native. Either way, like a bored parent he wanted to skedaddle, but like a good parent, he stayed, and as bored as he was, he gave her his semi-divided attention.

  “You have so much to purge,” she said.

  She touched his leg in a way that, were he fifty years younger, this would not be half as creepy as it was now. The Old Man merely nodded, politely unclamped her hand and excused himself.

  “It’s been a long bus ride,” he said, tugging on the belt of his pants.

  This was a code or an unspoken message that unfortunately Charisma didn’t get. She merely kept on staring and kept on smiling. It must have been genetic. She must have been born this way. Still, The Old Man kept tugging on his pants.

  “The loo,” he said.

  And still, Charisma stared and smiled.

  “I have to, you know…”

  Still, she smiled.

  “…relieve myself.”

  And still, she smiled.

  “The toilet,” said The Old Man abruptly. “Where’s the bloody toilet?”

  “Wow,” said Charism, a
s if The Old Man had just explained some terrific puzzle that had boggled her mind for days. She moved oddly as she spoke. There was this fluidity to her; as if she were a jellyfish and the air about her were the deep blue sea. She seemed to bounce and float about as if the upper half of her body were inexplicably buoyant. “Yeah, oh wow, of course, yeah, definitely. Number one or number two?”

  Very rarely had The Old Man ever had to discuss – especially in detail - anything to do with his digestive tract. Simply asking for the bathroom had always been more than enough. The Old Man just shook his head. What the hell do you say to that?

  “Don’t know, hey? Sounds like number three – a bit of one and a bit of two. Hey, that’s awesome too. I know it’s kind of a woo-woo question at first but just remember that here, we implore nature, and we love our bodies. There is nothing ekka or yucky about anything the human body does. It’s all part of nature’s cycle and there is nothing gross or disgusting about mother earth, now is there?”

  The Old Man thought of the smallest room in his house, for which he yearned.

  “Let me show you where to go,” said Charisma.

  As they walked through the camp she explained everything in avid detail. It was she who had helped put this all together. She, along with several of her friends, trekked as far as they could from the city one cold and rainy day, and eventually, when they had tired the most, they set upon making this very land their own. They spent months building the very first hut. Back then it was no easy feat. It wasn’t as easy as it appeared in all the videos they had seen, and their group split in half before the first hut was even finished. She talked about the first vegetables that grew and how she had named them. And then she talked about how guilty she felt when she had to eat them. She stopped naming her food after that point.

  It took years, though, for this camp to become what it was today. None of the original natives remained, only Charisma. The others left one by one, and towards the end, in quick succession. Some of them claimed to have reached their enlightened selves while others had interviews and weddings to attend.