by Wayne Hill
This pub is unique because it bears the title of ‘the last public house on Earth’. This pub is very isolated and this little place for lost souls is kept by Mr and Mrs O’Shea and their only child, Marie-Ann. The patrons of the pub are obliged to abide by only two rules (failure to do so is guaranteed to attract one of Marie-Ann O’Shea’s uncompromisingly brutal mood swings):
• Everyone is welcome (with a song in their hearts).
• Bad behaviour will be dealt with (harshly).
The pub goes by the name The Weeping Willow. Outside the pub, its namesake, a cascading waterfall of green, is situated only a few metres away, towering at forty feet high, behind a lowly six-foot tall drystone wall. Many of the locals often take time out of their routine to stare at the ancient and majestic tree. The gentle swishing of the tree’s delicate, arching branches invokes a sense of tranquillity and peace. They rustle in the breeze: a whisper, a conversation both personal and meaningful to every patron and passer-by. This mighty tree is the last of its kind.
There are many ‘last of a kind’s on Earth now, as it is made up of only one small island landmass. The only landmass to survive the meteorite impact of 4423 AD (Anno Domini). Historical geography of the planet Earth would position the surviving land mass of 9,000 sq. miles as part of the United States of Hampshire America (most of New Hampshire and a part of Maine). A small part (36.5 sq. miles) of the remaining land — the part of New Hampshire was previously known as the county of Rockingham — is the town of Derry, known to the locals as ‘Space Town’ because it was the birthplace of the first man from the United States to go into space.
The old motto for the state of New Hampshire is Live free or die, though considering the way of life today, a more appropriate motto might have been Live free, die soon.
The population of the land mass is dictated by the Drumcroon Facility, positioned on the east coast of the island. The population fluctuates at the facility, with the diverse assortment of prisoners originating from many settlements across the universe. The prisoners arrive via a shuttle link to the spaceport orbiting eighty kilometres above Earth.
Earth is a prison planet, as are most planets that have breathable atmospheres or have been terraformed to be habitable (in accordance with USA regulations). It is also essential to mention that no humans of this time would, in their right mind, live out in the open. The only exceptions to this are the prisoners — who have no choice in the matter — and the Guardians monitoring them. The prisoners are more than likely to die within the first three months, as venturing out onto the remains of the island previously known as The Granite State — New Hampshire, West America, Earth — is a death sentence.
Earth is just as dangerous — if not more so — than any other breathable planet in the explored universe, because of increased levels of bacteria, mutated viruses and the slow decay caused by gravity. The primary hazard, however, is overcrowding. Hundreds of people are exiled to prison planet Earth every month and this overpopulation encourages the formation of warring tribes; nomadic existences that are wild and unpredictable. Those born on the prison planet know no other way of life.
The arrival of the newly deposited prisoners is an exhilarating time for the clans’ leaders. For the banished individual (depending on their level of usefulness) it signifies either a fresh start with an adopted family or a miserable and transitory existence relying on compassion and charity — both of which are rare commodities on any prison planet.
To the west of the island is the Lanes, a highly prized safe zone. Built by the outcast, the Lanes are strengthened, reworked and repurposed fortifications: a protective measure against undesirable additions to the population. Located beyond a huge, elliptical concrete wall, it is a one-mile wide (fifteen-miles around) band of shanty townhouses. The shape of this area is a bizarre, elongated dartboard: The Weeping Willow pub is the bullseye, the recreational areas are the small single beds, farmland plots stretch from the trebles to the doubles, and — radiating from the doubles to the edge of the board — the residential shanty houses. At one end of the Lanes, behind a fortified, guarded barrier (and a thick sea wall) is the ocean; at the opposite end, the barricade is shattered, and, across an ocean of poison-barbed twisted metal, there is the Barrens.
The Guardians are governed by the Believers, whether they like it or not. The Guardians are powerless to stop the Believers as they robotically enforce the Believers’ banishment laws. Groups of people governing groups of people — always in circles; but some circles are bigger than others.
‘What benefits humanity?’ is the main concern of the Guardians.
‘What benefits the Believers?’ is the main duty of the Believers.
When the Believers first came to power, they call their banishment of people to prison planets the ‘expulsion of evildoers.’ This motto hurts the ears and minds of the newly exiled. It eventually mutates into a system for culling the weak from the strong. People within the United Space Association are ruthlessly trying to gain Credits (the USA monetary system) to improve their lifestyle. The Guardians are trying to keep their focus, stay Optimal, and keep humanity moving towards the Guardian’s idealised (or channelled) vision of a future not yet understood. Within these three very different societies, two of the societies do not care what happens on Earth. The society on Earth cares only about everything as a whole — the individual prisoner does not matter. The prisoners are the only community dealing with the immediacy of life. They live within a foreign, alien reality, compared with the protected Guardians, in the Drumcroon facility, or the USA, scattered across the universe in their boil-like biodomes. The thoughts of the prisoners, if they survive the first few weeks, are truly free. Banished by the heartless, the prisoners experience life at its most ruthless and savage, but they are alive. Exiles are taken to the Drumcroon facility, or other facilities equally as efficient, like a partially terraformed hellhole in the outer reaches of the Andromeda galaxy; some prison dome, some place, where the lights remain off. The Believers, in their Temples in space, have absolute control — absolute power combined with a self-serving agenda that has no time for the tears of the innocent. When questioned about innocent prisoners, the courts of the Believers say: “There are no innocent people on a prison planet.”
The Believers’ courts are terrifying places. They surround the criminal in three-dimensional hologram forms, the Believers facing the accused from every angle of the round courtroom. The person on trial usually has their head hanging in shame — they know the outcome before the sentence is passed. The real horror of the Believers’ court is the absence of anything resembling a just and humane trial; it is a one-sided affair with only one result: banishment. There are many memory plate recordings of the Believers finding people guilty, destroying the prisoner’s hope against hope. The fact that a person is in front of Believers means they are, by definition, culpable. Even the Believers overseeing the space courts are fearful of one another, each one trying to trip another to get ahead. The one greatest lie is the word Democracy. In this reality, Humanity’s true nature is to filter out the weak, and, when the population of individuals is small, the brutal pack leaders start to emerge. These leaders are those who can strike fear into the hearts of others with the idea of punishment. This pecking order extends from the absolute pinnacle of the hierarchical dictatorship, the High Priests of the Believers.
The gaps between the stars were bridged long ago: humans have stretched out across the universe. Something about human nature has gnawed its way to the surface: something old and basic in our code. This something screams outwards from our inner being, pulsating deep in our chests, telling us from within that we are doomed to make the same mistakes again and again, powerless to stop the process — helpless in the face of the shadow self of mankind.
Upon descending, we all pull each other downwards, biting and howling — the unsatisfied demons in the deep dark.
To change the nature of humanity there must be a message spread through humanity’
s rank and file — expanding like a tinder fire, burning hearts and minds — to light a path into the future. A future filled with hope.
3
David Salem is the prison island’s 1,289th Head Guardian. He has a wife, Mary, and his only son is called Tommy. David descends from a very distinguished and vital line of Head Guardians, and he can see no reason why Tommy shouldn’t follow suit and become 1,290th Head Guardian on Prison Planet Earth.
Tommy feels that his life within the Drumcroon facility is a monotonous existence that will extend for the rest of his days — a tomb for his thought, a graveyard for his ostentatious ideas and ambitious designs. He cannot help feeling envious of the prisoners’ freedom. He feels the cold marble and steel compound killing his mind, dulling his senses. Tommy longs for adventure, far away from the regimented and predictable routine of the facility. He imagines a place in the wild open landscape of his ancestors, on the other side of the island. A place to think, free from the static-like noise that invades his mind, turning all pure and smooth unimpeded thought into grey blocks of nothing — always stacked, always walling him inside.
His only pleasure is his mind; he sculpts and enhances it via the NanoTech Biocovered (NTB) learning pods in the east wing of the compound. The NanoTech Biocovering is living integrated circuitry which can directly interact with a user’s brain. His favourite way of relaxing is to climb inside an NTB learning pod and let it bombard him with images from his favourite periods in art — which varies depending on his moods — but never really dated past the 21st century AD (AD here does not stand for the pre-meteorite term Anno Domini, but the post-meteorite term After Dagon. Dagon was the alias given to the extinction-level meteorite that nearly ended Homo sapiens — named for an old Mesopotamian god sometimes linked with agriculture, and, importantly, in this case, ploughing). Tommy listens to music; the contemporary music of his day only because all music from the past has been erased in error. No one knows exactly how it happened, but legend has it that in 2039 AD (Anno Domini) — when most literature, artwork, and music was located online (or on digital devices) — music became lost, or just stopped working. No explanation was found. Some thought it was the result of a botched computer hacking mission; some attributed it to solar flares. Following the fall of music, records and record players became the most sought-after antiques. They, for whatever reason, had stood the test of time better than any other music storage device. Tommy, having a humble upbringing, has never been able to afford one of these records, but he thinks about them often. How great they must be.
When he looks at the prisoners, he feels jealous; what these people have, he never could. His father used to say how dangerous these people are. These lunatic prisoners, with their unpredictable, irrational, and lewd behaviour, were the reason the compound he had been born into — and had lived in for sixteen years — had been fortified. There is no doubt that Tommy is extremely safe within the blast walls — guarded by destructive weapons mounted in guard towers, some of which he had helped invent. He had also helped to design the shuttle transport for the prisoners, employing a more sophisticated docking procedure which provides the prisoners a more comfortable end to their journey. It was proving to be efficient, with minimal stress for all involved.
Tommy watches the shuttles come and go, looking on as prisoners cuddle their loved ones. He feels an emotion more powerful than jealousy towards the new prisoners. He sees them as the ones who have stolen his freedom. Without them, he would not be here.
Tommy harbours an intensely deep anger that denies his fellow Guardians’ belief system. In Tommy’s opinion, the punishment for their crime is the freedom to start again — and yet they cry!
Tommy compares the prisoners’ new lives of survival, hunting, and building a home to his own experience of discipline and rules set out by the Guardians. Something extremely basic stirs inside him, some wild part of his nature that screams for adventure.
Months fly past while Tommy prepares his escape. Regulations, and USA dogma make Tommy feel trapped. He gathers clothes, stolen from prisoner transport shuttles, and stores enough food and water for the journey to the nearest prisoner encampment. He imagines how strange it would be to mingle amongst the masses of prisoners in person, as one of them — such an alien experience! — as opposed to seeing only the flashing, coloured lights on the prison map in the Drumcroon facility’s control room.
The only way he knows which direction he must travel and how far, as well as the number of prisoners at the nearest community, is from this map. The digital global map in the compound shows extant population figures which are monitored via an implant that prisoners receive upon arrival on Earth. A massive 3D hologram projects the prison planet in a remarkably complex format in the control room, the nucleus of the Drumcroon fortified compound. Tommy finds the hologram fascinating, a thing of immense beauty: the contours of the planet in curving red, dotted colours showing prisoner positions. The danger level of each prisoner is colour coordinated: white for the prisoners considered to be the very worst, followed by yellow, with the prisoners of the least risk in green. The huge control room is where his father spends most of his time. It is his domain, his life, the nexus of control.
The imagined darkness of the lanes and the unknown and exciting future ahead make the night of Tommy’s escape the greatest night of his short and uneventful life. His longing to be away from everything he knows is all-consuming. The planning of the escape has been meticulously thought out for some time now — ever since the events of last year.
A heavily pregnant transport prisoner was shot and killed by his father’s guards as she tried to escape on a shuttle. It had made no real sense to him. Why had they treated the woman so viciously? Why had the unborn not been allowed to live to grow to the age Tommy is now? To make mistakes of his (or her) own? Tommy’s father had tried to counsel him, but his words were cold and in the form of a long and emotionless speech.
‘For the greater good’ is a commonly bastardised utilitarian term that Tommy has come across many times in the NTB pod, whilst researching different periods throughout history. He has observed that it is often uttered before or after a war, or debauched deeds, to justify cruel actions. Tommy sees ‘For the greater good’ as the most misused, and traitorously misunderstood, term in history. These four words deluded people; they have been the epithet (the epitaph!) of many evil acts for countless generations — a phrase historically known to start millions of mothers crying for their dead children.
When those four words — ‘For the greater good’ — fell from his father’s lips, Tommy’s reservations of leaving evaporated then and there. This was going to be the last time Tommy speaks to his father (aside from the nightly ‘goodnight and God bless’), he sneaks away as his parents sleep.
Tommy steals the piece of equipment he is currently working on, what was to be his final commission from the USA. This is his final ‘Fuck you!’ to the Association. He had been appointed sometime in the spring of last year, by the USA, to find ‘new and inventive pathways’ in the field of storage and sustainability of energy. Tommy knew what they were saying. They wanted solutions. They wanted advancements. They wanted infinite power. They want... They want...
Tommy had his own agenda. He had used their facilities and their technology and created what he needed to create.
Looking at this small cube as it shimmers violet energy in his palm, he changes his mind. He takes it and he buries it outside of the Facility, near a place where he had played when he was a child. He has no real idea why he does this. Maybe the idea is to retrieve it on his way to the best settlement on the island. Maybe he is just tired of creating the greatest things and then passing them to people who have no real idea of their full potential. Maybe he took and buried the most powerful device ever invented because he did not want whole colonies, on nearby moons and asteroids, destroyed by this device, militarised by power-hungry men and women who condone ‘For the greater good.’
This was the only
time Tommy Salem did something without planning it, and, like a lot of unplanned things, it did not go well. He was caught trying to escape the facility.
Tommy’s great adventure into the unknown has been stolen from him. Stolen, like the prisoners had stolen his life. The effect of his failure to escape was... Crippling.
His memories of that time in his life were patchy: vague shadows, snapshots in black and white. Painful and fast, the sting of a wasp. His mother and father are in the courtroom, they look upset, broken. He tries not to look over to his family, he does not want to know that shame — he realised his father’s reputation would now be in tatters.
Tommy’s grand escape plan leads to his banishment. Tommy wanted to escape; to leave the compound on his own terms. Instead, he is ordered to leave. Torrents of shame and ridicule, tear-blurred snapshots of hate-filled faces.
His banishment is completed within two days.
Down a concrete tunnel, the heavy metal doors of the compound open automatically. Framed by the grey walls: a hellish storm. A wall of rain jumps inches off the concrete ramp. Bitterly cold air, lightning traces across the dark green and grey sky. The movements of the trees all around the compound is a faint reminder of something beyond the misery of the storm.
Tommy closes his eyes for a second...
“Tell my parents, I’m sorry,” says Tommy before walking out into the storm.
As the doors of the compound close, he slumps down on the concrete runway and clutches his cold, hairless head, rocking gently. He sheds a tear or two, but these are washed away by the rain almost as fast as they form. He tries to process a life without his family, he tries to imagine never seeing his mother again.
She’s innocent in all this, thinks Tommy. Just another Optimal person doing Optimal things. Naïve, but innocent and kind.
He punches himself hard in the jaw, gives his head a wobble, and slings the survival pack onto his back. He grits his now bloodied teeth and screams into the eye of the storm, “FUCK IT!”