La Belle Epoque Part 5- Extract- Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013

La Belle Epoque Part 5- Extract-  Copyright Robert Fullarton 2013


5.

Zero’s apartment resembled an old hospital ward for the sick and
dying. It was crowded and huddled with people who slept in bunk beds;
each man’s belongings were inconveniently thrown in bundles on top of
another. In the Old world it was said that few neighbours actually
knew each other, too many lived in the seclusion of their wealth and
their possessions. In the New Society however it was the exact
opposite, each man and woman, lived in a commune, they shared their
resources, they cooked, they worked, and lived together. They shared a
kitchen together in complete co-operation and each man had a rota to
attend and supervise for the equality of each resident. Exactly 12
people were housed in Zero’s room and these were all men. Even Zero’s
wife Divaton had to sleep in the adjoining dormitory that was
specifically for the women of the community. It was specifically
designed by the State to prevent “promiscuity” between the sexes. If
Zero and Divaton wanted to make love they had to rent a private room
off the Landlord for an hour or two, such power had been unknown in
history before, basically lovers had to inform the landlord of their
innermost secrets just to rent a bit of privacy that any couple
deserved on a regular basis. As a result of this, Zero hardly ever
embraced Divaton in the clutches of his arms, to take her to “the
stars” as he would say. The weight of his teaching schedule took up
much of his spare time- correcting grades, reading over assignments,
reading the preparatory work that he had been sent by the Board of
Education.

Each white duvet lay still, each man was asleep in Zero’s ward, the
sound of grown men snoring, and the darkness of the ward were all
around him. Each man looked like some mummified being encased in their
sarcophagus, covered in bed sheets with dead like silence in the room
–apart from the snoring of course! It was Zensday –named after Mr.
Kirohito’s love for Zen Buddhism –something that was abhorred for it
was minutely religious, but still the name remained for the honour of
Kirohito’s dying wishes- that meant that Zensday was a day of rest for
the labouring masses of the Aerodome (It was a day for the
marketplace).

Outside each ward there was another community ward adjacent to the
other. Zero stood outside his ward he listened to the sound of the
environment, to the sounds of feet marching up above in sequence over
the steel grating, the gangways and escalators that transported to the
Citizens to their morning shopping.

He looked above his head to see the layered patterns of a metallic
Dolomite like shell –the very top of the Aerodome- and wondered what
lay beyond the container itself. Could any forces of natural corrosion
and erosion affect this human establishment? Could the elements, the
storms and the winds that supposedly reached over 250 miles per hour
on the outside world, strip the fortress of its titanium
fortifications, steel barriers and deactivate the entire electrical
system of the Aerodome all in a chain reaction, through flawed human
underestimation or through sheer technical megalomania. The terminal
nature of the project had to be recurrently questioned and calculated
throughout the entire existence of the enterprise itself.

Zero’s thoughts were interrupted and his gaze diverted when, a
travelling salesman approached him with a product.
The travelling salesman was dressed strangely enough like a clown.
“Sir!” You look quite tired this morning. Have you had your cup of coffee?”
“No!” Said Zero uninterested and bemused by the clowns’ presence.
“Do you like to laugh sir!”
“What kind of a dumb question is that? Of course I like to laugh. What
do you want from me!”
“Well sir, I want to cordially invite you to the Great Ball next
Zensday, it’s the 13th of the month. There will be a wide variety of
drinks available, ration cards will be even be handed out for free.
Food shall be in abundance!”
The clown had finally caught Zero’s attention at the mere suggestion
of there being free ration cards and free food. It all sounded to good
to be true, there just had to be some catch or reason for all such
delicacies.
“Who is in charge of all this?”
“Mr. Calsius himself, the president has some great announcements to
make. The greatest party in the history of the State is going to
happen and you don’t want to miss out on it?”
“How does he afford it?”
“Well the food supplies are soon to be increased to a greater quantity
than ever before, because we have surpassed ourselves, we have
laboured beyond our own demands, the profits have increased beyond
expenditure rates, we have expanded, the underground sector is to be
opened that very night. It is the unveiling of a great new epoch in
the history of the State. Food, prosperity, Happiness, that is the
slogan of Calsius!”
“I am surprised to hear a clown advertising agent speak with such conviction.”
“Well I am more of a promoter than anything else and anyway I am a
member of Calsius’ Citizenry” –Calsisus did not have a party but his
very own people or inner circle that had sworn their allegiance to him
through an oath of loyalty. It was more than a party it was a movement
and the people could gather together in Memex Square on any give day
to sign the documentation and become the loyal subject of the
president.

“Well I have absolutely no interest in Calsius’ reforms or whatever he
calls them. I just do my job, I live and go to bed at night, I don’t
think conventional matters, pleasures and concepts appeal to me very
much. I am becoming more displaced from the world everyday as time
continues”, said Zero rather sternly but with a smile on his face to
the clown who appeared to be mesmerized and stunned by what he said.
The flower in his left hand suddenly wilted as if it were some gag
intentionally carried out for Zero’s amusement.
“Oh your flower has wilted!”
Said Zero with a laugh.
“Oh forget about the stupid flower!” Said the clown with a look of
bitterness and a deep resentment.
“Your neighbours have told me that you are an educator, a public
educator! We could really use a new team of educators, and history
teachers are needed to fill the new vacancies that are arising. There
is going to be great demand for it in the coming months. Mankind has
to be re-taught everything, all that they thought they knew is
rubbish, the world is a process of change and we are entering into the
golden age with Calsius at the helm. We must erase the old vexatious
memories of catastrophe, of art, of nature and solidarity for in union
and the enterprise of union there is solidarity, have you ever known
it? Have you never felt it?”
The clown had held Zero by the collar to grip him and prevent him from
absconding away.
“Look Clown I don’t care about any of this! I just want to teach these
students of mine. I don’t dabble in state affairs. Why change history?
I mean you cannot change the spatial and the temporal occurrences
themselves, you cannot change what has already happened and then feed
the people with another story altogether. That is preposterous!”

Zero had escaped the tentacle like grip of the clown- watched a blue
balloon that had been tied to the clown’s right arm burst- and as he
walked the sight of the sullen clown, in his purple overcoat, made him
laugh for a brief split second.

That night in bed Zero dreamed he heard a distant song in his ward, a
piece of music that played with such resonance that it blasted through
the walls. None of the other neighbours heard the music. Great
mountains, on top of sloping vermilion valleys that ran beside fresh
flowing rivers penetrated his emotions and his consciousness. A forest
of great antiquity, great meaning, filled with animals of every kind
–of which he had never known to exist- came into view. The sun – the
piste de resistance- was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen
before, little rings of cerise pink light, deep scarlet red colours
forged around the outlines of a panoramic view. The mountains were
made of titanium, the valleys were moving with open plains of fresh
grass, the forests were filled with secrets and were omitting little
rays of trapped light and colour. No violent storms, only storms of
colour and vision, no fear dying but a sense of becoming reenergized,
reborn and made anew. The music had been something so sweet, so
archaic, a genetic memory; it felt to him as if a piece of music was
being played to a spaceman that had never touched the surface of the
earth or a man that had been condemned in servitude beneath the earth
to have never seen the sun and the seasons change. It was as if a
repression had been lifted over his weary eyes, what death could be
more beautiful than this asphyxiation for the freedom of the natural
air.
He had reached the northern sector perimeter, passed the security
guards –who wore gas masks, walked backwards in through the hatch and
back into the stale resuscitated air of banality, domination and
machination. He left behind the beauty to find himself awake in the
darkness of the room. The general morning alarm had not sounded off;
therefore it had not struck 6:30. He looked around at the men,
cocooned in their beds, heads turned aside, eyes closed, hardly a
sound apart from the sounds of human respiration and the ventilators
working right through the night.
   “Mechanical dreams, no doubt”, said Zero quietly in wonder.