Modem Times 2.0 - Michael Moorcock [16]
“Of course. But now I want you to tell me something I don’t know.”
“I can still see some light.”
“We’ll soon put a stop to that.” Again, she cracked the whip.
“Are we on TV?”
“Should we be?”
“These days, everyone’s on TV. Even miners. And riggers. Don’t you watch the Guantánamo dailies? Or is it too boring?”
“We don’t have cable. Just remember this, Mr. Cornelius. There’s more than one way of gassing a canary.”
5. LES BOUDINS BLANCS
The railway from Nairobi to Mombasa is a Victorian relic. But it’s the best way to see Kenya.
—New Statesman, June 25, 2007
“I GOT THESE rules, see.” Shakey Mo looked carefully into the mirror. “That’s how I keep on top of things. You can’t survive, these days, without rules. Set yourself goals, yeah? Draw up a flow chart. A yearly planner. And then you stick to it. OK? Religiously. Rules is rules. It’s survival. It’s Mo’s survival, anyway.” He had begun talking about himself in the third person again. Jerry guessed he was in a bad way.
“Fun?” Jerry stared at the cabinets on the walls. He had to admit Mo kept a neat ship. Each cabinet held a different gun, with its clips, its ammunition, its instruction manual, the date it was acquired, whom it had shot and when.
“Clubbing,” Mo told him. “Whenever you get the chance. Blimey, Jerry, where have you been?”
“Rules.” Jerry wiped his lovely lips. “The jugged hare seemed a bit bland today. Out of season, maybe? Frozen?”
“There aren’t any seasons, these days, Jerry. Just seasoning. Man, you’re so retro!” Mo rearranged his hair again. He guffawed. “That’s the nineties for you. You need a more fashionable lexicon. You want au naturel, you gotta pay for it.”
“It wasn’t always like this.”
“We were young and stupid. We almost lost it. Went too far. That costs, if you’re lucky enough to survive. AIDS and the abolition of controlled rents. A high price to pay.”
Jerry regarded his shaking hands. “If this is the price of a misspent youth, I’ll take a dozen.”
Mo wasn’t listening. He had found still another reflection. “I think Mo needs a new stylist.”
6. HOW TO DEAL WITH A SHRINKING POPULATION
There’s a lot of hot air wafting around the Venice Biennale. But one thing is for sure: the art world can party.
—New Statesman, June 25, 2007
“HI, HI, AMERICAN pie chart.” Jerry sniffed. A miasma was creeping across the world. He’d read about it, heard about it, been warned about it. A cloud born of the dreadful dust of conflict, greed, and power addiction, according to old Major Nye. It rose from Auschwitz, London, Hiroshima, Seoul, Jerusalem, Rwanda, New York, and Baghdad. But Jerry wasn’t sure. He remarked on it.
Max Pardon buttoned his elegant grey overcoat, nodding emphatically: “D’accord.” He resorted to his own language. “We inhale the dust of the dead with every breath. The deeper the breath, the greater the number of others’ memories we take to ourselves. Those wind-borne lives bring horror into our hearts, and every dream we have, every anxiety we feel, is a result of all those fires, all those explosions, all those devastations. Out of that miasma shapes are formed. Those shapes achieve substance resembling bone, blood, flesh, and skin, creating monsters, some of them in human form.
“That was how monsters procreated in the heat and destruction of Dachau, the Blitz and the Gaza strip; from massive bombs dropped on the innocent; from massacre and the thick, oily smoke of burning flesh. The miasma accumulated mass as more bombs were dropped and bodies burned. The monsters created from this mass, born of shed blood and human fright, bestrode the ruins of our sanctuaries and savoured our fear like connoisseurs: Here is the Belsen ‘44; taste the subtle flavours of a Kent State ‘68 or the nutty sweetness of an Abu Ghraib ‘05, the amusing lightness of a Madrid ‘04, a London ‘06. What good years they were! Perfect conditions. These New York ‘01s are so much more full-bodied than the Belfast ‘98s. The monsters sit at table, relishing their feast. They stink of satiation. Theirfarts