“PRAISE be to God, God the Creator…”
“Praise be to Sol, Sol the Lifegiver…”
“Praise be to Gaia, Daughter of Sol…”
THE chanting nears its peak and my eyes close in fearful anticipation. Soon the melodic voices will fall silent; the High Inquisitor will read out my charges before he plunges the torch in to the kindling beneath my stake.
Right now, I don’t know which is worse: the anticipation of melting skin or the agony of the nanocarbon strips that bind my wrists.
Life is full of regrets, I suppose, and like an old man all I have left is the chance to mull over mine. If only I hadn’t written that damn book. It seemed like a good idea at the time. How many condemned men, I wonder, felt the same of their crimes?
Actually my charge sheet is quite simple. Just one sentence: that I, John Dempsey, am guilty of the gross crime of heresy. The Inquisitor, of course, knows his job. The man is a conductor, a virtuoso at guiding the orchestra of human emotions. He learnt his trade well, on game shows and later as a chat show host. Quite a media personality is the Inquisitor. He drew out my simple charge into an elaborate display of theatrics that guaranteed the audience would not only condemn me but also give the show its typical ratings high.
Here at the finale I am sure we will make for an excellent performance. A perfect double act. I always wanted notoriety. But this isn’t quite what I had in mind when I first put pen to paper and dreamed of literary renown.
SUZANNE has gone. Just like that. Not a good day. The night’s no better. Fitful sleep mixed with dreams of happier times. I can feel the warmth of her body in my dreams; it emphasises the emptiness of the bed beside me. The clock ticks away the seconds that take our lives further apart. Time is cruel that way.
I don’t know how long this has been building up. Suzy’s been argumentative for days, and when she isn’t tearing into me she’s distant. Or is it me that’s become distant – too engrossed with my book? The reviews were bad. I expected that. Politicians were slandering me. Again, no surprise. I took one look at the sales figures and let it soothe away the ruffles. Then I return home and she is gone.
Nothing – not even a note accusing me. Just an empty flat filled with the shadows of memory.
MY eyes won’t stay shut. I’d like to block the horrific sight of what is to come, but my eyes want something to do.
Plenty of time for the darkness, I guess. Now they crave light and image, the subtle play of the sunlight on the leaves of the endless sea of trees, the clouds floating gracefully in the darkening sky, that explosive red on the horizon from the dying embers of the day.
My eyes want to see all this. Soon I will be mingling with those clouds; I shall add my own small part to the following dawn’s fiery magic.
BRANDY with a hint of lemonade and ice is already on the low table by the window. Axel is good that way, never one to skimp on the hospitality. I shuffle out of my coat and vaguely wonder about the stranger. His face is familiar. I’ve seen him on TV, but his name escapes me. Evidently the man knows who I am. He watches intently and I wait with growing impatience for him to speak.
“John, about time. Your ice is melting.” Axel, from behind. He waddles into view and carefully lowers himself into the chair beside the stranger. I ignore the mild rebuke. Axel knows my punctuality is terrible. I’ll probably be late for my own funeral. I just sit, reach for the glass, and gulp. Nelson watches with stony-faced jealousy from his ancient column rising above the autumn-bronzed trees.
“Have you read the proposal?” Axel asks.
“Yes.” I break away from the statue’s stony gaze.
“What do you think?”
“Interesting…”
“You have misgivings?”
“The Gaians –”
“Don’t worry, that’s all taken care of. I’ve cleared it.”
The stranger shifts in his seat and glances through the window. “Don’t worry, Mr Dempsey,” he says. That voice! Metallic sibilance. I know it. “I have assured Axel of our interest in the project. It is time our… outlook… shifted. Axel has great faith in your abilities to present the necessary arguments. Can you?”
“Yes, I can do it.” I resent the disdain in his tone.
He smiles, briefly, but says no more.
Axel, smelling the money as always, leans forward: “Will you do it, John?”
MY eyes fall on magic of a different kind; the chanting women waving their sprigs of mistletoe and dancing naked around the mock stone circle. They are a new feature, part of the ratings war with the other media conglomerate. At once encouraging and appealing to the voyeuristic delights of a bored – frustrated – middle class.
Axel, my friend, my employer, obviously thinks so. His eyes seldom stray from these nubile creatures, exposed as they are to the elements. Is it shame, or lust that prevent his eyes from meeting mine?
The man who effectively put me on the pyre is safe from the flames, even though we should burn together. Did he not commission my book, publish it? But he is a rich man, a powerful player in the world’s political theatrics. Alas, not powerful enough…
No strict Gaian upbringing for Axel Neustadt though – and no Gaian pyre at the end.
Not that I am bitter. It has to be this way, how else could we arrange for his people to broadcast the show? After all, isn’t Axel my friend?
“DON’T worry,” he says, wiping the incessant perspiration from his face. He stands by the door, framed in the pale light filtering in through the window high above my head. His beady eyes stare out of his pudgy face with a doll’s sincerity. Almost it hides his embarrassment.
“Axel, they’re going to burn me!”
“It won’t come to that.”
“No?”
“It’s just for show. That’s all – a pure formality.”
“Exactly!“
He looks away sharply and glances at the walls. I can see his disgust at the mildew. That’s nothing, compared to the banging of the pipes in the middle of the night – the ones intended to keep the dungeon damp and unpleasant. I’d tell him that, but he looks troubled enough.
“I’m sorry,” he suddenly says.
“What?”
“I’m sorry I pointed the finger. They didn’t leave me any choice. You know –”
“It’s all right, Axel. I know what they’re like.”
“I may be a rich man, but it carries no weight with them.”
“No.”
“But I do have some clout. I’ll take care of things. I promise.”
I have to confess, Axel is starting to annoy me, but I bite my tongue. Here I am facing death, and I don’t want to make him feel worse. I just ask, “What things?”
Yet another furtive look at the walls. Is he worried about bugs – in this damp? He showed no such reticence before. “Trust me,” he quietly says.
AT least it’s a beautiful evening. The air is pleasantly cool as Sol plunges into the tree-line. They say the forest still hides the remains of Birmingham. The Terra-formers didn’t quite demolish it all, so the story goes, and now it’s a haven to vagrants and outcasts. I wonder what it looked like, before they shipped most of the population off-world, to preserve Gaia’s purity it is said. They say it was a vast city – it must have been something wonderful to behold.
FROM somewhere a loud noise disturbs my dream. Or is it part of the illusion conjured from memory? I can’t tell. I try to make sense of the world around me. But the world inside gets in the way. Then I am falling and the floor hits with a thump.
The impact pulls me away from the abyss of deep sleep. The room leaps into focus. Unfamiliar smells taste sharp in my nostrils. Booted feet look huge and bloated before my eyes. There is a hoarse susurration that rises and falls in a harsh chord symbolic of fear.
I raise my head until the muzzle fills my vision. The dark tunnel smells of oil and death. Framed through the sights of the machine pistol, the cop’s masked face stares with terrifying inscrutability. He barks one muffled word and Suzanne fades from memory.
“Heretic!“
AN island shrouded in forest. Such is my homeland; such is England. I guess it looks something as it did millennia ago, when the first Palaeolithic settlers ventured into mystery. Except, of course, for that transmission tower there to the Southwest, the very same monolith that will beam my forthcoming death to the heavens.
My fiery demise will bounce from the fervid birth of new stars. Is that what they mean by the immortal soul in this age of telecommunications? For all eternity, my life will be nothing more than an unconscious ghost of death sandwiched between the commercial breaks.
Stay tuned…
THEY’RE watching again. That eye staring through the peephole makes my blood feel cold. They keep doing it, watching. Silently. I hear the footsteps thundering into the distance and I know I am alone again. But I never hear the footsteps before they stare into my cell. Now they’ve gone again. Left me here in the dark, just the screams for company. Why do they have to scream so loud? I can’t stand it. I want to go home. Where’s Suzanne?
The cell is damp and cold. The mould glows on the wall. Actually glows with a sickly luminescence. Slimy ooze dribbles down the walls too, it’s collecting on the stone floor and I have my feet pulled up onto the small, rat-nibbled bed. I hate this bed, it’s hard and you need to be a contortionist to sleep… try to sleep.
I don’t know how long it’s been since they pulled me from my bed. There was an occasion when they took me to see a psychiatrist. It may have been days ago. There’s time of sorts here. I can tell by the weak light that sometimes filters in through the tiny window. But it keeps no regular pattern. It seems only to be the here and now passing in endless circles.
I must have done something wrong. But they won’t tell me what it is. Sometimes I hammer on the door and yell at them to tell me what I have done. They never reply, but the screams fall silent and the dank air is filled with a dreadful sense of too many listening ears. It shuts me up. Even though the silence is more frightening than the screams and the footsteps.
Suzanne laughs pleasantly. She tells me that she loves me and I feel her arms around my waist. I know I am going mad when I smile at the private thought she whispers in my ear.
THERE was a Pagan, Christ, who died a heretic. Like me, he went against the powers that be. Like me, the masses were cajoled into condemning him. They say he went meekly. They also say he found resurrection on his death stake. Perhaps I should have asked Axel about this, but did that ancient heretic also feel my dreadful impatience?
My fingers are senseless. At least they won’t feel the flames. I wish I could say the same for the rest of me. The ceremony is winding down. The director is signalling off camera. Join us after the break, the studio announcer is telling my audience. The last grains of life are trickling through my numb fingers and Axel has yet to acknowledge I exist. Do as you must, Axel, but soon – I am the modern Christ and I crave my resurrection.
“INTOLERABLE! Do you know they even threatened me? How dare they!” The first words Axel says to me. He adds something more, but the slamming door drowns his words. I stay seated on the bed, trembling with cold and fear. It’s nice to see a familiar face. I haven’t seen another human being for… too long. The tears spill over.
Now Axel is pacing. No mean trick in that confined space. I just look up at him through the blurring tears and thank Gaia for some company.
Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he turns towards me and looks down. “I’m sorry about this, John,” he says, wiping the perspiration from his face. “One of the other cartels moved against us. They tried to come against me, but they haven’t got the clout for that. This thing has gone right to the top of the Gaian Ascendancy. Might work to our advantage, that – it just might tear them apart.”
“What about me?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll be okay.”
“Axel! I’m on trial for heresy!”
At least he has the grace to look embarrassed. By rights he should be here too. But he is a powerful man – with a lot of favours owed by influential Gaians. I must pin my hopes on that, and just pray that he is owed enough.
“It isn’t all bad news,” he adds after a pause. I just look up bemused. The tears have died, but the salt stings my eyes.
“They haven’t been able to stop my off-world presses. The book’s doing well. The money’s rolling in. There hasn’t been a publishing success like this in decades. It’s being read out there on the industrial colonies. People are reading what you’ve said – millions of them – and it’s got the Gaians scared. You’re going to be a rich man.”
I can’t help laughing bitterly.
NATURALLY, I will be forced to take on an assumed name. Axel will take care of the details. All I have to do is assume my new identity and enjoy the comfortable life that the Royalties will bring. I am sure I will be able to write. I shall literally exist under a pseudonym – Axel can take care of that too. The only thing that concerns me is Suzanne. I miss her and I want her back. Will she return when I am a new man?
LIGHT gushes from the opening to Gaia’s womb. It glimmers from her pregnant belly painted with the continents of the world. On either side of the portal – symbolic of Gaia’s open thighs – are the benches where my judges sit in shadow.
A figure appears in the depths of the light. It emerges in the form of a young woman barely wearing the ceremonial robes of a Gaian priestess. She walks to the centre of the hall, her brazen eyes fixed on me, her swaying hips perversely creating flutters in the pit of my stomach. Close enough to touch, but for the chains, she stops and leans forward. The smell of musk mingles with the lavender and beeswax of the hall. Her breasts and eyes vie for my attention. Then she smiles.
“Heretic!“ the priestess whispers, and with a flourish she turns to raise her arms high above her head in an act of revelation to make old men weep. Gazing with flagrant excitement towards Gaia’s open belly, she clutches her breasts before longingly reaching out. Another shadow appears in the shimmering depths.
“Behold! Justice made flesh. Son of Gaia. May the righteous know delight; the wrongdoer dread. For it is he that…” her voice rises until her speech is lost in the embrace of ecstasy. The shadow flits towards her, places an arm round her slender waist, kisses her and leaves her staring breathless in his wake.
The Inquisitor looks so different to that urbane man in the business suit. Bare chested, his tattooed, muscular torso glistens in the candlelight. His long hair is wild and his kohl-rimmed eyes are hypnotically dark.
Suddenly he screams as though in agony. “Can you hear Gaia’s pain?” he cries to the assembled hall. “One of her wayward children has fallen from the light. Gaia weeps for her lost one. She feels such pain but we will soothe the Mother!”
The sounds of weeping come from the witnesses in the shadows. Tears spilled for Gaia.
“Who does accuse this man?”
Axel appears in a flood of green light. The halo of cigar smoke makes him seem unearthly. He does not look at me. “I do,” he says in the voice of an old man.
The High Inquisitor turns on me like a fox. “John Dempsey. You are accused of heresy – the worst of crimes – is there any possibility of a plea on your behalf?”
On cue my attorney rises to his feet like a condemned man. A flurry of folders scatter across the floor and he struggles to stem the flow with trembling hands. The Inquisitor’s stare has him pinned like a rabbit in the rushing headlights.
I want to scream, but the bit prevents anything but a dull grunt. Heresy shall speak no evil! The attorney turns to the judges. “My client can offer no defence. Only throw himself upon the mercy of our Mother.”
The words leave me numb. The priestess wails and weeps in horror at this poor sinner. The judges stand and recite in chorus: “From the womb do we come, and to the womb do the virtuous return. You, John Dempsey, are declared an orphan. Let the heretic’s soul be released and cast out into the cold night.”
THEY approach in procession. The Inquisitor leads the congregation, guiding a priestess dressed in green. Feminine curves peek through her thin robes. Shining eyes gleam through the veil. They approach my pyre. The torch sputters in the Inquisitor’s right arm.
Finally Axel deigns to see me. His face looks like a child’s model in dough as the Inquisitor turns to face the televisual crowds. The torch sways precariously as he raises his arms in the air.
“Children of the Mother! See how we cast out the sinner!”
He leans forward to kiss the priestess’s hidden brow and I pray to Gaia for Axel to hurry.
The woman takes the torch. All I can do is watch, like the cameras that observe on the viewers’ behalf. The veil is cast aside and I choke on the sudden urge to cry. Suzanne smiles at me and breaks my heart.
“It’s time to go, John,” she says. “Only one thing sells more than a heretic – and that’s a martyr.”
MC
Copyright © November 1998. All Rights Reserved
Sinners in Streaming Video first appeared on the online journal Peridot Books around 1999. It was subsequently published in The Writers Compass, winter 2007/2008 edition.