Omega (24) The pigeon glanced at Beta. "You would say that! I guess you must come from the Country. You have coins smaller than a crown there I believe. And you can even buy things with them! But to many working in this financial district, like those noisy louts who just passed by, anything less than nine digits is considered an admission of failure. For them it's just money, money, money. And what do they spend it on? Champagne. Gambling. Fast cars. What do you think of that?" "I suppose if I had a lot of money like that there would be quite a few frivolous things I'd like to buy," mused Beta. "It'd be quite nice to have more money than I need." "It certainly would be!" Chirped the pigeon enviously. "I would just love to know that my salary cheque would see me through the month comfortably, with no risk of my bank balance going into the red! But what makes it so unfair - so terribly and utterly unfair - is that all that money which piles up as a result of all this financial wizardry and wheeling and dealing eventually goes to shareholders who haven't contributed anything to this activity but capital. Capital, moreover, that they have mostly just inherited. Only those who already have obscene quantities of wealth can invest money and make money." "Is that how it works?" Beta wondered. "Rich people put in a lot of money and then get a lot more out." "Essentially, yes. And there's a kind of sliding scale. The more you already have the more you're going to make." "So ..." Beta reflected, "the rich get richer and richer. What about people who're not rich? Don't they get richer too?" "Oh, I wouldn't think so for one minute! These financial institutions aren't working in the interests of the poor. Why should they? Their brief is to make rich people richer." "If there's only so much wealth in the world and more of it is going to richer people, then there must be a drain from somewhere else," I remarked. "Only if there's only a fixed amount of wealth in the world," the pigeon replied. "All this prosperity is based on the belief that the world's wealth will just go on growing for ever and ever. And because of that, people say that it isn't just the rich who benefit. Everyone else does as well." "That sounds silly!" Beta pointed out. "How can things just keep growing forever? Surely there must be a point at which it just can't grow any more. And then what happens? Do the rich continue to get richer and everyone else get poorer to finance them? Do the things which used to make money stop making so much money in future? And can't it all go into reverse? Maybe all these buildings will just crumble into the ground and we've used up all the world's resources?" "I don't know. I'm not an economist. I just live here." The streets of the financial district eventually gave way to an area of shops, restaurants and cafés at the foot of buildings that still towered above us, but seemed less remote and threatening. The hustle and bustle eased, but there was still the ubiquitous roar of traffic. By now, like everyone else, we were no longer really seeing the people we passed by. Their very numbers had somehow robbed them of personality. Even though it was still some time till midday, diners were greedily eating in the restaurants and cafés. We peered through the window of a restaurant to see two pigs facing each other over a table loaded with plates of the most exotic and rare foods which they shovelled into their mouths with a constant unbroken rhythm. A waiter approached and poured them each a glass of wine which they picked up in their trotters and drank immediately in one mouthful, so requiring a further refill. One of the pigs noticed us and made no attempt to avert his gaze. His jaws clumped again and again on a sinuous trail of meat which dangled out of his mouth while rich sauces dribbled down the dark pink folds of his chin and mixed in the kaleidoscope of stains on the cloth table napkin tucked into the collar of his striped shirt. "There's enough food there to feed my Village for a month!" gasped Beta. "How can they eat so much? There must be much much more food than they could possibly need!" The pig lost interest in us and returned to his food with relish, plunging his knife and fork deep into its entrails. His companion had not once paused his gorging, but the likelihood of him finishing before his companion was lessened by the waiter bringing in more plates of food. Looking at so much food awakened Beta's appetite, so we wandered past restaurants selling meals at thousands of guineas a head until we found a small, comparatively inexpensive café where a cup of coffee cost less than ten guineas. The décor of the café matched the relative cost of the coffee, with only a few very uncomfortable wooden stools lined along a small counter facing onto the street outside. I paid for two coffees with several grimy pound notes which the anaconda serving was initially reluctant to accept, while Beta reserved two seats for us just next to a pair of teenage boys and a couple of small minotaurs. I lifted myself up onto the stool and looked through the plate glass window, past writing in Cyrillic and Arabic, to the never-ceasing crush of pedestrians outside. It was somehow relaxing to watch this world go by, knowing that, temporarily at least, we were not a part of it. The coffee however didn't taste at all pleasant and was not especially warm. The addition of tasteless milk from the sachet or sugar cubes in paper covers did nothing to improve the taste nor the temperature. "What do you think of the City?" I asked, putting down the cup and trying to ignore its taste. "Is it all that you expected?" "There does seem to be an awful lot of it!" she remarked. "Much more than I thought. Anna was right. The City does make Lambdeth seem terribly provincial. And I thought that was big enough. Everyone seems to be terribly busy. Dashing around with some mysterious purpose." "Not everybody!" I commented, pointing at a pair of ground sloths who were slumped over a table, idly peering at tabloid newspapers with the headlines Reds Do Better than Expected and Her Maphrodite's Aunt Eats Hamsters. Beta turned her head round, a curtain of hair flopping down to her knees. "Those two don't look busy either," she said indicating a couple of crocodiles who were sitting impassively, barely even blinking, with full but probably cold cups of tea on the table in front of them. It was difficult to believe that they were in fact real living people, but it seemed implausible that anyone would bring in two stuffed models and set them there. "I suppose not everyone in the City has a lot to do." "If you were unemployed then neither would you have!" Sharply remarked one of the boys sitting next to us, who like Beta wore no clothes. "You mean they might not have jobs," Beta remarked. "Not everyone has, you know!" the boy continued. "You come from the Country don't you?" Beta nodded. "My friend and I did as well. We thought: come to the City and get rich. Even the unemployment benefit is several hundred times more than you could ever earn in the Country. But it doesn't last. Money just doesn't go anywhere here. And if you haven't got a job, what can you do? Just sit in cafés like this and watch life go by and just wish you had a chance to join in." "Surely there are plenty of jobs here," I commented. "If that wasn't so, why do so many people from the Suburbs commute here to work?" "There are jobs for them!" The other boy remarked. "That's why the City wants them. But farm labourers like us, what can we do that we're qualified for? There's only so many jobs available for our like. And so many people crowd here from all over that the jobs soon go. And then all you do and all you've got energy to do is spend your time surviving. And in between the visits to the dole office and going to bed, what else can you do? Just watch things go by." "I really envy those crocodiles," the first boy continued. "They can take the boredom. I don't know how they do it! Hours these reptiles can spend doing absolutely nothing. I suppose it's just their make up." "But surely even without money there are things to do?" Beta wondered. "My father's always saying he wished he had more time not looking after the farm animals and tending the crops. All the books you can read. All the things you can see. All the creative things you can do." "It's not like that!" sniffed the boy. "You just don't understand. That's what you think at first. But one day becomes another and time goes by. No job. No money. And it becomes a trap you get into. Soon you just get resigned to it." "I just can't believe you can't do anything. It must be very boring!" "It is! It is!" The boy agreed. "It's inevitable though," his companion said. "If everyone was busy then for those who can afford to do things there'd just be no space to do them. The City needs people to do nothing or it would just have no space left. It's people staying at home, out of sight and out of mind that keep this place functioning. If everyone was active, going to cafés, writing novels and so on, everything would just seize up. Think! There's only so many books in the library and only so many seats in this café. They'd never be available if everyone took advantage of them." We finished our coffees and strayed again into the street which had become no less busy for our absence. As we walked past more restaurants and shops, my feet were getting very weary and Beta's feet had become almost black with the dust and grime from the pavements. Occasionally, we had to stop for her to detach a small patch of darkened chewing gum or mushed cigarette end from her soles. It was on one such occasion, while Beta was trying to shake a disgusting plastic stretch of gum from her fingers, that we heard a loud commotion. Beta looked up sharply to see a pair of wolves who were baying at a couple of bulls in track-suits. The abuse was quite explicit and extremely personal. As the accusations were so bizarre and disgusting they must have been grounded on speculation rather than firm evidence. One of the bulls retorted with an angry snort by butting a wolf with his head. This triggered a sudden and startling flurry of violent action which at once froze the flow of pedestrian traffic in its track. The wolves leapt onto the bulls, teeth and claws at the ready, while the bulls circled round and around with menacing impulsive thrusts of their long horns and their tails slashing out like whips at the wolves on their backs. Most pedestrians either turned back or crossed the road to avoid the violence. Some braver ones gingerly passed by along the kerbside hoping that they wouldn't become assimilated into the action. More disturbingly however, several pedestrians decided to participate. A pair of weasels wearing jeans and tee-shirts produced flick-knives and jumped on top of the bulls. A thick set boa constrictor sprang onto one of the bulls and pulled its body around the bull's neck. The violence was beginning to draw blood. One of the bull's horns was reddened at the tip and a wolf was viciously thrown against a restaurant window which withstood the impact but caused him to slide unconscious onto the pavement. "This is horrible!" exclaimed Beta, showing more presence of mind than me. "Let's go!" She pulled me away and we headed down a busy street perpendicular to the one we'd been on. As we hastened along, a large sparrow chirped at us with something of a chuckle in his voice: "Quite a scrap, eh!" "I'm sorry? What did you say?" I asked. "That fight! Lots of blood, eh! Not the most violent I've seen but pretty good anyway!" "Good!" retorted Beta, clearly distressed. "What could be good about that?" "Well not good, so much. But pretty violent. Not the worst, but bad enough. I've seen a lot of violence in the City. You do, you know! You just do. You can't avoid it. It's everywhere. The City is a violent place!" "Is it?" Beta asked, looking at the mass of people passing by. "Look at that police officer!" The sparrow continued, pointing with a wing at a savage looking ceratosaurus in a uniform nestling a small automatic rifle in his arms. "Don't tell me that he carries that around with him if he doesn't think he needs it, eh? This is a violent place. Rapes, ultraviolence, gang bangs, mass shoot-outs, everything. Often the pavements are just red with blood after an especially gruesome gangland killing. Business leaders get shot point-blank through the head, their brains splattered over spaghetti and lasagne. Pubs get blown apart with small incendiary devices. Cars get stolen and plough down innocent pedestrians on the pavement. Arguments are settled in a blaze of gunfire. Buildings are set alight and their inhabitants tied to chairs to prevent them escaping. People are chosen at random, followed by assassins and their entrails torn out of them. The City can be pretty violent, eh!" "I'm sure it can be," remarked Beta, with an expression of some distress. "We must be on our way though." "Well be careful as you go, eh!" the sparrow remarked as Beta hastened us along the shop-lined street at quite a stride. "I hope we don't see very much of this violence," I commented kindly. "It's not very pleasant." Beta flashed a quite angry glance at me. "I don't want to talk. Or even think about it," she enunciated slowly and firmly. I scampered along behind her, belatedly aware of the distress she'd felt on witnessing the fight. The road we walked along was brightly lit by neon, despite it being early morning, and we passed cinemas, shops and other places of quite a different character than those we'd passed before. GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! one screamed out in orange neon with a window covered with pictures of naked women of all species engaged in some very peculiar behaviour. Naked Encounter promised another. Topless and Uninhibited a bar advertised. "I don't like this area at all!" remarked Beta, slowing her rapid pace and walking closer to me as if for protection. Scantily dressed women, but none of them dressed as naturally as Beta, gazed at us surlily from shop doorways, and through red-lit windows, which, if they were shops, were either selling decor for those with a distinct preference for the colour red and a preponderance of satin and silk, or (more likely) the services of the semi-clad women who pouted at us as we passed by. "I've never heard of any of those films," I remarked pointing at the neon titles of a cinema. I'm Coming On You. Sexy Serpents. Two Is Not Enough. Twelve Hours Of Passion. They don't look very nice, do they?" remarked Beta stopping in front of the cinema and looking at the explicit pictures of innumerable different sexual practices between various species who exhibited more than a hint of pleasure in their faces. "Look at that! How can anyone do that? Do people actually come here to watch films of that sort of thing?" I looked around me. There were still quite a few people in the street, but actually rather less than in most of the City. There was also less traffic, but the vehicles were still driving by rather slowly. People of all species, but mostly male, were entering and leaving shops through plastic strips that only partially obscured the rows and rows of videos, magazines and other objects displaying a preponderance of naked flesh and sexual organs. The words Sex, Flesh, Hard Core and the letters XXXX seemed to adorn almost every building that wasn't a residential block.
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