Omega (29) Breakfast was cheaper than we had become accustomed to. We each had coffee in paper cups which were difficult to hold without spilling some of the hot tasteless liquid and scalding our fingers. We shared a couple of white bread sandwiches stuffed with brown sauce, onions and a very fine sliver of cheese. The whole breakfast came to just over fifteen guineas. We surveyed the district from the corner of the demolition site, across a road junction controlled by a very busy octopus in a police uniform, to the distant sight of the taller and grander buildings of the City. Although they were clearly within sight, they seemed very distant and remote. Peeling Election posters were everywhere, some blown by the wind across the grimy unwashed streets against doorways and into the alleyways which led off the main streets at regular intervals. A collection of lambs and kids were gathered outside a school, wearing baseball caps put on back to front and words ornately shaved into their fleeces. A small square of grass was locked in behind railings in which a few sparrows had gathered around a statue of an eminent hadrosaur and idly played cards near a hamster in a threadbare overcoat slumped in a puddle of vomit and urine. Beta pointed at the tall buildings in the distance, while chewing at a mouthful of obdurate dough. "It's incredible to think that the City has such great variety! There's so much wealth over there while here everything is squalid and rundown." "I hope you're not putting down the flipping City?" Abruptly interjected a large raven with a flat cap on his head. "You blinking yokels, you come from the blooming Country and all you can flipping well do is flipping complain. I'm City born and bred, me! And I'm proud of it. There's nowhere in the world as good as what the City is!" "I wasn't saying that I didn't like the City..." Protested Beta looking down at the match stick protruding from the corner of raven's beak. "Yes, you was! I heard you! Blinking ingrates you Country people. If it wasn't for us in the City working hard and making money all you Country people would know it. You don't bring sweet fanny adams into the realm. How can you? Everything in the Country is just so blinking cheap. Cheap in price and cheap in quality. It's us what bring in the wealth with all our banks and business and things." "I was just saying that it was strange how much wealthier that part of the City is compared to this part." "Whyn't you say? That's different. A totally different bowl of lard, as they say. Yeah, over there is where the nobs live. They're the ones with all the blinking money. And what do they leave us, the workers? Not fanny adams, that's what! They've got all that money and all those blinking tall buildings and snooty shops and we're left with all the slums. Well, now we've got the Reds in government at long last and those blinking nobs had better look out. We'll get their hundred thousand guinea carpets, their million guinea clothes, their ten million guinea houses. It's all for the blinking workers now, ain't it!" "That ain't quite what the Red Party said they'd do in their manifesto, John," remarked a billy goat in an ill-fitting sports tracksuit and large soled running shoes. "That ain't what they said they'd do. It might be what you want them to do, but it ain't what they said they'd do. But God in Heaven, I wouldn't mind it if it was, you know what I mean? I wouldn't say no to some of the other slice of the pie, me. I work hard all me life, you know what I mean, and I never ain't got nothing for it. And there are those like Her blinking Maphrodite what do nothing and get loads of dosh. I'd like some of the action, I can tell you." We left the goat and raven debating and walked along the road in the general direction of the tall buildings, looking forward to the return to the relative comfort of the more touristic City. We passed a pack of hyenas who were feasting on some rotting meat, left outside a butcher's shop which had suffered from very severe vandalism. The more literate graffiti Meat Is Murder was sprayed around it, an opinion not shared by the hyenas. One raised his head from the antelope carcass he was feasting on, blood coursing down his jowls, and glared at us malevolently. Although it was unlikely that either Beta and I would consider challenging him for a taste of the red and pink raw flesh, he appeared to be warning us off just in case. We passed by the steps of a tall apartment block even more derelict than most but not boarded up or chicken-wired. Most windows had lost their glass but several people were idly leaning out, regarding the world going by. A babble of audio systems resonated from inside, broadcasting very aggressive songs in which no shortage of profane or obscene words were expressing a philosophy of hatred towards women and police officers, and a worship of drugs and guns. Several people lay in the sun on the steps staring blankly into space and making no effort to converse with each other. We walked on looking for somewhere to sit down and rest, preferably without spending any money. There were none of the benches or parks that had been around the previous day, although more people were sitting about; but they did so on the pavement or on the steps leading up to their homes. There suddenly erupted an outburst of noise that didn't emanate from an audio system, although it echoed the same aggressive sentiments. I couldn't see the source of the shouting until Beta prodded me and pointed several storeys up a metal fire-escape that wound perilously around the steep walls. A black ram with magnificent horns and RAIDERS shaved into his fleece was facing up to a group of coyotes in baseball jackets and sharp knives. There was no actual violence, but a great deal of shouting, much peppered with sexual allusion. We hastened on down the road, past women of all species languorously strolling along with no apparent purpose. They wore a thick coating of makeup, revealed much of their breasts, legs and genitals, and on occasion got into or emerged from the car doors of remarkably slow drivers. One car slowed down near us, and the man driving it stuck his head out of the window and yelled at Beta. "How much, lovie? What's your rate?" "What do you mean?" Asked Beta automatically, not slowing her stride. "What d'you do? 'O' do you? D'you do 'A'? 'F&S' at all?" "I don't know what you mean?" "Don't come the old C.T. with me, lovie! I just want to know what you're offering." "Nothing! Nothing at all!" Gasped Beta, suddenly understanding him and grabbing my hand in a gesture of attachment. "I'm not offering anything to anyone!" The driver sneered, and drove forward to another woman, dressed in nothing but black stockings and a woollen scarf. This woman immediately responded to his enquiries by leaning her arms on the window of the car door and negotiating with him. "We walk with a swagger. And we walk with a grin. If there's any flipping trouble, we're the first ones in!" Chanted some young people marching towards us carrying banners. "We Are The Illicit Boot Boys!" The banners carried signs with such single word slogans as Rupert, Truth and Illicit. Some more elaborate signs depicted characters with blood streaming from recently demolished faces over such slogans as Smash The Reds! and Reds May Rule But They Haven't Won! Their cries and shouting broke their doggerel rhythm into a chaos of shouts in which the words Truth and Rupert were most prominent. It briefly came together with the chant: "Tee. Ah. You. Tee. Aitch. We need the Truth and the Truth needs us!" "It's those horrid Illicit Party people again!" Beta remarked fearfully. "But what is this about the Truth?" I told Beta about my visit to the town of Rupert and the President Chairman's speech where he urged the Illicit Party to seek the Truth. While I was explaining, the procession came ever closer. We stood to one side and let the march go by - partly from fascination and partly because groups of individuals were detaching themselves from the main body and harangued anyone who appeared fair game for their attention. From windows above our heads, some individuals were chanting Anti-Illicit Party slogans, though it was not possible to ascertain from which political bias. This criticism earned the culprits a hail of beer cans and stones which in some cases hit their targets and smashed the windows of the rooms where the cries had come from and more often quite different ones. Not all those observing the parade were opposed to it, however. Some cries were demonstrably in support. "This Rupert seems rather popular with some people," Beta commented thoughtfully. "Illicit Worker!" Shouted a large ram carrying a pile of newspapers with one held up to display the image of President Chairman Rupert underneath the banner headline: Election Tragedy. Illicit Party Cheated of Near Victory. "Read how the Red Party fiddled the Election. Find out how the Red Government will bring this nation to crisis." "No thank you," said Beta politely. "And why not?" Challenged the ram, who had the face of the koala shaved into his fleece and a plethora of Illicit Party buttons pinned all over. "Don't you want to find out the truth of the Election? Don't you want to hear how the President Chairman will lead us all to the ultimate Truth?" "Well...," hesitated Beta, perhaps considering the Truth. "No, not really!" "You don't believe all the Red propaganda do you? Only the Illicit Party can save this country. Or save the world for that matter? Only the Illicit Party has a truly radical and workable solution to the problems of the City's budget crisis. A policy tried and tested in the Illiberal Socialist Republics. A solution which by wresting control from the factionalism of Red, Black, Blue and White and centralising it in one single non-political authority under the ideological guidance of central government would solve at a stroke the indecisiveness and waste that characterise the City. A solution which would distribute the wealth from the richer parts of the City and spread it amongst the poorer districts. Do you think the Red Government with its policy of even greater decentralisation of local government decision-making could really solve the problems that exist?" "I don't really know..." "It's all in the Illicit Worker! How Rupert will wrest control of the financial market from the chaos, anarchy and greed of the City institutions and establish a single unitarian authority. How Rupert is encouraging all supporters to pursue the Truth and how that will resolve - at a stroke - all the world's great problems. How education will become focused like a laser beam in an overall strategy involving the cooperation of the media and the libraries. How the Religious fundamentalists, and their liberal sympathisers and apologists, who threaten to drag this nation back to the dark ages will be proscribed for the greater harmony. How abuse of sexual rights and freedoms will be countered by a moral and ethical crusade to bring back order to the relationships between ram and ewe, billy and nanny, man and woman. How the nation will become unified into the greater glory of the Illiberal Socialist Republics, eventually to become part of the United Illiberal Socialist Empire under the President Chairman's sole authority. Aren't you interested in the Truth or Justice. Only ten guineas a copy." "We can't afford it," I argued. "Five guineas, then. Two guineas? Here have it for nothing!" The ram handed us a copy and marched onto a group of crabs cowering timidly under the shadow of a large poster for hoof cleanser. Beta took the newspaper, which was printed on very thin paper and the ink of which already splodging her hands. She turned the pages of the Illicit Worker, while the parade finally passed by drawn up in the rear by a large mass of sheep bleating Rupert's name insistently and monotonously, with single letters of his name shaved in sequence in their fleece. This would have been more impressive had the sheep stayed in more rigid order, but they were instead proclaiming RUPRTE, THRUT and ILILCIT. The newspaper featured many illustrations of the President Chairman and rather fewer of any one else. These others looked either nondescript or rather aggressive, and were all proclaimed as either heroes or martyrs of the Illiberal Socialist cause. Most of the articles were directed against the other political parties and had rather more to say about what was wrong with their opinions, views and manifestos than on what was right about the Illiberal Socialist Party's. It was difficult to believe that the Red Government was really advocating universal castration as part of a policy of male emasculation. The Blue Party also seemed unlikely to be quite as enthusiastic in reintroducing slavery as the paper claimed. I particularly found bizarre the notion that the White Party was arming secret militias in the Suburbs for the planned overthrow of the state. Although there was a great deal about why the true Illicit Party supporter should join the crusade for the Truth, spearheaded in his historic speeches by the President Chairman himself, there was rather less about what it might be or where it may be found. It also seemed to gloss over what it was the Illicit Party intended to do with the Truth were it ever found. Beta looked at the black ink that had thoroughly stained her hands. "Uuurrgghh!" She gasped. "Can you look after the paper? Perhaps we can read it later somewhere." I nodded, took the paper, folded it up and put in my pocket. The parade was now out of sight and the street had returned to its earlier calm, leaving a debris of stones, beer cans and broken glass amongst the other litter along the kerbside. It was at that moment I noticed the Gryphon whom I had met at the borough of Rupert hiding in the shadows of a doorway on the other side of the road. He saw me, raised his eagle eyebrows in surprise and strolled across the road towards us. "I take it you saw that dreadful rabble of Illicit Party followers, young man," commented the Gryphon flapping his ears vigorously. He nodded at Beta. "Hello, m'dear. I hope you don't mind my speaking to the both of you so unintroduced. I met your good friend at a bus station recently. I am really quite disturbed by the fanaticism and intolerance shown by these ill-bred youths. I thought behaviour like that had died out many years ago. What so you think?" "They seem horribly violent and aggressive," Beta commented. "I didn't like the way they threw stones at those who disagreed with them." "And that's apparently not all they do to people they take a dislike to. It may only be hearsay of course, but I gather that they practice torture in the Illiberal Socialist Republics to get people to confess to the most outrageous crimes, that they send enormous numbers of them to die in labour camps in horrific conditions and that no opinion is legal which contradicts the wisdom of their President. Can you believe that such barbarity still exists in this day and age! And what is even worse is that young people, like those we saw passing by, want to introduce Illiberal Socialism to this country. I imagine they rather look forward to being the ones who will carry out the torture and murder." "The Illicit Party didn't win the General Election, though," I remarked. "No. That's something to be grateful for. Although there was little danger that they would. And I'm glad they didn't do any better than they did: coming fifth place in the leading six parties. Now we've got a Red Government. Not that I voted for them. But I suppose it was inevitable they would win. And I don't think, taking everything into account, that it's such a bad result. As you can see, the Red Party has a lot of natural support in inner city slum areas like this. The surprise I suppose is that the Red Party didn't poll any better than they did. I imagine too many people are wary of being governed by the likes of the people hanging around here. Don't they look a sorry shower!" He gestured, with his claw, at the citizenry leaning out of windows, slumping against walls or lamp-posts, or, at their most active, idly kicking the empty beer cans left behind by the Illicit Party march. "So, young man," speculated the Gryphon, "you travelled on to the City pretty soon after leaving Lambdeth. Do you expect to find the Truth here?" "We'll have a good look for it!" Beta said supportively. "You too!" Gasped the Gryphon. "I still think you're wasting your time. I'm visiting the City on a short exchange visit to Oxymoron High School, just around the corner from here. It's an enormous school compared to what I'm used to. Over fifteen hundred pupils. And not a school uniform in sight!" "Are you a teacher?" Enquired Beta, who had never needed to wear a school uniform in her native Village. "Yes, m'dear. Hasn't your friend explained? But it's quite a different matter teaching here. There really isn't any discipline. The pupils answer back and have no respect for their elders and betters. Furthermore, my colleagues have no sense of purpose or mission in the noble art of pedagogy. To them it is just a job. One which nevertheless requires more input from the pupils than would be permitted at my school. The worst is that the pupils are given no sense of direction. There is no emphasis on spelling, multiplication tables or Classics. What sort of adults will these children become if they can't spell? And do their multiplication and compound interest calculations on pocket calculators? What sort of world do these modern educationalists want where the fundamentals of education are sacrificed for freedom of expression, creativity (whatever that is!) and universal tolerance? However desirable these objectives may be, surely that is not what education is for!"
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