Omega (41) "What's that?" demanded Wilma. "Who are these louts?" "They're from the Illicit Party. We saw them marching and causing riots in the City. We didn't think they'd do the same here, so many miles away. They started a fight in a night club we were in. And one in the theatre district as well!" "Oh yeah! The theatre district!" Remarked White. "We heard there was trouble there. It was a goddamn shame. We'd bought these tickets to see a musical in Lambdeth Square or Unity Avenue or someplace. It was gonna be a setting of the Great Poet's poems on metaphysical longing and the justice of God, with people dressed up as poodles and roaches. We were really looking forward to it we were..." "There's some mighty fine songs in that musical." Wilma interjected. "We got the CD in the old country. A Rose Would Be Finer Far it was called. Real catchy tunes. I'd been humming them for weeks. I was thinking it'd really perk me up!" "Yeah, real good night out it was gonna be. We'd been looking forward to seeing it for ages, and Hubert was gonna be there as well. But it was cancelled, and so too was very nearly every goddamn show in town. The whole area was ringed off with plastic tape, and there were goddamn police everywhere. There'd been an explosion or something, as well as some kind of riot. You guys really ought to do something about this Illicit Party. In Phaedra, they'd not even be allowed to put candidates forward in an election. Goddamn thugs!" "They're getting closer!" Shrieked Wilma. "Those police ain't gonna stop them, are they! Hey, driver, ain't you able to move yet?" The chauffeur turned his head round, looking quite alarmed himself. "Just a moment, madam. I'm just waiting for the car ahead of me to move." "That ain't good enough!" Wayne ordered. "We don't care whether you scratch the paintwork. You turn this goddamn car round now! Those goddamn maniacs look like they're gonna do a heck of a sight more damage than you're likely to do." "Yes sir. I will," assented the chauffeur, obediently starting manoeuvres which almost immediately caused obstructions to everyone else. In the process, the car soon obstructed both carriage ways, had risen onto two sets of pavements and very nearly crashed into a lamp-post. It then stopped very awkwardly in the middle of the road, unable to turn further because of the positioning of other vehicles both ahead of us and behind. On one side was the road leading out of the town and on the other was the sound of violent commotion, the sight of angry protesters and a row of police edging steadily back towards us increasingly overwhelmed by the demonstration. An empty beer can collided on the car's bonnet and clattered down onto the pavement. The cars who had also turned round were hooting at us to move out of the way so that they could also follow police advice and exit. As we sat there, helpless in the traffic, the police officers turned tail and fled in our direction. One, a dalmation, had lost his helmet and had blood running down his muzzle onto the deep blue of his uniform. The hoot and cacophony became ever louder. The chauffeur reversed further, crunching the rear head lights against a door to a house and very nearly pushing it in. Then with an agonising turn of the steering wheel, the car span round, a headlamp shattering into the base of a lamp post, before breaking free and pulling off. As it did so, police officers scrambled over the cars ahead of us while aggressive youths leapt over the same cars after them, terrorising the passengers. The town receded behind us while the cars we had been obstructing became wholly overwhelmed by rioters. A plume of smoke rose from behind them. When the town was completely out of sight, the chauffeur drove down a road which within only a few miles lost its metalled base and crumbled into rough cobbles. Despite the limousine's excellent suspension, we were thrown roughly from one side to another. We were quite definitely in the Country. "Hey, driver!" Commanded Wayne. "You stop this goddamn car now. We ain't gonna take no more of this. We've gotten battered about enough. We don't want the car to be totally bust." "But this is the only other way to get where we want, sir." "We don't goddamn care!" Chimed in White. "We'll go somewhere else. Anywhere. There are plenty other historic sites in this goddamn country." "But what about your guest, Hubert, sir. He specifically desired to visit the historic tomb stones of Philately." Hubert leaned forward to the driver. "I can walk there, driver. Please do what my friends say and stop the car." The car abruptly drew to a halt at the entrance to a field, and we all disembarked, including the driver, Wilma, White and Wayne. The driver examined the damage caused to the car, while Hubert and his Phaedran friends chatted with us by a hedge delimiting a field of mastodon grazing on tall luxuriant grass. There was quite extensive damage to the car's headlamps, a nasty dent on the bumper and dents on the roof which must have resulted from the projectiles that had cluttered onto the car as it drew off. "Well, Hubert," said White apologetically. "It's a goddamn shame we gotta drop you and your friends out here in the Country, but there ain't nothing we can do about it!" "Any more kilometres of this goddamn dirt track, and I'm gonna be black and blue for the rest of my goddamn days, Hubert honey!" Exclaimed Wilma. "I ain't never seen nothing in my life like those hooligans. What do they think they're gonna goddamn achieve? Nothing like that could ever happen in Phaedra. We got asylums for guys like them!" Hubert sighed. "I am indeed very sorry that your visit has been so badly marred. I have never before seen such violence and insurrection. I can but hope that your visit from hereon is not going to be further troubled." "Illicit Party, ain't they?" Mused Wayne. "I ain't heard of them before, and I sure hope I ain't gonna hear about them again. We're gonna head back to the firm where we hired the automobile, and just hope our insurance covers disasters like this. Look at the goddamn state of it! I'm sure that driver could have done a better job in getting us out." "He was only doing the best he could," Hubert said in his defence. "Sometimes the best ain't good enough!" Sniffed White. "Well it's been mighty swell seeing you again, Hubert. I just hope you get to see this grave or whatever you're looking for. Me? I think I might be quite glad to get out of your goddamn country alive." White and his pachyderm friends squeezed back into the limousine when the chauffeur had finally reversed it, and they trundled off over the cobbled road, leaving Hubert with Beta and me. Hubert waved farewell, using a lace handkerchief he'd somehow retrieved from his pocket, holding his tri-cornered hat to his chest. When the car had turned the corner beyond a hedge and out of sight, he replaced his hat firmly on his head and sighed. "Your journey and mine coincide for several leagues more. You will do me an honour should you accompany me." "The honour is surely ours," Beta replied, graciously. "You've been more than generous to us. And anyway we don't even know the way to the Suburbs from here." "In that I can be of assistance. My quest for relics of the Great Poet have provided me with a nearly unsurpassed acquaintance with all corners of the Country. There are few who know its contours and permutations better than I." 22 "Characteristically fresh and invigorating!" Exclaimed Hubert drawing in a deep breath of Country air, as we stood on a hill overlooking fields and moorland. "It's only when I am in the Country I feel truly myself. I am sure that it was in contemplation of wide open countryside as this, with nothing but an expanse of blue sky above him, that the Great Poet drew his greatest inspiration." Beta nodded in agreement. "It's so beautiful here. Away from the City, its crowds and its pollution. Look at those daffodils over there. Simply hundreds of them! And those puppies playing around in them. Such innocence. Such joy. Don't you think it's wonderful?" She squeezed my hand, and I could only agree that the fields and meadows stretching out ahead of us presented a truly inspirational view. I breathed deep, taking in the scent of pollen blown from the wild grass, and carried in vaporous clouds over the larger tussocks, past a grazing antelope and onwards over the rolling hillocks as far as we could see. "The Great Poet wrote a great deal about the Country," Hubert mused. "Again and again he returned to it, especially in his romantic period. For him the Country was always a thing of beauty, to be admired like a painting. He believed that art should aspire to capture that great beauty: something he tried and succeeded, in his odes, sonnets and vignettes. Ode To A Caterpillar. Reflections on the First Frog Spawn of Spring. The Scorpion on the Rose Petal. Fertility Carried in the Air. The Shepherd and his Sheep Dog. Works of Art which will be remembered long after the last turf of soil is embalmed in concrete and the last green field becomes a supermarket car park. But for now, let us just enjoy the beauty that is left. And curse the onward march of progress which threatens to eliminate such innocent beauty and to turn the air into an ozone-free, carbon dioxide rich and sulphurous poison." The giant teddy bear bound surprisingly swiftly down the hillside, with Beta and me chasing after him, our hands clasped together. When we caught up with him, under the shade of an enormous tree, clasping his tri-cornered hat in one paw while patting his forehead with a silk handkerchief, I confessed that I had no great appreciation for the Great Poet while I was at school. "In fact, I'm afraid it all seemed rather irrelevant and somewhat boring." "That is the great tragedy of our time," mused Hubert reflectively. "There is no longer the inclination to reflect on the great insights of poetry. There are too many distractions from day-to-day things which appear more pressing and relevant, although there can be nothing in the world more deserving of our attention than a well-crafted phrase or a skilfully expressed trope." "I really enjoyed poetry at school," countered Beta. "and although the Great Poet wasn't really my favourite, I could see that his poems were really very good." "It's the fault of state education!" Grunted Hubert. "What else could it be? After so many years, the Great Poet's oeuvre has lost its freshness for the children of the Suburbs, tempted away by motor cars, videos and fast food take-aways from the most profound insights ever yet attained by any one person. Perhaps, too, a familiarity of landscapes as beautiful as this engender the reflection and contemplation required to enjoy the delicate and exquisite flower of great poetry." "I'm sure that is so," affirmed Beta. "I am much more inspired by poetry here in all this fresh air than I could ever be in the City." We strolled through green open fields, past herds of deer and sheep to a long level hedge separating us from fields in which mammoths and glyptodonts were grazing. The hedge led to a wooden gate and stile, on which sat a collie chatting to a scorpion. They paused when they saw us, and greeted us politely. "Good morrow, my friends," greeted Hubert amiably. "It's a fine day, isn't it?" "Indeed it is, sire," agreed the collie unenthusiastically. "It is a day which best pleases my herd. The wind is light and the sun shines. No rain to chill their bones. But too much of this weather and my crops will surely suffer, and then I shall be cursing such days as this." "Surely, it is best to simply enjoy good weather when one can," Hubert remarked. "Aye, such advice is fine when weather is well tempered. My stock enjoy it and my vineyards too even if my potatoes would like more rain. But such is my living, sire. The weather can never be wholly perfect." "And now you are no doubt ruminating on the results of the General Election. How does the victory of the Red Party bode for you? Ill, I suspect, for a taxpayer such as you who has all the responsibility of man management." The collie barked slightly. "On the contrary, sire. The Red Party victory was much welcomed by farmers throughout the Country. They had my vote and that of all my neighbours. It is only the very wealthiest farmers who had much to benefit from the Blue Party gaining power. For far too long the Country has been neglected, and only the Red Party, and perhaps the Green Party, has ever explicitly endorsed a policy to redress the balance between the City and the Country. The Blue Party talk about encouraging wealth creation, but it is for the benefit of yon City folk, not for them as have to till the land and furrow the soil. The Red Party have promised to direct government subsidies to farmers and manipulate the markets in the Country's favour." "I thought that the Red Party represented the interests of only the poor and down-trodden," Hubert argued. "How can that be true of you Country people, living here in the midst of such plenty, generated from the wealth of the soil?" "Beauty is all very well, sire. You gentlemen have such fanciful ideas of how good life is for us in the Country. And your fancies have brought us folk few favours, if you don't mind me saying so. We might enjoy living in the Country, and this is where we have chosen to live, but we want practical help. Our produce is made and sold at Country prices, not City prices. Not the prices you City folk are used to. Us folk, we talk in farthings, pennies and shillings. City folk talk in hundreds and thousands of guineas, but pay us for our produce only as little as they can. The Red Party promise to reward us better for our labours and to even the score more in Country folk's favour."
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