Silver Ferride
1964 / London / Trafalgar Square
Everyone remembers where they were when the American Empire declared war on the United British Colonies in 1962, Sandly Limerick mused. He leaned against Nelson's Column holding a cheap ciggy (rationed) in one hand and the Sunday Times in the other. It was Monday, but Limerick had no money for the current paper and he had been taught that a man without a newspaper was a very silly man indeed. It was an easy guise, something that helped one blend into the chaotic place that was London Town.
Yep, I was right here, leaning on the big bastard itself.
He cast his mind back. Cigarettes were better then – you could still buy them in packets (Embassy, Park Lane, Marlboroughs), these roll-ups were foul. His mouth scrunched on cue. Yeah... the City was glamorous as well, the column was white and the fountain sprinkled clear water into the pond; dinky men in top hats (the Charlie Chaplain's of the world) used to rush by, too busy to notice the few beggars dotted around the place. Nowadays we are all beggars. He tugged on his dirty shirt and straightened his flat cap. His eyes skimmed Trafalgar Square – the pond was coal black, the sprinkler destroyed; the column charred with the words: "FUCK AMERICA" fingered into the grime.
London was dying, withering away. And it was all because of the War.
Sandly hopped down the steps and flicked the nib of his ciggy into the dead pond. He swerved in and out of the mattresses of the homeless, careful not to invade their "personal bubble." He sat on the wall surrounding the pond, cast his arms back and gazed up at the sky which was electric blue, raddish-flavoured clouds blotted the horizon crafting a polkadot pattern.
A paper flyer rushed towards his feet in an eddy of wind. He picked it up and straightened it out. The face of King George IX on a red background. "BRITAIN NEEDS YOU!" Underneath some intelligent swine had added "FUCK AMERICA" in black biro.
I hate the war.
--Why do you hate it? A voice whispered in the back of his mind.
Because I fucking do!
An automatic response. If you delved deep enough he hated it because one reason – he was unemployed (a scrounger, a dole-monger, a freak, a layabout, an idle jack... scum of the earth). He was supposed to be in the Job Centre today, he had promised the wife, but he just couldn't face another patronising young fuckup speak to him like a two year old. The face of the King transformed into the spotter fuckup from the Job Centre:
"So Mister Limerick, what skills do you have?" He imagined the fuckup say.
"Well..err..I can play the violin... I also have a goddamn degree in Biology from Cambridge University!"
"Sorry Mister Limerick, music and biology are meaningless to the War Effort, we don't need strings or for you to play Bill and Ben (the Flowerpot Men) – we need dedication. Loyalty. BRITAIN NEEDS YOU!" The face of the fuckup reverted back George IX, who started to cackle madly, his eyes bulging from his badly painted face. He scrunched it up, taking pleasure in adding wrinkles to George's face then held it under the black water of the pond until he was sure that the paper had dissolved completely.
He woke from his daydream and pushed past the floor-dwellers. He would get a job today. He had promised. But not at the job centre, no no – not there, anything but there. He walked out of Trafalgar Square, letting his subconscious knowledge of London carry him away, his eyes flitting everywhere to look for pickpockets, criminals, yobs. Most buildings were rubble, the few that survived had been looted and smashed in, the owners not even bothering to board-up the windows.
The homeless-beggars-on-mattresses started to dissipate and the Toms took over, each one screaming out their wares.
"Fifty pence. Anything goes!"
Overpriced. One, a woman was well over 40 clutching her breasts before ripping out her greying hair.
"Want a good time?" She said in a perfect cockney accent, you could tell the fakers a mile away. He quickly walked away from her while she cackled madly. If he had a gun, he would pull it out and shoot the bitch. But weapons were so hard to come by nowadays, he had tried hard to get one – to protect his family from the Toms and criminals which were free to walk the streets since the police had been merged with the army. The only thing he had to rely back home was the rusty crowbar that he kept beside his bed. There had been one nasty incident a few weeks back when a burglar had smashed through the window and tried to steal the wireless and a few antique plates. He couldn't stop himself, he had hit that thieving bastard so hard... the blood, god the blood.
The wife, Santha, had hushed the kids up while he had dragged the body away in the dead of the night. He had dropped it in a yellow skip. It wouldn't get emptied - garbage collection encouraged waste which was now considered treason. The corpse would rot away along with the streets potato peel, egg shells, out of date news papers.
He had made his way to a huge street. Huge, but empty. Thousands of red "BRITAIN NEEDS YOU!" posters had been plastered to the parallel concrete walls. Barbed wire twisted around the top. There were no pavements on this road, so Sandly moved to the centre.
No motors nowadays. No motors 'cos there's no petrol. No petrol 'cos no one's mining anymore.
It seemed to go on and on, this road he had found. But of course, it didn’t. Sandly had been to the end many times. He squinted and followed the path until he came to a huge white building (this was white unlike the grime of Nelson's column). It was like something out of a picture book, a huge Tower tickling the polkadot sky.
"Prime and Dawson Limited Central Headquarters," he whispered. A thousand George-the-ninth's grinned from every angle. He pinpointed the corner of one of the posters, a plain white text logo covertly in the corner: "Produced by Prime and Dawson Limited." The Super-Company. It could have even been the only company left in Great Britain. Sandly didn't know but he did care.
"Prime and Dawson Limited," he said it again, this time with some bitter hatred. They had sprung up from nowhere to deal with "the pressures of the war" and had ended up using the government pot to buy up stock in just about every industry. Overnight they had acquired British Coal, British Rail, British Airways, all the major food produces and utility plants. Prime and Dawson held all the power, an unchained giant, free from the regulations of the state with endless amounts of money pumped into continuing the structure of the company.
He had left that building in 1962. The day Prime and Dawson bought up the last stock in Limerick Bioweapons, there had been a short meeting then immortal unemployment. His life as a biologist was over in seconds, his degree from a red brick uni' counted for nothing and pretty soon he was wearing a flat cap and dirty overalls, downgraded from his detached abode to a dingy terrace and was sending his kids to a rundown state school.
The fuckup job centre man flitted across his mind: "So Mister Limerick, what skills do you have?"
Sandly clicked his fingers and purple sparks of light danced around his finger and thumb.
"Magic," he said aloud. Georgie Porgie was no longer smiling.
