A Brief History of the Earth
I set out for a walk with my wife Penelope and our dog Jonathan Swift, all
of us wearing our sunglasses. Jonathan Swift always makes a great fuss
about his. He gives no consideration to the effort and ingenuity we applied
to have them made, but as Penelope likes to point out, he is a dog, so we
have to accord him a degree of leniency. By the time we reach the track
running beside Auchendarach Farm, it is dark and cold and the wind
grumbles in a baying baritone I’ve never heard before. I look around to ask
Penelope if she wants to turn back, but she and Jonathan Swift are
nowhere to be seen. I call their names, but the wind whips them away. A
man in a long black puffer jacket stands in the next field. I climb over the
fence. He stares intensely at the ground. ‘Are you all right?’ I say. ‘It’s
happening,’ he says. ‘What is?’ I say. He sways as if he’s reached the edge
of a cliff. ‘Stand back,’ he says. I can see a leash with the initials ‘JS’ in
his hand. ‘This wasn’t here yesterday,’ he says. I try to tug the leash from
him but his grip is firm. ‘What wasn’t?’ I say. ‘I’m sorry about your wife.’
He hands me a silver brooch. ‘I managed to grab this before she fell in,’ he
says. It’s the brooch Penelope’s mother left in her will. ‘We’d better get
out of here,’ he says. I feel the ground growl and shake and hear the man
say ‘Woops’. I look up and he’s vanished. One of his shoes is wedged into
the ground, its heel pointing skywards. The leash lies at my feet. I can’t
work it out. Everything else looks so normal.
Translation
It was the most exciting Microsoft Teams meeting since April when
Elvira, the host, had forgotten to remove her husband’s boxer shorts from
the radiator behind her. Ben had clearly been drinking, though nobody
really minded because of the issue with his ex-partner. ‘It’s just one
sentence. I can’t accept the idea that nobody is able to offer it a meaning,’
he said. We all looked down at page 365. Yevgeni and Marilyn nodded.
Devisha shook her head, while Violine rubbed her chin. Agnieszka’s eyes
looked down and right. It was obvious she was on her phone. Grace’s
camera was off, but we could hear her grinding her teeth. ‘I have asked Dr
Dreschler and her team in Krakow, but they have no idea,’ Astrid said.
Irene sent a note in the Chat to Freda. ‘Irene, how many times? We can all
see the Chat,’ Elvira said. Freda smiled and took a swig of coffee. ‘Surely
somebody knows what it means,’ Irene said, trying to take the initiative
away from Elvira. ‘It’s not as if it’s an ancient text or anything.’
Everybody looked up. There was a long silence. ‘Irene,’ Amy began
without continuing. Freda switched herself to mute, but we could see she
was laughing. ‘Has anybody any ideas about the way forward?’ Elvira
said. ‘Twelve words,’ Ben said, at last. ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake.’ Freda
switched on her microphone, but Elvira immediately muted her. ‘Ok,’ she
said, ‘I suggest we reconvene next Tuesday. Is 9.30 all right for
everybody?’ Freda was no longer smiling. She pressed her keyboard
several times. Yevgeni and Marilyn logged off. Freda waved her arms
furiously. Agnieszka looked up. Water rose from underneath Freda. It was
like she was in a slowly filling tank. Elvira unmuted her, but it was too
late. Freda’s screen was blank.
Party
Connor took a look around the restaurant. Every table was occupied by a
single man. Some were on their phones; one or two, like him, looked
around and occasionally smiled; some twitched nervously and sipped from
their wine or water; several looked at their watches, called out for waiting
staff, stood and sat back down with harrumphs. After 70 or 80 minutes, the
man on the next table joined him. ‘Valentine,’ he said, holding out his
hand. Connor shook it and they began to talk. Little things at first. Where
they were from, what team they supported, what they did for a living. In a
matter of minutes, the other men moved their tables over. There was a
plumber, policeman, teacher, and refuse collector; an accountant, a lawyer,
a chemistry lecturer from the local university, an ex-infantryman down on
his luck, and a pastry chef named Lou; a crewman from a deep sea trawler,
two lorry drivers from Estonia (who didn’t seem to know each other, a
source of great mirth to all), and a lawnmower salesman; three of the men
were unemployed: one had been in a succession of cleaning jobs, one had
been made redundant from a car factory that closed down and moved to
Belarus, and one lived with his mum and wouldn’t be drawn on his
employment history. Connor couldn’t hear what everybody was saying
because so many were far away, the table having grown to cover most of
the floor space. Small talk soon ran out, and there was a moment’s silence.
‘It’s my birthday.’ The men looked around to see who had said this. ‘I’m
46.’ It was a round-faced man with a comb-over. He stood and raised his
glass. He was short-limbed with an average sized trunk, and stacked
shelves in Sainsbury’s. Two more men stood, with shocked expressions on
their faces. The man directly opposite Connor rocked back in his seat and
reached into his inside pocket. There was a little pushing and shoving over
by the stairs to the street level entrance, but it died down. Eventually,
everybody was on their feet, glasses in hands. ’38,’ the plumber said. ’59,’
a man with a thin moustache said. It was everybody’s birthday. ‘Do you
think this is all we have in common?’ Lou whispered to Connor. The PA
system kicked in with Sister Sledge’s ‘We Are Family’. The men drank
and sang and danced and replaced ‘sisters’ with ‘brothers’ as loud as their
lives would let them. Connor took a look around the restaurant. ‘This is the
greatest night of my life,’ he said.
____________
Mark Russell’s most recent book is o (the book of gatherings) with Red Ceilings. He won the 2020 Magma Poetry Judge’s Prize, and his poems have appeared in Tears in the Fence, Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal, Blackbox Manifold, and elsewhere.
Comments