This one's inspired
as another of Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction challenges for a
non-medieval, modern or future fairy tale.
It’s a jungle out there.
Or at least a temperate
forest-cum-icy-wasteland this far north. And it's far from a fairy tale.
A crossbow bolt sang past my ear as I turned
the corner of New Road and South Lane: a shrieking counterpart to the flash of
cameras as the police Communications Station registered my bicycle’s chip and registered
Neighbourhood Pizza and Pharma for Carbon Tax (my ancient Trax 18-incher has
tyres made of petroleum-derived rubber substitute) and made a Road Use Profile of
my lanky height (but skinny width) using
up so many cubic centimeters of road space.
New Street
Academy ’s a tough school
and since the courts ruled that searching children for weapons violated their human
rights that corner’s been a shooting gallery. At least they rarely fire guns because
the law assures that only the police, our tiny army and the gangs have access
to firearms. Davenport Estate Killaz Crew owns the neighbourhood and they kneecap
or clitoridectomize individuals in schools who arm themselves with anything more
powerful than a bow. Big Jamal is something of a softie and he won’t behead a
child for a first offence - except for apostasy.
I settled the Kevlar vest a little more
snugly on my chest and pulled the helmet Dad had worn in Gulf Three down over
my brow.
In the panniers behind me ancient Tupperware
food boxes rattled against cardboard bottles of Approved Medicines. The
government licences 28 prescription treatments as environmentally safe and cost-effective
and provided by ethical businesses. Ethical businesses go to great lengths annually
to show Members of Parliament and the movers and shakers in the Pharmacology Board
just how ethical they are during their week-long Safety and Social
Responsibility Audits at remote locations set amid tranquil surroundings far
away from the everyday pressures of life in our war-zone cities and villages.
At Moor Hill House I stopped and chained my
bike in the security cage to keep it from drifting while I was inside.
The lobby of Moor Hill House was dark. Though
it was technically illuminated by sustainable bulbs, I gave silent praise that today
was breezy; some of the windmills studding the countryside were rotating lazily
and so those bulbs gave off a grey, 20-Watt glow. I switched on the ‘scope and raised
my mirror on its long wire handle to scan the landing one flight of stairs up. Since
doctors stopped making house calls even in emergencies a generation ago and
insurance rates and Road Tax for the pharmacists’ armoured cars hit the roof
when I was a boy, it’s left to the voluntary sector and sub-contractors to
deliver food and medicine to the sick and old who’re too scared or infirm to
visit the county’s hospital. The scarlet fleece hoodies of Neighbourhood Pizza
and Pharma are as much a part of English life as the blue armour of the police
who arrive whenever a Beast addict has gone berserk and bitten everybody he saw,
but NP&P arrive before things go chemically wrong whereas the police
usually get to the scene only after a gangbanger or an unlicenced bystander has cut
the Beastie down. It has to be a head shot or decapitation with a Beastie. If
the axe-wielder isn’t from an approved community that’s expected to employ violence
as an expression of its cultural richness (and is therefore a vigilante taking
the law into his own hands), he’ll like as not be charged with murder.
The coast seemed clear. I scuttled up
squelchy-carpeted steps and knocked quietly on the second door on the left.
Turning to face the hallway with a good solid width of wall behind me, I fingered
a rolled-up Road Safety Manual which is a mandatory piece of equipment for all bicycle
couriers who can’t afford the police bribes. A Bible makes a better shield against
switchblades and is a superior gag for some attack dogs but judges pass heavy
sentences on those who carry (openly or under plain covers), such divisive literature. Long minutes passed while bolts
and chains were withdrawn from the flap in the door beside me. The judas opened
and I passed through a box of sandwiches from the Mother’s Union kitchen in the
Northallerton security compound.
“God bless you, Deacon Willoughby,” came the man’s
quavering voice.
“And you, Mister Payne. Same time tomorrow. And
I’ll have your prescription if the convoy gets through from York .”
The last call is always my happiest, being
family. We often reuse a teabag or two while she wolfs down the thin bread,
cabbage and watery cheese that are the chief products of an agricultural system
long ago rendered ecologically sustainable by law. North Riding Neighbourhood
Pizza and Pharma prides itself in adding variety to its food deliveries; some spring
onions or green beans in season.
Today her front door was ajar and I pushed
cautiously into the shabby little room I’ve known since childhood. When I saw
the powdery packet on the table I reached for the iron poker used when her annual
coal ration arrives for Winterval. I pulled down my hood for a better field of
vision. She was nowhere to be seen but there’s a stage in a Beast high when
they hide; silently enjoying the hallucinations before the Rage comes upon them. There was a noise behind me and I turned
around very, very slowly. I said “My, Grandma, what big eyes you have.”
2 comments:
I gave silent praise that today was breezy; some of the windmills studding the countryside were rotating lazily and so those bulbs gave off a grey, 20-Watt glow
CLANGGGGG! — was that an anvil? ;)
Yep; my physics is every bit as good as the windmill lovers' economics.
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