He starts chalking down a new column of figures, muttering, “This universal … solution … will make flight between worlds easy. No need for people … to blast themselves … across light years of dreary sub-zero vacuum.”
He flings the chalk down and contemplates the formulae with something like smugness. Jimmy says, “But …”
“You are going to tell me, Mr Prometheus O’ Lucifer, that air is largely oxygen exhaled by vegetation, and how can I grow enough plants to fill a universe with it? But my next universe will start with a big splash instead of a big bang, and the initial chemistry will be wholly different.” He sits down, folds his arms and looks triumphant. Jimmy, not impressed, turns the tetrahedral model in his hands saying, “Okay Mister Sly-boots Clever-clogs, I was also going to ask about this planet’s angle of rotation.” He hands the model back, says, “It will have to perform intricate somersaults if one of your triangular continents is not to be in perpetual twilight.”
“That is certainly a problem,” says the Head agreeably, putting the model back on the bench. “I am working on it.”
“So how long will it take you to get this… airy new universe up and running?”
“I have eternity,” says the chief, smiling to himself.
“You will spend eternity dreaming up a Utopian universe while mankind destroys life on earth in a couple of generations?”
“That’s nonsense Jimmy!” says the Head consolingly. “Men cannot destroy all life on earth, only themselves and equally complex creatures. In which case insects will inherit the earth while vegetation recovers and then…” (he becomes enthusiastic) “… from the segmented worms you and I will evolve a wealth of new creatures with different organs and sensations and minds. I never repeat my mistakes. It was maybe a mistake to give big brains to mammals.”
“Why deny intelligence to creatures who suckle their young?”
“Freud thinks it makes them unhealthily dependent and unhealthily greedy. Why not try hatching big intelligences from eggs? Birds, in general, seem happier than people. Tropical birds are as colourful as the organisms in my Great Barrier Reef, and the world will become a very tropical planet when men have made it too hot to hold them.”
“But!” says Jimmy explosively. The Head swiftly interrupts him.
“You are about to say bird brains are too small for development because their necks are too thin, but owls have short thick necks and are notoriously brainy. One day you may fly up to me in the form of a dove with an eagle’s wingspan and find me a gigantic owl…” (he spreads his arms) “… with feathers as colourful as a parrot’s. Pretty polly!”
“And is that the most comforting message I can take back to the few on earth who listen to me? The few who care for the future of life there?”
The Head says mildly, “You recently asked me to exterminate the human race and now you want me to send it comforting messages.”
“Not comforting messages but useful messages. When I asked you to exterminate humanity I was trying to goad you into suggesting a new way of saving them.” (He sighs.) “But of course you knew that.”
“I did,” says the Head, nodding. “But the only ways humanity can save itself is by old things that come in threes.”
“Faith, hope and love,” says Jimmy glumly.
“Yes, but these can only work beside liberty, equality, fraternity.”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” raves Jimmy. “What are you on about? I’ve been so mixed up with… post-modern people that I’ve forgotten.”
“Liberty is not having to obey other people because they are richer than you.”
“Equality?”
“Is what everybody enjoys with friends, or in nations where everyone knows they need each other.”
“Fraternity?”
“Brotherhood. The brotherhood of man.”
“Exclusively masculine?”
“A good point Jimmy. Call fraternity love also, the love that still makes your earth the centre of the present universe.”
“Don’t talk shite!” yells Jimmy. “My wee world is near the edge of an average galaxy among a million million galaxies! I helped Galileo destroy the Jewish notion that the whole shebang was made for them. How can my wee world be a universal centre?”
The Head says patiently, “Wherever somebody opens their eyes is the centre of the universe and your earth is still the place where a lot of that happens. I hoped mankind would take life to my other worlds. They have the technology.” (He shrugs.) “If they use it to destroy themselves we’ll start again with another species. To-wit-to-woo. Pretty Pol.”
Jimmy slumps down, looking defeated. Our Head rubs his hands together, goes to him briskly and claps him on the shoulders saying brightly, “Since we now see eye to eye I must waste no more of your valuable time. Tell folk the competitive exploitation of natural resources is a dead end. Nuclear power, used wisely, will give access to all the space, raw material and energy they need without fighting aliens for it. Less than five miles beneath the earth’s surface is heat that, rightly channelled, will drive their machines without poisonous emissions.”
Without appearing to use force he raises Jimmy and accompanies him to the exit saying, “Fossil fuels should be exclusively used as fertilizer, and housewives when shopping should use net bags instead of the plastic sort which add to the price of what they buy. Goodbye Jimmy.”
“Nobody with wealth and power will believe me if I say that! They know the damage they are doing to the planet but they’re still extending motorways! Making and selling cars! Nobody owning one will change to a bicycle! Nobody who can fly will go by boat! Owners of companies wrecking the ecosphere are buying self-sustaining bunkers where they and their like can survive when everyone else is poisoned!”
“They won’t survive,” says the Head, chuckling. “Only folk who want to save others too have a chance. Perhaps.” Now he certainly propels Jimmy to the exit, adding with what sounds like mischievous encouragement, “Workers of the world unite! Remind them of co-operative Socialism! Owen, William Morris, James Connolly!”
“I’ll be laughed at,” moans Jimmy.
“Then all laughter will become screams of hysterical despair. Send me all the emails you like but don’t come here again for a millennium or two. Goodbye son.”
“Son!” says Jimmy on the threshold. “I’m glad you… sometimes… admit I’m in the family.”
“Goodbye son,” says the Head, quietly for once, “and good luck.”
“Which is not something you need, Dad,” says Jimmy, and leaves.
The Head returns to contemplate the crystalline models and formulae on his blackboard, seeming almost despondent. He is sorry that it is so hard to show his love for those who love him most. The rest are not so demanding. And why does Jimmy think he needs no luck? Is it because, as Headmaster of all, there is supposed to be no greater power? He hums a little song to himself, “I’ll give me one-o. What is my one-o? One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”
After a pause he sadly says, “One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.”
In the place where he sits another presence becomes apparent, one that stands so much higher than he that its voice seems from above, a gentle, female, slightly amused voice saying, “You silly wee man.” “Mother?” he asks wistfully.
VOICES IN THE DARK
THE DARKNESS IS SO COMPLETE that only steady continual snoring suggests this is a bedroom. Then come muffled clicks, a sliding sound, thumps of someone coming stealthily through a window. A narrow beam of light pierces the dark from what can be dimly seen as a slit between curtains. The beam swings from side to side until it fixes on the foot of a big bed where the snorer lies, then explores sideways to light on a bedside table with many bottles on it. The source of the beam comes through the curtains. It is a torch in the hand of a black thin figure who advances carefully to the bedside table, crouches on the floor, then switches on a table lamp among the bottles before turning off and pocketing the torch. The light now, though not great, shows the head of the snorer half sunk in plump pillows. It is old and mostly bald, with clumps of white hair behind the ears. This man is called Rudi. Behind him is an elaborately carved bed head with a large letter F surrounded by a laurel wreath both under a layer of cracked gold leaf. The rest of the room also suggests palatial splendour down on its luck. The croucher at the bedside wears black canvas shoes, pants, anorak, woollen hood with eye slits and holds a gun pointed at the sleeper’s head. With the other hand she pulls the hood off, and now is a tiny, haggard, desperate woman of any age between thirty and fifty. She listens carefully for sounds outside the room, but only those from the sleeper’s nose are audible, so at last she reaches over with her free hand and pinches the nostrils shut.