Not very long ago, in a manuscript for a novel, I wrote (of scientists, but meant by it every boor that stinks of self-rectitude): Wait ’til they realise that there wasn’t a Big Bang, and that our particular part of the cosmos looks like it’s expanding, when, in fact, the real explanation is that everything around it is going in the opposite direction; like cancer on an ageing corpse. They won’t say sorry, though, – they’ll just say, “We’re even cleverer now.”
I derive no satisfaction from the fact that things have turned out that way so soon. What bothers me, is that should any literary agent be persuaded to read these words now, they can only ever be considered derivative. And worse perhaps, sound bitter, begrudging and facilely judgmental, whereas, when they were written, they were sort of indifferently prescient. Why should I care? By the time I ever write a manuscript that one of those word-scientists is prepared to read, fucking chatbots will be writing novels.
Besides, I have more pressing matters to deal with. My clothes are perhaps better described as clothe – singular. I have a single pair of threadbare trousers; a single, T-, actually more of an I-, shirt; and a pair of shoes, so worn, they are better considered slippers. I have no underwear. That which I set out in had grown blow-holes so severe in the undercarriage, that they were rendered a micro-mini-skirt in no time at all. Though, like most men’s accessories in this area, they carried a prestigious brand name on the waistband, allowing me to re-purpose them as a neck decoration to keep the searing, central-continent, summer sun from striking me down before I began. Picture a snood-cum-dickie if you can. By that arrangement though, I have added a nuanced layer to my habillé, hinting at a level of prosperity that I don’t yet possess, but which I have embraced for the edge it brings to my job hunting. For I must find paid employment before what remains of my dress falls apart. As I record these words, it feels like a race against time.
Ukraine was said to be Europe’s bread basket. Surely, even me, someone who, at this moment, can’t tell a cornfield from a minefield, must be able to secure some lowly manual labouring job here? All the clever people ran away ages ago, and the rest must have been recruited into the army, or shunted up a level. Opportunities must abound for the useless and unemployable?
That’s a point. I could keep a diary, then later turn it into a novel. You know, like Orwell did in Down and Out in London and Paris, when he recorded his ‘survival’ as a vagrant in both capitals. Have you ever read it? Perhaps the worst of his anthology, which is no mean feat in itself, – the main issue being that he didn’t actually do any of the things that he wrote about, which is perfectly obvious as soon as he gets into any detail; he was no more a tramp, than I went to Eton. But I can, at least, try to emulate him in one sense: I’ll make lots of notes during the first few days which I can amortise over an imaginary two months or so. In this way, I will be able to get ahead with my real plan, which is: as soon as I have the wherewithal, to steal a combine harvester and drive home on it. Much like the way one of George’s friends from school gave him some money whenever he encountered difficulties during his pretend odyssey; or that film where the old boy drove home to see his brother on a sit-on lawnmower. Whichever you prefer.
Origins you see, George traced his back to a place of providence, whereas mine go a few billion years further back than that; and my zero feels a little more absolute than his.
Dickie White's Diary 