The 2084 Precept (2 page)

And in any case, as I was saying, it was
just one of those ordinary days.

You know what I mean, you get up, you
shave—if you are a man, that is—you paint yourself with various
chemicals and so on if you are a woman, maybe also do a bit of
shaving here and there, you go to work, you have coffee breaks, you
have lunch, you go home, or maybe you go to a bar or a restaurant
or maybe to the movies or, if you are one of those kinds of people,
to an art show or a museum, or maybe you just stay at home, maybe
you read a book or, if you are one of
those
kinds of people,
you watch T.V. Then you go to bed, and if you are lucky enough to
be still at a decent stage of a relationship, maybe you have sex,
and if you are
really
still into it, then maybe even before
you go to bed. Or maybe you don't.

And maybe you take a bit of time while all
of this is going on to send some daily prayers in a vertically
upward direction, or—with bowed head or kneeling or both—vertically
downwards, or perhaps in an easterly direction, or, feel free, in
whichever direction you prefer. Or maybe you don't. Whatever.

And then you get up the next day and you do
those same things all over again, more or less anyway. Life is what
we call it. Others of course do different things such as being
full-time caretakers of offspring—these caretakers being mainly
female, although these days you never know—and this is the driving
force in their lives, the main reason for their existence, or so
they believe and so I am told and so they say.

Someone once estimated that the average
adult in the developed world—ignoring for the moment what we mean
by 'developed'—spends at least 15,000 days of his or her life in
this way. That is a large whack out of anyone's life, considering
that the adult lifespan of an average 'developed' human on this
planet is approximately 22,000 days (out of a total span of around
30,000). There are even sociologists who estimate that the average
adult spends around
18,000
of his or her days in this way,
but I am not going to belabor the point because I have no idea,
and, what's more, I don't care. And in any case, we are all
unconscious for the equivalent of 10,000 of those 30,000 days.
Sleep we call it.

So, there we are, such is life, an existence
of limited duration—extremely limited if you ask me—and
exorbitantly limited for those who have had bad luck, or for whom
bad luck awaits in the future. Time, in fact—if you think about
it—is the only thing we really possess. And this, to a large
extent, is what we do with it. We don't know why we do it, we just
do it, it's the way things are, it's the way it is, there is no
point in analyzing the matter.

And as for the meaning of it all, the
purpose of it all, what is that supposed to signify? Ha, a
laughable question for someone such as myself, who would simply
reply that there is no meaning at all and there is no purpose
either. But if we wish to be fair, and we do, I fully respect all
other opinions including the one that the main reason is to have
babies, spend tortuous, messy and stinky years of the limited
number available trying to turn them into creatures identical or at
least similar to yourself, sometimes failing and finding that you
have produced a murderer or a rapist or a child molester or
whatever, and more often than not - a statistical fact - at the
same time going through hellish relationships, with or without a
divorce or other forms of unpleasantness, in order to
eventually…well, eventually what?

In order to eventually disappear, hop off,
cease existing, expire, kick the bucket, bite the bullet, perish,
vanish (I offend no religions here, I refer to vanishing from this
planet).

And the foremost objective of all of this,
or so I am told, is for the offspring to go off and do exactly the
same thing in order also to disappear, cease existing or whatever
your preferred expression is. Possibly a more cultivated one;
decease
perhaps, or
pass away
or
pass on
. And
this hopping off is a theme all on its own. It can occur in
prolonged pain, diabolical suffering, agony, torment and misery
or—if you are lucky—it can occur abruptly and usually without
prolonged agony as in traffic accidents, heart attacks and
terrorist bombs. Or you get murdered. Or—if you really mess things
up in the wrong way, at the wrong time and in the wrong place—it
could occur in an electric chair. For example.

But according to certain people who claim to
be in the know, there is indeed a purpose behind this convoluted
and ongoing biological recycling exercise. They do not, however,
say what it is—and going to a church is not going to enlighten you
either. A church, according to my friend Steve, is merely a place
where peculiarly robed persons who have never been to heaven stand
up and boast about it to people who will never get there.

But anyway, be all of that as it may, and
without fear of repeating myself—joke—it was just one of those
ordinary days.

* * * * *

It was about 10 a.m. on a warm spring
morning, and it was a Friday, and I was feeling pretty good,
tooling my way across a corner of Green Park en route from my hotel
to one of my breakfast haunts. The trees were showing plenty of
green already, the birds were singing, the park was humming with
people going to wherever people go to, and with a cup of coffee and
my newspaper coming up, the world was great and perfectly in
order.

As much as it can be, needless to say.
Today, among other things, 150,000 human beings are personally
involved in one of our planet's compulsory daily occurrences,
namely dying.

I went down the pedestrian subway and up
again on the other side, and I swung right into Half Moon Street.
There are other Half Moon Streets in this country, and for all I
know elsewhere as well, but I am referring to the central London
one. And if you happen to be a US citizen, no, I do not mean
London, Ohio or London, Kentucky, but London, U.K.

I turned out of Half Moon Street and into
Curzon Street, strolled along to the café and settled myself down
at a small outdoor table.

All tables in England are small. It's
annoying.

Perhaps it's because the country is
obscenely overpopulated and space is at a premium. As you possibly
know, in 2013 England overtook Holland to become Europe's most
densely populated nation, with nearly 400 inhabitants per
km
²
. In fact England is now one of the most densely
populated countries in the world. A bit different, say, to a
country like Namibia, which has a land area over three times that
of England’s, but a population density of a mere 2.6 per
km
²
. But of course, 70% of England's population growth
in recent years has been due to immigration. Fact. Which reminds me
of my friend Steve's thoughts on the matter.

The birdbrains—one of my friend Steve's
charming sobriquets for politicians—running the U.K. have an
immigration policy which places no restrictions at all and no
limits of any kind on the numbers of qualifying migrants they have
to accept. The few intelligent politicians (such as Enoch Powell in
the middle of the last century) who explained what simple
mathematical extrapolation is, and what the results of that would
be, were first ignored and then ostracized. Well done guys! Three
cheers! Get rid of Enoch. All and any of our critics are racists!
Down the hatch chaps, Bangladesh here we come! Carry on, what?!

It's the same in the USA. Last year, fewer
white babies were born than in non-white ethnic groups. And the
white populations in Texas and California are already a minority.
The discussion here is not about immigration, nor even about
educated immigration versus ignorant, non-educated and therefore
unproductive and expensive immigration. And it has nothing at all
to do with racism, as certain handicapped imbeciles erroneously
claim from time to time. The discussion is about restricting
immigration in general so that you can keep the steady erosion of
your own culture and your own standards down to a reasonable level.
And which does not, naturally, prevent any of us from continuing to
assist as many people as we wish on-site in their own native
countries.

Or maybe the English have another, more
obscure reason for their tiny and uncomfortable tables and chairs.
Who knows?

My newspaper was not one of those hideous
British tabloids, but the IHT—the International Herald Tribune. At
least, that is what it used to be. Some newly promoted manager
there recently used his or her superior brain power to change the
paper's name to the International New York Times, presumably in the
belief that consequently more Americans will buy it. In order to do
what? Read cricket reports? Or perhaps more non-Americans—in order
to read about baseball? Or perhaps he or she merely believes that
more New Yorkers will buy it. Or perhaps more non-New Yorkers or
more ex-New Yorkers who want to read more about what's going on in
New York?

Well, this is still an international
newspaper, no matter who owns it, and it always has been since it
was founded in 1887 under the name Paris Herald, later changed to
the IHT. Decades of international history and tradition, including
both World Wars, the legendary Art Buchwald columns—including his
eternal 'Le Jour de Merci Donnant'—and so on and so forth. And
nowadays the paper is based in Courbevoie near Paris and is printed
in nearly 40 countries and on sale in about 160, many of whose
exact location, or even approximate location, will continue to
remain a mystery to a large number of New Yorkers.

But the newspaper’s management nowadays
appears to be looking for a new kind of readership. Unless I am
optically impaired, the space allocated to the arts (of no interest
to many people on this planet and therefore existing mainly thanks
to subsidies, grants and charity) appears to have been increased,
as has the space on female fashion and, may none of us vomit,
male
fashion. Presumably this generates luxurious
advertising income, but I would love to see the circulation numbers
in a few years’ time.

And the newspaper's price is now around $4.
Can you imagine that, paying over $1,200 per year for your daily
newspaper? Nevertheless, and just like the politicians, these guys
usually create a committee to agree to their decisions and are
therefore not individually responsible for anything (other than
supervising committees). Which means that I have to withdraw my
superior brain remarks, which will allow you in turn to nullify any
related interpretations you may have derived from them.

The coffee and croissants arrived and I
flipped through the international news pages. Conflict deaths in
five different countries (the good old human race), three terrorist
suicide bombings (the good old human race), debt crises everywhere
(the good old human race), and I was about to start on the
important section—the sports section—when a shadow fell across my
table.

As you know, this is what shadows tend to do
when someone or something places itself between you and your
light-source. I looked up in order to identify the origin, and
there was a man standing there. Next to my table. Just standing
there. Looking at me. And preventing the sunlight from reaching my
table. And there were other tables free.

My first reaction in such a situation is to
wonder whether this is just another of the many simple weirdos to
be found on this planet, or perhaps one of those people whose
pleasure it is in life to cause mild annoyance a few times a day,
or whether he might even in fact be a homosexual on the hunt,
they´re all over the place these days, and more and more of them
with every passing year, let me tell you.

It reminds me of a short story I read ages
ago, in which homosexuality had become the norm (if you are of the
Christian persuasion, you would have to imagine that God had
created Adam and Bruce) and the heterosexuals were hounded by the
authorities and only able to meet in dark, dingy bars late at
night, with half of them disguising themselves as members of the
opposite sex.

I do not detest homosexuals. Not at all. I
respect them as much as I respect anybody else, including myself.
Many of them—but certainly not all, don't get me wrong, they are no
different to the rest of us in that respect—appear to be perfectly
agreeable people whose effeminate body language also tends to
frequently attract the platonic adoration of heterosexual females
for reasons we don't need to go into here. And although I don't
detest them, they are certainly not my cup of tea. Quite simply, I
hold nothing against them and they, hopefully, hold nothing against
me. I merely prefer them to keep away from my personal space and I
promise faithfully to do the same in reverse. I actually feel sorry
for them, as I do for a lot of things in this world of ours. I am
not in the least bit interested in what they do with each other or,
before I am corrected,
to
each other, nor do I wish to
imagine it, thank you. They can just get on with it as far as I am
concerned. They are simply aberrations of nature, nor are such
aberrations restricted solely to the human animal. But it's not
their fault, is how I look at it, nor can they do anything about it
and nor, do I suppose, do they want to. And so, as with all things
that cannot be changed, I merely ignore it and will continue to do
so, providing, as I have said, that they continue to respect my
personal space. Particularly, for example, on the beach. And also
providing that that short story hypothesis remains what it was: a
hypothesis.

Nevertheless, and as I have mentioned, I was
in a good mood, and so I merely raised a polite eyebrow to my
silent observer, upon which he gave me a reasonably acceptable
smile in return.

"Excuse me sir," he said, "I am indeed sorry
to trouble you, but I wonder if I may take up a moment of your
time? I am conducting a survey and it really need only take about
two minutes. A
maximum
of two minutes I assure you, I can
guarantee you that. Or should I perhaps return in a short while,
after you have finished your breakfast?"