As the Sparks Fly Upwards

'One, two, three, down!' And down went the baton of the police officer onto the sleeping figure of Edward Irving, startling him awake and, although yet unbeknownst to him, setting in process the destruction of his identity. Another officer, younger although of senior rank, stood in the doorway, smiling wryly at his partner's antics. Edward Irving struggled to catch his breath between blows, barely taking in the fact that two State officers had just broken into his apartment, entered his newspaper-strewn bedroom. Much less so did it occur to him that after delivering to him the standard preliminary beating, the officers would then proceed to take him to a station, place him in a brightly-lit cell, administer further beatings, put him through a perfunctory interrogation (in which further beatings might or might not be involved), before returning him to his luminous cell: repeat from step one. Edward Irving could only guess that this would happen, or something to that extent, because he did not have the ability to see beyond the curtain hiding the forward direction of a linear narrative.
So much the pity for Irving, for he could have easily saved himself some needless confusion and agony, caused by the relationships of his suffering and his actions. Needless to say, I am not so bound by an ignorance of this linear time plane, and so know in whole the inflictions, physical and emotional, which I will soon visit upon Our Hero. I could even reveal to you, also, just what will happen to Irving after he is dragged from his bed and apartment, dazed, showing signs of developing bruises, and shocked but fundamentally fine ' but that would be giving away too much of the treasure, and you will of course lose interest in my story. And besides, if you look closely, you will find that I have already told you, not two hundred words ago. So concentrate, would you? Otherwise you're liable to miss the point.
So here we have three actors in this little comedy ' our first officer, the otherwise insignificant officer who has administered the aforementioned beating; Edward Irving himself, lying on his bed by the wall, curled up in futile self-preservation and crying out 'Police! Help! Police!' and the second, younger officer, who stood not reluctantly (but still aloof from the dirty work of actual arresting) at the ready on the threshold should his partner tire. Each with their own particular role to play: the criminal, the guardian of public morality, and the complicit witness. Of course the chuckling, youthful officer, with the name Eastleigh proclaiming his identity to a servile mass from a name badge on his breast, is the "complicit witness. But what of the other two?
Your job is to distinguish truth from untruth. Knowing this, would it surprise you to read that in the newspapers the day after tomorrow ' for it is late and tomorrow's are already off the presses ' the public will learn that Edward Irving was a political subversive, a traitor? Perhaps not. Or perhaps you believe things you read or see. I don't know. I'm not you. I am merely the Writer, so I must leave it to you to decide whether Irving is who these people (who, incidentally, have never met him, nor are likely to, having first heard of him after his irreconcilable fall) are really saying he is, or whether he is someone else entirely . That is your job. Just so that you know. It's all very confusing and involves concepts questioning whether this journalist is an independent entity, of simply the product of my overactive imagination. My job is to give you sufficient information regarding Irving's character, so that at the end you can make your own decision. Wouldn't that be great?
So in order to assist you with this process of breaking the chains binding you in your dependency on external media, read and understand what will appear in the Times two days from Edward Irving's arrest and demise:

"Two nights ago police conducted a raid on the house of a man suspected of links to yet unspecified underground terror networks. The raid occurred at about 2 a.m., and reports indicate that one man was arrested. However, when taken into custody, the suspect is said to have used a hidden razor to cut his wrists, causing him to bleed out before investigators could obtain any information concerning his associates. A police spokesperson commented that this setback had not hindered their overall investigation, as they have alternative plans currently in action. Police warn that the threat posed by the group is real and immediate. The identity of the dead man has not been released.

This article is in no way unique, but rather is reminiscent of many such vague reports on the capture and subsequent suicide of alleged subversive agents, terrorists, and extremist sympathisers. But this now puts a spin onto our story, at least to the extent you wish to believe the report. If we are to go back two days to when Edward Irving is curled up on his bed crying 'Police! Help! Police!' in vain to his sleeping or just plain pusillanimous neighbours, we now see this as not an act of random police brutality, but simply the appropriate measures needed to be taken by those protecting the interests of a fearful public, in such volatile times as these. One cannot take enough precautions.
So what do you think? That's the important part. Do you suppose that the newspaper is telling the truth? Of course you don't, you're far too cynical to fall for that old trick. Or is that me? I don't know. I get it confused sometimes. One would think that others thought as logically and realistically as I, but¦ alas. But to answer your question, no, the newspaper was not telling the truth. At least, not in any direct, physical sense. Although I the Writer composed and edited that piece, it does not quite stand up to the rest of the narrative facts. But not to worry. Once that article becomes common knowledge, it was hardly matter what really transpired that night when Irving was arrested, since the long-sought Grail of Objective Truth will have appeared, and dispelled any doubt. And anyone who continues to doubt is probably just a subversive, anyway. But, for the sake of outrecuidance, let me tell you what happened.
Irving, battered and bruised, was dragged from his bed by the older constable; through a decaying carpet of old newspapers; given a kick in the ribs by Eastleigh as he passed; pulled by his ankles past a basket containing various matted blankets and the sleeping mass of a fat tabby, unperturbed by the events; barely conscious taken down the four flights of stairs in the same manner in which he had been dragged from his apartment; thrown into the back of a waiting police van, the door of which was locked and bolted by Eastleigh. The van was driven across town, through the loneliness of the night, until they came to a converted church, its symbolic paraphernalia removed when it had been converted into a station of the Department of Civil Freedoms, a relatively recent branch of the government whose task it was to protect the liberties of its citizens. The station was nicknamed a 'kirk', after its former uses, which had become defunct when people began to see the spiritual benefits of worshipping in thousandfold masses packed into crowded stadia. At the back of the main vestibule of the kirk was constructed a labyrinthine structure of intertwining corridors, stairwells, cells and offices, in which Freedom was protected by brave men and women with patriotism and guns. It was here that Irving was taken, bleeding slightly and having some trouble breathing, shivering and barely clothed.
'Name?' asked the brisk, efficient woman sitting behind a desk in front of the internment department when she saw Eastleigh dragging in his catch, who was now allowed to stumble along haltingly, rather than be pulled by the ankles. When Irving did not respond immediately, Eastleigh hit him, repeating the question more loudly, with an obvious demonstration of forced ferocity. Irving told the woman his name.
'Alright, we'll need to see your card.' The card she referred to was the Blue Card, an identification card which contained in a microchip all the holder's relevant information: address, medical conditions, occupation, criminal record, and so on, so as to prevent identification mishaps, much like the one which was about to unfold, when it became apparent that Irving, being dressed in nothing but the clothes he usually slept in, did not have his Blue Card on his person.
He tried to explain. 'I don't¦ Look. I'm barely dressed. It's at home. I was just awoken, drag'' Irving's explanation subsided into a coughing fit, from which it took some time to recover. Eastleigh looked on with professional boredom and personal distaste. The woman behind the desk, however, was not so condescending.
'Not to worry,' she said, focussing he attention on the monitor. 'We'll just check our database and get all your relevant '' hmm. I can't seem to find your file.' Eastleigh's interest was piqued. She looked up at Irving, with some reservation, as if thinking what to do, considering the ramifications of this individual being, as it were, 'off the grid'.
'Not to worry,' she repeated, uncertain whether it was Irving or herself she was reassuring. 'I'll just enter you temporarily into out internal system as an unperson. Don't fret, this sort of thing happens all the time with the new Blue Card systems. There. I've got you listed as C-22. That will be your identification code from now on. 'Kay?' She smiled up at him; the first time in the dialogue they had made eye contact. But Irving was having none of it.
'But, my name's Edward Irving. You don't need to make me C-22. "Edward Irving will do fine. It has for twenty-seven years.'
'It might have been Edward Irving, but not now it isn't. This is a standard procedure,' she lied, 'just so we can identify you on our systems until we can determine definitely who you really are. Alright, Eastleigh,' she said, pressing a series of buttons to open a sliding door to their right. 'He's cleared. Cell 6079.'
And so C-22, who not two hours ago had writhed in pain on his bed crying 'Help! Police! Help!' as the person named Edward Irving, was led by Eastleigh through various well-lit, sterile white corridors until they arrived at the cell mentioned by the woman guarding the entry to this Labyrinth. C-2 was placed in the cell by Eastleigh, who did not speak to him, except to order him to put on the uniform lying on the bed. The uniform consisted of a bright yellow shirt, and equally yellow pants, both of which had the words 'Property of the Department of Civil Freedoms' stitched into the back. C-22 asked Eastleigh whether this applied to just the clothes, or to him also. Eastleigh ignored him. He left the cell, and with such a facile act as the locking of the door behind him, that white, sterile room became C-22's new world.
Cell 6079 was a nine-by-nine foot room of perfect geometry, excepting a steel bench extending from the wall, and a water filled cube from the opposite corner which, with toilet paper and a tap next to it, appeared to serve as both toilet and wash basin. A small, glassed-in window adorned the top of the far wall, facing the towering walls of the behemoth shopping complex opposite the kirk. The pinkish-red light from a gargantuan, lit-up heart shape, part of an advertisement for a retail chain corporation, penetrated the glass, shedding its illumination in a sickly crimson. This light, however, was nothing compared to the ferocity with which the two fluorescent lamps on the ceiling burned. These lights were monsters, daring those imprisoned in their dominion to try to close their eyes from the searing luminance; an act done in vain, as C-22 soon found out: the light infiltrated through eyelids.
Exhausted, C-22 lay down on the hard metal bed, padded by a thin, feeble foam mattress which had been gradually picked away by innumerable previous tenants. His feet hanged over the end of the bunk, there was no pillow or blanket to speak of, and the glares of the lights combined with the cruel mockery added by the love heart sign made sleep an impossibility.
'This is their tactic,' he thought. 'They want to wear me down through this torture until I'm a shell, a nothing, an ' he smiled at the notion, although the smile was only a means to mask his fear ' an unperson, until I tell them what they want to hear. But I don't know anything they want!' C-22 believed this.
Hoping to escape from the light, he pulled the mattress off the bunk, and slid it into the tiled space on the floor beneath it. He crawled under, and tried to let sleep take over him. Blissful release began to flood upon him at last. His trepidation in anticipation of further punishment pushed briefly aside, if not entirely forgotten, C-22 sank into a beautiful escape from the vicissitudes of his present situation, which were now exacerbated by a most vicious increase in the brightness of the already acute light, and a sharp, barking voice from an unknown source in the walls yelling 'Cell 6079! C-22! No sleeping under the bunks!'
C-22's eyes shot open, taken by a sudden fright, and as his vision adjusted to the assault of the glare, he briefly discerned an odd reflection at the base of the wall, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a crude inscription, worn with time, most probably made by one of the cell's original inhabitants. C-22 did not recognise the quote. It seemed incomplete, reading:

¦BORN UNTO TROUBLE AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARDS.

'C-22! Sit upright on the bunk, and face forward!' commanded the omnipresent Voice in a violent, belting staccato. 'You were warned!' The heretofore dull pain in C-22's stomach had grown intense, as he cowered (as he saw it) on the bunk in fearful anticipation. He sat, trembling hands unable to be made still, and the lights went back down to their previous luminance, still agonisingly bright, but not nearly as torturously painful. But nothing else happened, but neither did the matter seem to be at a close. Shaking hands gripped at his knees, as C-22 held his gaze on the wall opposite, as if by remaining still and imagining himself not there, the fantasy of escape could somehow become a reality. Rhythmic footsteps were heard, the swift, purposeful beat of a march; dimly at first, as in an echo through the labyrinth, and then increasingly closer, until at last the steps were heard to have stopped outside Cell 6079. The heavy door swung upon and, like the clichéd Gestapo in war films (though consciously, for in their civilian existence these guards were connoisseurs of old movies) the two cold-face men stepped inside. Both carried truncheons.
Needless to say, C-22 was once again callously beaten by the indifferent employees of the State. I shan't bore you with the details; suffice to say that C-22 lost one tooth in a dubious exchange for two black eyes, severe bruising and the onset of a crippling migraine by the end of the ordeal. But I get ahead of myself. So while those two men amuse their respective ids' masochistic drives on C-22, let us more refined individuals leave that scene of torrid, State-sponsored barbarism, to focus on more abstruse notions.
I am going to toy with you once again, just to check whether C-22's afflictions at all move you, or whether your ability to value an individual objectively has yet been sufficiently blunted. First of all, we know that C-22 is not a real name. Do you, without turning to the previous page, remember the real name he had at the beginning of this story? If you can, then congratulations; if you cannot, then I hope my point has been somehow proven: C-22 is not a person in your eyes, is he? Is it because he is so dissimilar to you that you cannot find a common point from which to empathise? Or is it that you cannot get past the reality that Edward Irving is simply an imaginative construct of my mental reality, whose very existence seems only to prove some academic point, rather than a living, breathing person? Do you somehow blame me, for not making Irving seem more human ' or conversely, for not being subtle enough in my depiction of C-22's persecution? Am I being so obvious in my storytelling that you lump Irving in with my unwillingness to create mood? I am not Edward Irving; I am merely the Writer. My function in this drama is objective: it is for you to make up your own mind.
But come now, I sense that you grow bored. You want me to continue with my poorly conceived narrative, to get to the end in as little a prolix fashion as is possible. Most certainly you hope that this train wreck of a narrative does not try to justify itself, much less to redeem its existence by the introduction of further conflict.
Don't fear. I shan't keep you in suspense.
Julia Strait was employed by the DCF as in investigator-prosecutor, a profession at which she was mediocre at best. An atheist, she non-judgementally studied world religions at school when everybody else took economics, a decision which equipped her with a deeper understanding of the spirituality which no longer existed in the world. She was not politically-minded, and she was felt trapped by the unsatisfactoriness of her situation. Her job was to take the meagre helpings of evidence provided by the police, and use it to create, with liberal amounts of hypothetical and quasi-fiction, an Objective Truth with which the public might come to view the individuals who find themselves cast into the spotlight upon their arrest by the State. And so, while the identity of a person might thus be altered beyond recognition, her work kept the majority feeling safe with the irrefutable evidence that the State was protecting their freedoms. It was not this job which made her unhappy, however. The fuel that fed her personal fires of discontentment was her perception of invisibility; of complete, perfect, ordinariness.
It was a cold, dark 4 a.m. when she turned up to her work shift that morning, two hours after the arrest of C-22, her face pallid and drawn as she greeted, with civility but without warmth, the woman sitting still at the desk outside the cell block.
'There's a case of sedition which was brought in earlier this morning,' she briefed Julia, without actually telling her anything. 'Apparently it's intrigued somebody in Higher Authority,' she went on. This told Julia Strait nothing, and appeared to be a bland attempt at conversation neither party really wanted.
In fact, if one pays close attention, one could learn that the Higher Authority so referred to is actually myself, your humble Writer. 'But wait, that's hardly fair,' you protest. But why not? They are my creations, I have the right to directly interfere with their lives as I see fit. After all, blessed is he whom God teaches.
'So what's his name then?' Julia asked, bored already, but carrying through the motions of here job nonetheless.
The woman behind the computer brought up the file.
'Ah. I forgot. He's an unperson,' she informed Julia. An unperson was an individual who, like C-22, had not been in possession of their Blue Card upon processing, and as such had no name or photo identity: as far as the bureaucracy was concerned, non-existent. The term made sense to the woman behind the desk, and it had a sort of bold professionalism about it. However, it was not DCF jargon, and to Julia Strait it neither made sense, nor had any sort of sophistication about it at all.
'What was that?' she asked
'No name.'
'What do you mean, no name?'
'Well,' the woman behind the desk said slowly, as if explaining a basic concept to a very small child, 'He doesn't have a name on our files. He's got no Blue Card.
'You could've just said so. And I'd much rather a name,' Julia Strait was becoming increasingly frustrated. She could see that this was not going to be a good day.
'And I'd much rather a vacation. He's down as C-22; isn't that enough?'
'Haven't you got anything at all?' Julia insisted. 'I want to know who this guy is.'
'He's C¦ twenty¦ two. What don't you get?'
Julia sighed, her disapproval boldly and obviously expressed, but just as doubtlessly wasted on her woolly-eyed, desk-bound colleague.
'Who's my cop, then?' DCF procedure required that a person from Julia's section of truth refinery worked with the arresting officer in a tandem investigation and interrogation. As much as she was annoyed at the notion of starting out her day with a numerically-named individual, Julia Strait became even more vexed when she was informed ' to the woman behind the desk's immense, puerile Schadenfreude ' of having to work with Eastleigh. Eastleigh was her antithesis; a dominating personality, he loved his job like nothing else, and delighted in putting his whole being into wearing down his prisoners emotionally, physically and mentally. Eastleigh was an imperious interrogator, who although in principle was supposed to work together with Julia Strait to question their internee, more often than not ruthlessly commandeered the interview, leaving Julia Strait a forgotten, diminutive presence in the corner of the room. Brutally efficient, Eastleigh's contemptuous vim was somewhat justified, by his prisoners' predictable, mindless trepidation by the end of the process.
But Julia Strait did not hate Eastleigh for this. Perhaps she did envy him; perhaps his flair at dehumanisation worried what little sense of humanity remained in her, yet unsuppressed but in the depths of her conscience. Rather, the quality in Eastleigh which evoked such loathing in his colleague was his belief in the inherent rightness of the State's methods and policies. That said, Julia reasoned, it must thus follow that Eastleigh was, or at least projected the image of being, the physical embodiment of the State ' it was not the heads of government who dictated policy, but Eastleigh, who also so joyously and efficiently executed it; Eastleigh, who was the face of an immense, faceless bureaucracy. Perhaps she was just envious: at least Eastleigh was somebody. It occurred to her that Eastleigh had been at the kirk and working, when Julia had left some twelve hours previously, and also when she had arrived for her shift, a further revolution of the hour hand before that. It was safe to assume that Eastleigh had been working for the duration of the interval.
Julia Strait came now to her desk, to review the folder of Eastleigh's investigative material given her, regarding the enigmatic figure who had been denominated C-22, in whom the mysterious figures of the ethereal upper echelons of Higher Authority had decided to take special interest, and who was at that moment writhing in untold agony under the cruel brightness overhead and the bright red glow of the light, sympathetic by comparison, shining through the window. The fluorescent intensity emitting from the ceiling was an annoyance. But it was that light which intruded upon Cell 6079 through the window that haunted him. It was an ugly, smiling apparition which claimed to comfort him in his bewildered, suffering state, but did no such thing. All it did was to turn the blood dripping fluidly from his nose onto the white, brilliant tiles an interesting colour. For now, C-22 was left alone; even the omnipresent Voice had ceased issuing him with commands. God, how he hated the Voice. Lacking any present, tangible authority which he could hold answerable for his mistreatment, C-22 instead flung his anger at the Voice, by whose sonorous, indefinable power the last beating had been initiated.
Actually, it was Eastleigh who was behind the ferocity being shown to C-22. The Voice was nothing but a junior officer who had been ruthlessly shanghaied into monitor duty that night, and had taken out his frustration on his wards; the effect of which was shining through C-22's clenched eyelids. Turning up the lights in all cells was not the result of ingrained malice, but rather was boredom manifest. There was nothing definitely sinister about it, save that perhaps my decision to write in a bored, choleric young officer on monitor that same night Edward Irving was arrested. But, those sorts of unfortunate events happen all the time, right? Innocent people incur the wrath of people simply having a bad day; unlucky coincidences just happen.
'But that isn't a coincidence,' you argue. 'You made that happen, O Writer. You are in total control of the situation, and you allowed it so that Irving was subjected to the most possible discomfort. It is all within your powers to manipulate the story to make him suffer as much as you want. How is that coincidental? How is that even right?' Right or not, that isn't the point. You're seeing him as a person, with rights, can only be a good thing. However, you still are rather missing my point, which is ''
'But that is the point!' you interrupt vehemently (and might I say somewhat rudely). 'The point is that you're in charge here, and you go and exacerbate his situation with beatings and bright lights and all other sorts of torture! What's more, there's just no point to it, either!' Well, I'll concede that. So I will give that perhaps the lights are a little excessive, given what must be C-22's unimaginable fear at the moment. And you are right; I am the Writer, after all. I can do what I want to my story, for the good or for the ill of those with whom I populate it. So is there any real need to make my creation suffer needlessly? Well, no; not needlessly. So I shall see to it personally.
In the monitor room, Eastleigh and his prodigy sat in silence, reviewing their assembled prisoners. Eastleigh was waiting for Julia Strait, whom he detested for her complete lack of enthusiasm, to finish writing up her official canard. A phone next to the monitor panel rang, the number display identifying the caller as Higher Authority. Not risking his underling to the task, Eastleigh answered it himself. The other listened intently, trying to curtail his ignorant by piecing together Eastleigh's half of the conversation.
'Yes sir. ¦ That's against procedure, sir, it '' ¦ But what point, sir? ¦ Of course. Right away. ¦ As soon as Strait is ready. ¦ Yes sir.' He hung up. The guard had learnt nothing. 'Turn down the lights in Cell 6079,' Eastleigh ordered brusquely, now irritated, and not waiting for a response, he hurried off to find what was taking Julia Strait so long.
In Cell 6079, I showed to C-22 that I giveth, and I taketh away, but not without a certain bitterness in the taking. C-22 lay in the centre of the room, despairing and despondent. How long would it be until the hateful Voice ordered him back onto the bunk? How long until the men with the truncheons came back to administer further bestial battery for a crime he could not recall having committed? Or, how long would it be before Eastleigh or someone else arrived, and the whole brutal process got thoroughly underway? His eyes were clenched against the audacious light in the ceiling, the words he had found scrawled into the wall emblazoned across his vision.

¦BORN UNTO TROUBLE AS THE SPARKS FLY UPWARDS.

The meaning of the first part was self-evident: it was just a magniloquent way of saying "bad things happen. Surely they did, C-22 thought, chuckling sarcastically to himself at the obviousness of that truth. But what of the second part? What possible meaning could be drawn from "as the sparks fly upwards? C-22 racked his mind, forcing himself to come up with an answer, as if it were of paramount importance to securing his freedom. "As, meaning "while? While the sparks fly upwards? But that made no sense. Sparks, like electrical sparks, or from a fire. Sparks from a fire. What about sparks from a fire? No, that was it: it meant "just as. Sparks will always shoot in any direction vaguely defined as "up. So, always then. We are always born unto trouble. Bad things always happen. To everybody? Do all the sparks fly upwards?
'Born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upwards,' Edward Irving murmured. 'Could I have been born into this cell?' As if in response, and with a echoing, thunderous sound, the overhead lights were switched off, in theory shrouding in Cell 6079 in complete darkness. In practice, although C-22 could now open his eyes without thw wondrous experience of smelling the acrid odour of his cooking retinas, and although it was now feasible for him to sleep, in practice the advertisement opposite Cell 6-70 shone its own light with ever more vigour, so that the only that that could be seen through the small window was the giant, luminous heart-shaped advertisement.
Lying under the watchful gaze of the heart, and in not a small pool of his own blood, C-22 made a conscious decision, the independent mark of the individual. Barely able to breath, missing several teeth, bruised and otherwise generally battered, haltingly at first due to the dull aching in his chest, although not at all forced, and then increasingly harsher, more vibrantly, Irving began to laugh. Even in prison, he thought, looking with ironic glee at the only source of light in his world, one could not hope to escape the persistence of the marketing industry.
While Irving laughed, Julia Strait wrote. Sorting through Eastleigh's profile of Edward Irving, she came up with a mildly convincing take on reality which, with the necessary repetition, would soon become irrefutable fact. The name on Eastleigh's report had been whited out and "C-22 handwritten over the space where "Edward Irving had once been. Leaving his real name, having been changed already, would have caused unimaginable, near-irreparable damage to the smoothly running records of the Department. Scratching off the overlying white out to reveal the real name, Julia Strait realised that Eastleigh had known his name all along when Irving was being processed and turned into a sterile codename. His answer, for why he had not told them his prisoner's name, would invariably be 'Because I wasn't asked.' It was because of this that C-22 now existed.
Julia Strait realised that C-22 was a writer. That would not go well for him. Now, not only was C-22 a writer, but he was also a writer whose flagrant, violent literature had been banned for its encouragement of dissent and dangerously antisocial opinions. Surveillance reports told that C-22 rarely had visitors. C-22 became a suspicious recluse, whose neighbours worried about the noises they heard coming from his apartment, and the peculiar hours he kept. There was no recorded residence for C-22 for six months of the last year. While he might argue along the lines that he was caring for a dying relative in another country, it was just as likely that he had been overseas training in clandestine terrorist cells.
Slowly but so very surely, Julia Strait took possibilities from C-22's mysterious life story, and made them into undisputed facts. That these new facts were improbable, even inconsistent, was rather irrelevant. Trivial concerns as those mattered not when one was holding Objective Truth, written in one's own hand. Julia Strait reconciled herself to her task. One, it is not always possible to determine the truth through observation alone. Two, the public lusts after definite facts for the comfort of certainty, and they do not accept anything which is not told with the utmost certainty. Three, it is in the interests of a peace-loving government to keep its citizens in a state of constant trepidation of the violence planned against them. And four, since there were indeed malcontents with the vicious intentions of causing such violence, there was no reason why C-22 or anybody else should not be one of them. Because Julia wrought Objective Truth from flivvers of Perhaps' and Could-Have-Been's, she was not creating fake history, per se ,but merely refining it into a more palatable form. Retrospectively, this made her job obsolete with the completion of every case. Truth had never any need to be refined in the first place ' Objective Truth never changed, and never had. In the present, she did one thing; when the act was past it became quite another. Who Julia Strait was and what she did now bore no resemblance to the Julia Strait and her job in history.
Such were Julia's anxieties, which she was busy not contemplating ' for she was busy refining truth ' when Eastleigh, irritable with the delay and chronic lack of sleep (for the State's justice never rested) all but snatched her up from her desk, and dragged her to Cell 6079. Here, Eastleigh found a most distressing sight, which the report would later describe as a heretofore suppressed insanity augmented by the stresses of procedural incarceration. The scene before him as he opened the door was Edward Irving, now C-22, laughing. Lying curled up in the centre of the cell, a blanket of red light thrown over him by the billboard. Neither of the two understood what was the object or cause of his mirth, and Irving never explained.
'What does he know that we don't?' Julia thought. It was a good question, she reflected.
'Good morning Eastleigh,' Irving said, still smiling, when he noticed the two enter. 'It's been a while. I haven't seen you since¦ God, it must be at least two beatings ago now. What you kicked me in the ribs as your pal dragged me out of my house? Nice move, that. Make you feel like a big man?' But Eastleigh was having none of his nonsense.
'Up,' he ordered, his anger barely masked. 'Time for your confession.'
Irving jumped to his feet, as lively as one could expect from a person in his condition. 'Fantastic.' He grinned. 'Glad we're in the right place for it. Although this place is a bit different from the churches I remember.'
He paused and, seemingly noticing Julia Strait for the first time, extended his hand politely and announced, 'Pleased to meet you, madam. I've been told that my name is C-22.'
Julia thought that the safest course would be to ignore him, and so led the way from Cell 6079, through the labyrinthine maze of interconnected corridors and flights, until they arrived at their destination, which for all C-22 knew was simply the same cell he had occupied before, with a table and some chairs introduced during the interval. It was the Confessional. C-22 half-expected it to have the number 101 bolted to the outside, but instead he found that it was 507. They could not have gone far within the building, for the heart-shaped luminary still shone into the room, now through a much larger window. It was as if the tacky, omnipresent advertisement were a tacit, complicit witness to the proceedings. C-22 was led inside, sat down at the table, and Eastleigh and Julia grimly took their seats on the other side. Eastleigh's countenance was deathly serious, C-22's rather less so.
'Well of course you're guilty,' Eastleigh began at length. 'Otherwise you would never have been arrested. That goes without saying.'
Irving smiled. 'Yes, without saying,' he parroted. 'Now all that remains is something to charge me with, right?'
'What goddamn difference does that make?' Eastleigh roared, coming out hard and strong. It really did make no difference. Sedition, felonious assault, murder, conspiracy, smuggling, loitering, mopery, high treason, low treason, hot and spicy treason, being a wiseass, reading classical literature, and theft. Details were nothing but petty details, and petty details were just as easily done away with as this man who had once been Edward Irving but who was now C-22. And C-22 was not having any of it.
'You're absolutely right, Eastleigh,' he agreed mordantly. 'So let's just call it a day and go get some breakfast, eh? I'm starved. Actually, I think I have literally been starved. You want anything, madam? My shout this time.'
'What do you think you're doing?' bellowed Eastleigh, doing his utmost to intimidate Irving into a subdued poltroon.
'Just trying to be useful,' Irving replied jovially. 'I know you could do with some breakfast. You look like you haven't slept in days. What, do you completely subvert your identity for that tough-cop persona? Or is that who you are day and night? Never mind. Breakfast!'
'You realise, don't you, that when you're convicted of your crimes, your sentence will be in the tens of years?' asked Eastleigh, put off by C-22's unwillingness to co-operate. His left eye began to twitch in frustration, and he resisted the urge to smack some sense into him. 'This isn't something to be taken lightly, you know! We have stacks of evidence against you. You're a traitor, a terrorist sympathiser; you're nothing but seditious, revolutionary scum. Once all this hits the news, the public will be howling for your blood, to have you put away forever. And you're asking for breakfast?'
'But why do you need me?' C-22 asked. 'I mean, if you're just going to lie to the public to keep them in line, why not go all-out and lie about someone's very existence? Haven't you thought of that one?'
Eastleigh had not thought about that. Julia Strait had thought of that once, but had discarded the idea as dangerous.
'So why not breakfast?' Irving continued. 'I mean, if everything you're saying is oh-so-true ' and why shouldn't it be? I was arrested, that's proof enough of guilt, I always said ' then surely having the breakfast of champions would be an absolutely grand way to begin it. It's the only way to start the day, so it stands to reason that it's the only way to start a lengthy term of maximum security imprisonment. So, come one. Let's go get some coffee and croissants!'
'Stop this!' Eastleigh snapped back. 'Shut up! You're¦ you're imprisoned, dammit!'
But Irving was not moved by the exasperated statement of fact. 'Imprisonment is the human condition, Eastleigh. All you've done for me is made it a bit more tangible. Oh, and removed a couple of my teeth. Cheers.'
Eastleigh said nothing for a long time. Irving sat there. Julia Strait looked on in amused interest, as Eastleigh floundered in his metier, although still to timid to take part in his game.
'So,' C-22 broke the silence. 'I take it breakfast is off?'
'It was never on,' Eastleigh growled.
Julia was intrigued by this particular display. This C-22 was totally dissimilar to the withdrawn, servile prisoners she normally dealt with. There was some fundamental difference about him. Could it have been that C-22 had already given up, and so felt no need to convince his captors of his innocence? Or was it that he had no identity to be withdrawn into, and that this was a last-ditch attack on his torturers for the bundled remains of his dignity? Normally, prisoners lacked life. This one did not. He did not appear dangerous; on the contrary, C-22 appeared humorous and light-hearted, hardly a subversive. He couldn't be violent. Julia almost let herself believe that C-22 might in fact be not guilty (one was never totally innocent, either guilty or not guilty). Then, furious at the mental slip, she reminded herself of the banned literature which the thin, suspicious laughing figure before her had produced. And then there was the six-month stint overseas.
He had those facts against his good name. Did that really happen? Or was that a part of her report? Which was which? Surely they could both be true? But the physical reality sitting in the chair across the table persistently, like a child, demanding pancakes of Eastleigh ' 'Pancakes! Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, pancakes! I want pancakes!' ' held nothing in common with the vicious, malignant traitor who would tomorrow be making minor headlines in the Times. Who was C-22? Julia realised that she did not even have a real name to put to his face. She was snatched violently her from her reverie by Eastleigh bellowing; Eastleigh who did not have the physique for effective bellowing, and now rather came off tepid and bland, and not a small bit pathetic.
'Pancakes? What pancakes? Why pancakes, you madman?' If one paid close attention, one could discern (drawing one's eyes reluctantly from the veins bulging in the side of his neck, which might burst at any moment) splashes of spittle ejecting neatly from his mouth.
'It's the demands of the People,' C-22 announced officiously. 'I represent the People, opposed to the greedy falsehood and hypocrisy of this ruling ideology. And the People demand pancakes as compensation.' He grinned, wiping some of Eastleigh's saliva from his cheek.
'Yes, you are the voice of the people,' Eastleigh spoke contemptuously, back in his comfort zone. 'When you die, wisdom will die with you.'
'Oh, I shouldn't worry too much about that,' C-22 assured him. I'm certain you'll find someone to replace me soon enough after I'm gone.
'Well, until then, let's discuss the small matter of your guilt.'
'Prove it!' demanded Irving, smugly.
'Prove it?!' Eastleigh had never heard such an outrageous sentiment. A criminal investigator, Eastleigh had never proven anything in his career.
'Sure. Prove it,' Irving continued to challenge. 'Prove it with science. Or if you can't manage that, prove it with science fiction. And if you find that too strenuous, prove it with persuasive methods of advertising. Try that billboard over there.' He pointed out the window to the oversized red beacon. Julia Strait turned to look. Eastleigh hesitated, then finally also turned to look. A knock at the door sounded:
Tap-tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap-tap! Silence. Tap-tap-tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap-tap! Fate was knocking at the door. Alright, I lie, which brings into question how much of this is flagrant lying. I lie; it was really only the Writer.
The Writer entered the confessional, and with a flick of his wrist, as simply as he had willed him into existence, dismissed Eastleigh, 'Eastleigh, piss off. You're useless. You're a nobody.' As much as he was in awe of any sort of Higher Authority, Eastleigh was infinitely irritated at the takeover of his own responsibilities, and by consequence the entire reason for his existence. I just thought I could do the Job far more efficiently than he could have. He glared at me on his way out, but I was not at all concerned; he would not return.
The Writer took Eastleigh's abandoned chair, and to C-22 addressed himself. 'So you don't much like the way I don things, Mr Irving,' he said. Irving had been prepared to bluff, or to act as ridiculously insane as he had to that ape who had just left, but reassured by the good-humoured, avuncular intelligence of the Writer's countenance, he was compelled to be honest and straightforward.
'No,' he said, 'Not particularly. You seem to think that its jolly good fun to go around making people miserable ' assaulting them, lying to them, keeping them in constant fear of the person standing next to them. You create a society based on fear and suspicion, where its acceptable to report your neighbour for keeping off hours, and where the marginalised become the suspects, and with a minimum of investigation, those same suspects are branded Criminals by the unthinking masses. And what is more, those in charge condone, even support, this sort of behaviour. That's what I wish to know: why do the wicked and hateful live, grow old and prosper?'
The Writer had the answers at his fingertips. 'Well, they're supposed to,' he replied. 'Or at least, because they want it more. Power and prosperity don't make for universal brotherly love. They invite the corrupt to partake in the tree's fruits, and those with probity and integrity are left behind.'
'So that's just it, then?' Irving stood, enraged, his chair falling backwards being him. 'This is why I've lost teeth, received beatings, been tortured with light and sleep deprivation? Because they can? I don't buy that. What sort of righteousness is there in a system which refuses an innocent justice, and makes their lives bitter? As long as I am given breath, I will never say that you are right; I will insist on my innocent and claim to be right to my dying day.'
To this the Writer replied, 'Then you are as free as anyone can hope to be given the circumstance. Tell me Mr Irving, do you believe in God?'
'I'm an agnostic,' he replied.
'Bah! Agnostics are the stupid, local peasants who wander aimlessly into No Man's Land in the middle of a trench war between Theists and Atheists. You don't need to prove your innocence to anyone, as long as it's a certainty fixed in your mind. Although,' he added, almost regretfully, 'there is still the matter of your actual guilt. You are free to go out into the world. It is to be your gaol, where you will be afflicted with endless stupidity, cruelty, corruption and exploitation. You will be preyed upon. You will love and that love will be shattered. People will tell you what you really truly want, and they will be lying. In the midst of all this, you will lose sight of that grandly, self-proclaimed innocence which so accurately defines your identity; that is the punishment for your humanity.'
Julia Strait was perplexed, and saw her own sorrows painted in the Writer's speech.
Edward Irving was not impressed. 'You're a sadist, you known that?'
'Of course,' the Writer agreed. 'Wouldn't be a very good storyteller without making horrible things happen to fundamentally good people, would I? Take Julia Strait here. Julia has been imprisoned in a joyless freedom for thirty-six years now. And there is no end in sight. Where's your empathy for her?'
Julia looked on, and Our Hero fleetingly met her eyes. They betrayed a pity and sympathy where before he had only see condescension. Neither spoke.
'Are there any questions you'd like to make, before I write you out into the wide, wide world?'
'Just one,' Edward Irving said. 'Why? Why put me through it all? I know you can do all things: why do this?'
The Writer's answer was brief: 'Who are you to question my wisdom with your empty, ignorant words? So in short, why not?'
Now we reach the end of our narrative. I hope it was an enlightening experience, or at least not a boring one. But now I must ask you to consider one last thing. How much do you think this is a product of my own reality, my imagination, and how much is it of your own experience? Imprisonment is the human condition. It is a vital aspect of mortal experience, the gradual progression to the eventual, total desuetude of the personal individuality, subsumed into a communal identity where are is for one, and one for all. Who is Edward Irving? In having his story written, has he been made real, has his identity been vindicated somehow in its destruction? Does he exist in the mind as an individual, or something grander: as the embodiment of all those unpersons who by the actions of the hive mind have been denied their humanity? For although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground; yet is man born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.