Scattered Memories of a Time Under The Party
It is said that The Party is our father and mother. And with how ubiquitous the man atop it is, we probably see his face more times in a day than the faces of our own blood — glaring down from portraits and up from currency.
In the evening, he materialises before our eyes in the obligatory news report of his day. A lone microphone on a stand as straight as his back, his gravelly voice grating as he gestures this way and that with an unusual object in hand.
Theories of what the the object contains are excitedly exchanged among pupils at the school that bears his name. A snake, someone says; the suggestion both too absurd to discuss further and too sinister to dismiss immediately.
Later, parents are asked why he carries it everywhere. They don’t know why. What the do know is that he isn’t to be the subject of idle chatter, his name never to be spoken in anything except hushed tones within the relative privacy of the home, and even then the neighbour may hear…
So an abstract answer is given — it signifies power — and the conversation hastily steered elsewhere.
No wonder he carries his power everywhere, there’s barely any of it around for anybody else. With rationing underway, the newspaper is carefully scrutinised for the latest schedule. Homework done in candlelight. Watermelon slices soften in the fridge. Some barely manage while others defiantly thrive; here’s a car battery that you can use to run your television, see! touch! It’s completely safe even in a home with children. Weary parents politely feign interest until they are released from the demonstration, television is bad for children anyway.
At the local branch of The Supermarket — there really is only one — rechargeable lanterns seductively promise hours of respite for a modest sum. Everyone has one, or something similar, and the light beams out of houses’ windows as a lie that all is well.
It isn’t — someone’s new salon has gone out of business and all the lanterns and car batteries can’t save it.
The child knows which salon the adults are discussing, they had provided compulsory company a month or so ago. Not the usual one in town, on the other end of route 34 if the bus successfully hauls itself up a maliciously steep incline on the way. This one is a short walk from home with an owner in possession of an almost belligerent friendliness.
There’s always an ad — maybe two, maybe more — in the newspaper about some sort of lottery to live somewhere else. The rocking chair in the corner of the living room is a gift hastily given by someone who can now only be occasionally spoken with at the Community Phone.
Sometimes furniture isn’t even given or disposed of, another person leaves so suddenly and mysteriously that by the time the landlord decides to empty the house, fur shed by all the neighbourhood cats has gathered on the bed.
A few don’t need a lottery. They can go and — inexplicably to some — come back, bearing gifts of clothes, shoes, perfume and tales about a city in the desert with an enormous swimming pool that can make its own waves. Soon their photo album has new entries to be peered at by whatever light can be cast, showing happy and familiar faces in the most foreign and unfamiliar places.
The conversation soon changes. Everything will stop working at midnight on December 31st, it’s all they’re talking about over there. The ATM which was dancing so cheerfully on television will refuse to give you money. The next day at school, someone says they heard the windows in the family car will stop working too; they’re electric you see.
Months pass with newspaper and magazine headlines growing increasingly hysterical. But life seems to be carrying on as usual, which is oddly reassuring. After all, there are more pressing concerns — devil worshippers walk among us.
The 31st comes and goes without incident; the biggest annoyance afterwards is teachers insisting that the year be written out in full. There’s no point arguing with them that surely nobody will think it’s somehow the year 0000, although perhaps a case can be made that one might mistake the year for 1900 since corporal punishment hasn’t yet been discontinued.
The new millennium is supposed to herald a celebration of humankind’s longevity and cunning, but not much has changed except for the local potholes that are somehow even larger and deeper than ever before. Over the years, contractors append bumps of all shapes and sizes in a bid to provide much needed topographic diversity. The big men and their Pajeros perhaps find joy in traversing such municipal amusements.
There is sudden excitement in the air one afternoon. He is coming to school to deliver a new bus set to be angrily driven to various houses at the crack of dawn for many years to come. The timing of this gift is curious but not inexplicable — after all, he isn’t running in the election but has instead chosen a much-derided scion of a notable family to lead The Party instead. Our school will no longer have the fibre to ease its way through the bowels of State.
His visit is, unsurprisingly, like that of a thief — brisk and without fanfare. There is, however, some disappointment among the pupils: a snake was not sighted.
