Semaphore

Semaphore

Fakin’ It
I’m such a dubious soul,
And a walk in the garden
Wears me down.
Tangled in the fallen vines,
Pickin’ up the punch lines,
I’ve just been fakin’ it,
Not really makin’ it.


Bright lights, cameras, microphones,
soundcheck one, soundcheck two,
the mandatory “charismatic” newsman...

And in the middle of all that, there she was. Exactly as the papers showed: blonde, portly, and swamped with an air of uneasiness. Headphones, the proper noise-cancelling kind, were clamped to the sides of her head; the whole room was filling with anxiety. She knew how to do that to people, via some sort of unknown instinct. There was something in her eyes that seemed vaguely grimy, as though she’d been plucked up right off the sidewalk, along with the cigarette butts and chewing gum. Downtrodden.

“There’s no fucking excuse.”
Not a question had been asked, but no one dared stop her.
Her voice was gravelly, slow and monotone. Irish?

“I’ve listened in on the sins of humanity, to the terror of this world of ours, to the greatest depths of sorrow and joy and agony and ecstasy. I’ve seen the creative giants pour out their soul—their very being—on stage to a group of slack-jawed, apathetic assholes. This kind of thing happens every day, I know; I’ve heard it.

“And there’s no excuse.”
A deep sigh. Downcast eyes.

“Alternative media is readily accessible; every camera on every cellphone in the world is registering and presenting and rating the furthest reaches of the planet; libraries overflow with archives that stretch as far as the eye can see. No one dies from polio anymore.”

“You can keep your bus seat, regardless of race. Everyone gets a decent chance at education, and you don’t starve to death because you weren’t born into a noble family. It’s not the whole world, no, but if you’re sitting at your telly watching this, I can only assume.”

“Really, if you think about it, when you consider all of the wonderful things we’ve done in the past hundred years or so, our society should be damn near utopian by now.” She smiled, at her own private joke, “And yet—it’s bittersweet. I look out on the crowds of people, all well-educated and privileged and so full of potential. We’ve got everything our ancestors ever could have dreamed of, and yet people do jack all with it.”

She shook her head and bit her lip, fighting back tears. It was a struggle.

“Can you believe that, at this very moment, there is some self-obsessed yuppie scumbag sending a Twitter to his friends about the colour of the twelfth pair of vintage Vans he just bought?” Intensity built up in a tortured voice. “Can you believe that somewhere, there is a person with a PHD teaching his children hate?”

“In short, our society—Western Society—is falling apart at the seams. I hardly have to tell you that, though.” The audience laughed, and a few even clapped. A tiny smile crept at the edges of a greasy face.

“You can blame the downfall of social morality, of community, the nuclear family, or religion, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve created a society of self-satisfying, me-first little shits, who aren’t willing to open their mind to anything beyond what’s dangled in front of their entitled noses. Hedonists without a care in the world.”

“There’s no excuse. Even if the parents inevitably divorce with the birth of the second child, that kid is still living better than most of humans in history. Unless they drug him stupid, of course. God, that’s even worse...” She was coughing by then, choking on tears and spite. “We fight ten thousand years to live in comfort and security, and throw all that out the window. Feed them their pills and they’ll keep quiet young. Give them weed when they’re older and it’ll do the same.”

For a moment, she sobbed, head in hands, such a raw and harsh sound that it sent shivers down the collective studio spine. A noisy and open display of emotion was hardly what they were expecting, at least not today. Not here—not now—but when?

“I’m rambling, now. I realize that.” Gazing up, red-faced, with tracks drawn in tears down her face, she wiped her eyes dry enough to carry on. “But I’ll be damned if you can shut me up now. You sit around for long enough, checking out the workings of humanity, and eventually it all makes sense. They say that there’re a few bad apples in every barrel, but I’d say you’re lucky if you spot a good one.”

It’s not as though any of this was unexpected, just—unsettling. Yes, that was it. Jarring. Really, the general public couldn’t take the ramblings of a delusional person merely at face value, now could they? This was just another loony, trying to get fifteen minutes of fame. No more important than a—

“Damnit, I’ve heard the hum of the cogs of the universe!” She’d leapt to her feet, fists flailing in every possible direction, thrashing out at everything and nothing. “I’ve eagerly listened when the wind rushed by and told me things you couldn’t dream of knowing. You couldn’t dream it, you hear me! You couldn’t! YOU MOTHERFU—”

The broadcast came to a rather abrupt halt, there, cutting to a pre-recorded story about the state of swans in Birmingham. The allegedly charismatic newsman tittered nervously, trying to maintain order in the studio, while two rather burly security personnel escorted her off the premises. How ironic, to use such a polite term, especially to describe being kicked in the stomach and tossed into the back alley.

It was raining, as always.

She lay on her back for a few minutes longer, flailing half-heartedly, until the sound of jackboots drifted away. She could still hear it, of course, but she could hear everything. No, they were safely back inside the building.

With a little squeal of glee, she pulled a dingy-looking mobile out of her pocket. Staring up at the sky, lying in a filthy alleyway, she smiled. The opposing phone stopped ringing, to be answered by a sleepy-sounding voice.

“Hey, Laurel.” She chirped. “It’s Harmony. Did you record my interview, or what?”
“You had an interview?” Laurel replied, “Why don’t you tell me this shit?”
“I did. You wrote my monologue. Remember that?”

Silence at the end of the line. Then, after a few barely-whispered obscenities and a guttural yawn:
“I may or may not have been paying attention at the time of writing. I think I wrote it at about four in the morning, after that whole fiasco with the champagne fountain and the transvest—“
Harmony grunted disapprovingly. The message came across loud and clear.

“What was with all the melodrama you put out there, anyway?” She fished around her pockets for change, but only found crumbs and a marginal portion of lint. “You know that’s not terribly fitting for my public persona. I’m supposed to be a person blessed with a marvellous ability, not a preachy basketcase!”

Laurel cleared out left her ear with her little finger, and momentarily considered eating the residue. The moment passed.

“The trouble is... You are a preachy basketcase, among other things. That, and superhearing isn’t really all that marvellous, you know?” She yawned again, despite the fact that she’d just slept for at least sixteen hours. “Anyway, the masses dig the whole ‘troubled hero’ thing. Just look at Batman. Hell, look at any rock star worth their shit!”

“Elvis wasn’t terribly troubled.” Harmony knew her shit, where music was concerned.
“Elvis was troubled, just not openly. His chronic obesity was the manifestation of his troubles.”
“So my obesity is the manifestation of my troubles?”
“No, Harm. You’re not obese.”

She smiled, somewhat half-heartedly. Weight was one of those touchy issues these days, moreso than religion or race or any of those twentieth century problems. No, these days, the number on the scale was worth more than the number on your credit card. You were worth the reverse of your weight in gold, one might say.

“You’re overweight, definitely, maybe even borderline obese, but I’d hardly call you a walrus or anything—“

The line went dead, and Laurel opted to eat her ear scrapings.
Just another day in paradise.