Terry Pratchett - Johnny And The Dead

'You wouldn't get a drink, Solly,' said Mr Fletcher. 'They don't serve spirits.'

'I used to like it in there,' said Einstein, wistfully. 'After a hard day stuffing foxes, it wass nice to relax of an evenink.'

'You did say space was a delusion,' said Mr Fletcher. 'Anyway, I thought we were going to do some more work on the television. You said there was no theoretical reason why we shouldn't be able to make—'

'I zink,' said Mr Einstein carefully, 'I would like to fool myself a little.'

And then there was only Mr Grimm. He turned back, still smiling in a glassy kind of way, and settled down and waited for them to return.

The Frank W. Arnold Civic Centre meeting room was about half full.

It smelled of chlorine from the swimming baths, and of dust, and floor polish, and wooden chairs. Occasionally people would wander in thinking the meeting was the AGM of the bowls club, and then try to wander out again, pushing on the bar on the door marked 'Pull' and then glaring at it as if only an idiot would put 'Pull' on a door you pulled. The speakers spent a lot of the time asking people at the back if they could hear, and then holding the microphone too close to the loudspeakers, and then someone tried to make the PA system work properly, and blew a fuse, and went to find the caretaker, pushing on the door for a while like a hamster trying to find the way out of its treadmill.

In fact, it was like every other public meet- ing Johnny had ever attended. Probably on Jupiter seven-legged aliens had meetings in icy halls smell- ing of chlorine, he thought, with the microphones howling, and creatures frantically TZaing'at doors clearly marked 'pnr'.

There were one or two of his teachers in the audience. That was amazing. You never really thought of them doing anything after school. You

never knew about people, like you never knew how; deep a pond was because all you saw was the top. And he recognized one or two people he'd seen in the cemetery walking their dogs or just sitting' on the seats. They looked out of place.

There were a couple of people from United Amalgamated Consolidated Holdings, and a man from the Council planning office, and the chairman of Blackbury Municipal Authority, who looked a lot like Mrs Liberty and turned out to be a Miss Liberty. (Johnny wondered if Mrs Liberty was her great-grandmother or something, but it would be hard to ask; you couldn't very well say, 'Hey, you look like this dead lady, are you related?')

They didn't look out of place. They looked as though they were used to platforms.

Johnny found he couldn't listen to them properly. The pock-pock from the squash court on the other side of the wall punctuated the sentences like a rain of full stops, and the rattling of the door bar was a semi-colon.

'—better. Future. For the young; people of our city—'

Most of the people in the audience were mid- dle aged. They listened to all the speakers very intently.

'—assure the good. People, of Blackbury; that. We. At United Consolidated; Holdings value. Pub- lic. Opinion most highly: and have no intention. Of—'

Words poured out. He could feel them filling up the hall.

And afterwards - he told himself, in the priv- acy of his own head — afterwards, the day after tomorrow, the cemetery would be shut, no matter what anyone said. It'd vanished into the past just like the old boot factory. And then the past would be rolled up and tucked away in old newspapers, just like the Pals. Unless someone did something.

Life was difficult enough already. Let someone else say something.

'—not even a particularly fine example. Of Edwardian funereal sculpture. With—'

The words would fill up the hall until they were higher than people's heads. They were smooth, soothing words. Soon they'd close over the top of all the trilbies and woolly hats, and everyone would be sitting there like sea anemones.

They'd come here with things to say, even if they didn't know how to say them.

The thing was to keep your head down.

But if you did keep your head down, you'd drown in other people's words.

'—fully taken into. Account; at every stage of the planning process—'

Johnny stood up, because it was that or drown- ing. He felt his head break through the tide of words, and he breathed in. And then out.

'Excuse me, please?' he said.

The White Swan in Cable Street, known for years as The Dirty Duck, was a traditional English pub, with a 'Nuke the Gook' video machine that Shakespeare himself might have played. It was crowded, and

noisy with electronic explosions and the jukebox.

In one corner, wedged between the video quiz game and the wall, in a black felt hat, nursing half a pint of Guinness, was mad old Mrs Tachyon.

Mad is a word used about people who've either got no senses or several more than most other people.

Mrs Tachyon was the only one who noticed the drop in temperature. She looked up, and grinned a one-toothed grin.

The patch of chilly air drifted across the crowded room until it came up against the jukebox. Frost steamed off it for a second.

The tune changed.

' "Roses are Blooming in Piccardy",' said Mrs Tachyon happily. 'Yes!'

She watched carefully as people clustered around the machine and started to thump it. Then they pulled the plug, which made no difference.

The barmaid screamed and dropped a tray of drinks when the games machine exploded and caught fire.

Then the lights fused.

A minute or two later, Mrs Tachyon was left in the dark, listening to the barman cursing some- where in a back room as fuses kept blowing.

It was quite pleasant, sitting in the warm glow of the melted machinery.

From the wreckage on the floor, the ghosts of two pints of beer detached themselves and floated across to the table.

'Cheers!' said Mrs Tachyon.

The chairman of the Council looked over her glasses.

'Questions at the end, please.'

Johnny wavered. But if he sat down, the words would close over his head again.

'When is the end, please?' he said.

Johnny felt everyone looking at him.

The chairman glanced at the other speakers. She had a habit, Johnny noticed, of closing her eyes when she started a sentence and opening them suddenly at the end, so that they'd leap out and surprise you.

'When [close] we've fully. Discussed. The situa- tion. And then I will call for [open!] questions.'

Johnny decided to swim for the shore.

'But I'll have to leave before the end,' he said. 'I have to be in bed by ten.'

There was a general murmur of approval from the audience. It was clear that most of them ap- proved of the idea of anyone under thirty being in bed by ten. It was almost true, anyway. He was generally in his room around ten, although there was no telling when the lights actually went off.

'Let the lad ask his question,' said a voice from near the front.

' He's doing a project,' said another voice. Johnny recognized Mr

Atterbury, sitting bolt upright. 'Oh ... very well. What was it, young man?' 'Um.'Johnny felt them all looking at him. 'Well, the thing is ... the thing I want to know is ... is there anything that anyone can say here,

tonight, that's going to make any difference?'

'That [close] hardly seems an appropriate sort of [open!] question,' said the chairman severely.

'Seems damned good to me,' said Mr Atterbury. 'Why doesn't the man from United Amalagamated Consolidated Holdings answer the boy? Just a sim- ple answer would do.'

The United man gave Johnny a frank, open smile.

'We shall, of course, take all views very deeply into consideration,' he said. 'And—'

'But there's a sign up saying that you're going to build anyway,' said Johnny. 'Only I don't think many people want the old cemetery built on. So you'll take the sign down, will you?'