Dan Carver - Ruin Nation

“So how in Hell did you find yourself operating on soldiers?”

“We ran out of food, Sir. We ate all the animals. Well, I still had surgical experience so they gave me a couple of textbooks on human anatomy and set me to work on the squaddies.”

“So you’re not a qualified doctor?”

“I am, Sir. Just not a people doctor. Which is why I can’t get medical work in peacetime.”

“Ah!” Calamari exclaims. “I did wonder. I was thinking you’d been struck off. You know… wandering hands… that kind of thing.”

“No, Sir.”

“Speaking of which, you’re married aren’t you?”

“Yes, Sir. Just about.”

“But no children. Pansy are you?”

“ No , Sir.”

“Sterile?”

“It’s a possibility, Sir. Most people are these days.”

“We can get that checked out,” says Calamine, sliding sarcasm beneath Calamari’s radar.

“Good. We need all the breeders we can get. Even peasants. Now it says here that you’re a Nazi sympathiser.”

“No, Sir!”

“Oh, I forgot. It’s not terribly politically correct these days, is it? You like to be called ‘fascists’.”

“No, Sir. I’m not a fascist.”

“But I was told specifically and I mean specifically that you were . You own several books on the Third Reich.”

“I own books on crocodiles but I’ve never chewed off an antelope’s face.”

“Jupiter!” Calamine barks. “‘Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir !’ is what I think you meant to say.”

Is he joking, I wonder, because I’m losing track here.

“Yes. Okay. Fine. Never chewed off an antelope’s face, Sir ! Never laid an egg either. Not to my knowledge.”

“Well, that’s a shame because we were thinking about going in a Far Right direction and we wondered if you might be able to tell us how to go about it….Hah! Only joking. That was a joke. But, seriously, what’s your problem with fascism?”

“I’m not big on genocide, Sir.”

“Oh, I see. Not got a foreskin, have we?”

“I…”

“Sir!” Calamine interrupts, “If his genitals are an issue, I’m sure we can get them checked, too.”

“Fine,” says Calamari.

“And, if his foreskin is a problem, we may be able to provide a replacement.”

“Yes, that’s fine! ” Calamari snaps. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking my seniority seriously?”

Suitably admonished, Calamine laughs into his hand. Calamari turns to me again.

“What are your political beliefs, Jupiter? Do you even vote?”

“Yes, Sir. Always.”

“Really? I mean, you surprise me. Tell me… who do you vote for?”

“Sorry to say, Sir, everybody except your lot, Sir!”

“Well, at least you’re honest…. Because we do keep records and I hate liars.”

“But I will be voting for the government in future, Sir.”

“That’s appreciated, Jupiter. But I’ll let you into a little secret, shall I? In all those years you were voting for everyone except the government, did anyone except the government ever win?”

“No, Sir. They… No, they didn’t.”

“Well, actually, Jupiter, they probably did . It’s just we took all their ballot forms, shredded them and fed them to pigs. Perhaps, not every year. Sometimes the turnout was so low we’d win with just a pair of mad old lesbians. But most years, I’d say, our elections were as crooked as a crackwhore’s labia.”

I’m cautious when I ask: “But surely that’s corruption, Sir? The same as lying? And you said you hate liars? And you made a kind of hand gesture like a gun, to imply you shoot them.”

“And I do. I strap them across the barrels of field artillery and blow them into the sky. But electoral fraud is different. By physically destroying opposition votes, we ensure a physically greater percentage of our own. Now argue semantics all you want, but a greater number of votes is a win in anyone’s book. And that’s not dishonest. More a kind of delayed action truth. And it doesn’t matter if we bend a few facts to get there.”

Well, that’s an ‘interesting’ philosophy, I’m thinking to myself, when along comes the history lesson:

“After all, it was Cicero, in 54 BC, who said, ‘Unchanging consistency of standpoint has never been considered a virtue in great statesmen. It is our aim, not our language, which must always be the same’. Don’t you agree?”

“Er…”

“And there’s a few more things you should know about this little democracy of ours.”

“Do you think this is prudent,” Calamine protests. “Only I…”

“Prudent my Aunt Fanny! He’s got this far, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, Sir but…”

“Yes-Sir-but-nothing, Calamine!” He takes a deep breath.

“Settle yourself in, Jupiter.” Calamine advise me. “Here comes the Gospel according to Saint Calamari.”

Calamari doesn’t hear. He’s addressing the invisible masses at some imaginary political rally:

“So perhaps it’s best if we start at the beginning: the systematic ruination of the country followed by The Great Separation, starvation and rioting. And how Mr Malmot, being an extremely senior military commander, assembles the shattered remnants of our armies and leads us against the Scots/Welsh coalition, tames the Gypsy warlords, subjugates Manchester, seals off the Cannibal Territories with the Longpig Blockade and establishes the Civilised Territories. You’d think we’d get some respect for that, wouldn’t you?”

Calamine yawns. Calamari turns purple.

“And what happens when we return?” he continues, positively frothing at the mouth. “The heroes?! The lads who went out there and put their lives on the line?! I’ll tell you, shall I?! We’re treated like scum. The liberal press despise us. People on the street, people we defended, spit on us and call us murderers. And we find the same wet mimsies who sold England down the river in the first place expecting to retake control!

“And peace is Hell. All peace brings is dissent and cries of ‘I want this and my human rights entitle me to that’ and ‘I’ve got curly hair so if you don’t give me a diamond-covered house you’re oppressing me!’. Every little oik wants his share of utopia, but he’s damned if he’ll put the graft in to get it. And our beloved ministers are already plotting how to waste our limited resources to give it to them.”

“And so I killed them all,” interrupts a disembodied voice, a voice like bacteria multiplying in a wound. “Systematically. One by one, and in the most devilishly amusing ways. In fact, it’s become something of a hobby of mine – pruning the parliamentary rosebush. I believe I’m on my third.”

I’ve heard those tones before. I didn’t like them then and I certainly don’t like them now. I don’t like the black, backlit shadow that moves independently across the paper walls of our fake dental laboratory. I don’t like the knowledge that those self-same paper walls are all that separate us from the tangle of tree roots that somehow form the body of one Mr Malmot. I don’t like his long, grey fingernails gouging through them.

“And I stepped unto the breach once more,” seeps that terrible voice, as his sepulchral skull oozes through the torn partition. “And I made all the right noises. And I promised to hand over power as soon as free and fair elections took place. But, you see, I didn’t. I synthesized democracy instead. I rigged up a government from my own stooges. Clever, yes?

“But this is the really clever part: not even they know! They’re all such dissipated dreamers, they don’t suspect a damn thing! They think the daily achievement of nothing is normal!”