Margaret Atwood - The Tent

“Could we sprinkle salt on it?” Amanda asks, with appealing hesitation.

“Honey, it’s not a slug,” says Chris masterfully.

Should these be his last words? Should the sponge fall upon him with a soft but deadly glop? Or should he be allowed to defeat the monstrous bath accessory and save the day, for Florida, for America, and ultimately for humanity? The latter would be my own inclination.

But until I know the answer to this question—until I’m convinced, in my heart, that the human spirit has the wherewithal to go head to headless against this malevolent wad of cellulose—because as a writer loyal to the truth of the inner self you can’t fake these things—it might be as well not to begin.

I heard it as if in a dream. “Beetleplunge.” I often get such insights, such gifts from the Unknown, They just come to me. As this one came.

That word—if it is a word—might look quite stunning on the jacket of a book. Should it be “Beetle Plunge,” two words? Or possibly “Beetle Plummet?” Or perhaps “Beetle Descent,” which might sound more literary?

Let’s think outside the box. Scrap the title! This is now a novel without a name. Immediately I am freed from the necessity of having to do something about the beetles. I saw them so clearly when I was first thinking about this book—all the beetles in the world plunging over a cliff, like lemmings, driven by some mysterious instinct gone wrong—but they did pose a problem: that is, what was to follow as a result?

Maybe I misheard. Maybe it was “Bottle Plunge.” Maybe it was Chris and Amanda, in Chris’s green Volkswagen, being forced off the road, and perilously close to the edge of an escarpment, by a black Mercedes driven by Amanda’s drunken husband. Chris and Amanda had great sex in Chapter One, but Amanda’s husband arrived in Chapter Two, in the Mercedes, just as Chris—who is their student gardener, at the gated community—was giving Amanda a post-coital explanation of the infestation of Coleoptera (red and black, with orange mandibles) currently ravaging the herbaceous borders.

As Chris was pronouncing the word ravaging, the husband sprang in through the French doors, in an advanced state of inebriation, with murder in his heart. Chris grabbed Amanda by the hand and made a dash for his own battered vehicle, a green Ford pickup: I’ve reconfigured the Volkswagen, it wasn’t muscular enough. Cut to the chase. (Chris will drive very skilfully despite the distracting screams let out by Amanda, and he will swerve at the last moment, and the husband, whom we have never liked—he was a dishonest oil-and-gas executive and a sadistic foot fetishist—will go over the cliff instead. Chris and Amanda will end up shakily but gratefully in each other’s arms, exactly where we want them to be.)

But maybe it wasn’t “Bottle Plunge.” Now that I think of it, the phrase may have been “Brutal Purge.”

Where does that get us? Down to earth. But which brutal purge? There are so many to choose from. Those in the past, those in the present, and, unfortunately, those yet to come. Anyway, if it’s “Brutal Purge,” I can’t see a way forward. Chris and Amanda are very likeable. They have straight teeth, trim waists, clean socks, and the best of intentions. They don??instst o C do?t belong in a book like that, and if they stray into it by accident they won’t come out of it alive.

I)

— Sir, their cannons have blown a hole in the ship. It’s below the waterline. Water is pouring into the hold, Sir.

— Don’t just stand there, you blockhead! Cut a piece of canvas, dive down, patch it!

— Sir, I can’t swim.

— Bloody hell and damn your eyes, what wetnurse let you go to sea? No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Hold my jacket. Put out that fire. Clear away those spars.

— Sir, my leg’s been shot off.

— Well do the best you can.

II)

— Sir, their anti-tank missiles have shredded the left tread on our tank.

— Don’t just sit there, you nitwit! Take a wrench, crawl underneath the tank, fix it!

— Sir, I’m a gunner, not a mechanic. Anyway that wouldn’t work.

— Why in hell do they send me useless twits like you? No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Cover me with your machine gun. Stand by with grenades. Hand me that spanner.

— Sir, my arm’s been burnt off.

— Well do the best you can.

III)

— Sir, their diabolical worm virus has infected our missile command system. It’s eating the software like candy.

— Don’t just lounge there, you dickhead! Get going with the firewalls, or whatever you use.

— Sir, I’m a screen monitor, not a troubleshooter.

— Shit in a bucket, what do they think we’re running here, a beauty parlour? If you can’t do it, where’s the nerdy spot-faced geek who can?

— Sir, it was him wrote the virus. He was not a team player, Sir. The missiles have already launched and they’re heading straight for us.

— No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Hand me that sledgehammer.

— Sir, we’ve got sixty seconds.

— Well do the best you can.

IV)

— Sir, the makorin has malfunctioned and set off the pizzlewhistle. That has saddammed the glopzoid plapoodle. It may be the work of hostile nanobacons.

— Don’t just hover there, you clonedrone! Dopple the magmatron, reboot the fragebender, and insert the hispeed crockblade with the pessimal-point attachment! That’ll captcha the nasty little biobots!

— Sir, the magmatron is not within my area of expertise.

— What pixelwit deployed you? No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Hand me the mutesuck blandplaster!

— Sir, I have been brain-napped. My brain is in a jar in Uzbekistan, guarded by a phalanx of virtual gonkwarriors. I am speaking to you via simulation hologram.

— Well do the best you can.

V)

— Sir, the wild dogs have dug their way into the food cache and they’re eating the winter supplies.

— Don’t just squat there, you layabout! Pick up your stone axe and bash them on the head!

— Sir, these are not ordinary wild dogs. They are red-eyed demon-spirit dogs, sent by the angry ancestors. Anyway, my stone axe has a curse on it.

— By my mother’s bones, what did I do to deserve such a useless duck-turd brother’s nephew’s son as you? No help for it, I’ll have to do it myself. Recite the red-eyed demon-spirit dog-killing charm and hand me my consecrated sacred-fire-hardened spear.

— Sir, they’ve torn my throat out.

— Well do the best you can.

We all have them: the building with the dome, late Victorian, solid masonry, stone lions in front of it; the brick houses, three storey, with or without fretwork, wood, or painted iron, which now bear the word Historic on tasteful enamelled or bronze plaques and can be visited most days except Monday; the roses, big ones, of a variety that were not here before. Before what? Before the ships landed, we all had ships landing; before the men in beaver hats, sailor hats, top hats, hats anyway, got out of the ships; before the Native inhabitants shot the men in hats with arrows or befriended them and saved them from starvation, we all had Native inhabitants. Arrows or not, it didn’t stop the men in hats, or not for long, and they had flags too, we all had flags, flags that were not the same flags as the flags we have now. The Native inhabitants did not have hats or flags, or not as such, and so something had to be done. There are the pictures of the things being done, the before and after pictures you might say, painted by the painters who turned up right on cue, we all had painters. They painted the Native inhabitants in their colourful, hatless attire, they painted the men in hats, they painted the wives and children of the man in hats, once they had wives and children, once they had three-storey brick houses to put them in. They painted the brave new animals and birds, plentiful then, they painted the landscapes, before and after, and sometimes during, with axes and fire busily at work, you can see some of these paintings in the Historic houses and some of them in the museums.