Henning Koch - The Maggot People

He sat down.

Barings had been very quiet up until now. “Sir, what possible advantage would you gain by having us liquidated?” he said in a muted, gentlemanly tone. “Don’t you see? This thing is quite out of our hands: the maggots are a force in their own right. To be frank with you, sir, we are doing our utmost. We have no choice but go along with…”

“Oh, shut up, you English prick!” said Giacomo. “Always the same posturing self-confidence. Don’t expect me to be reasonable; I am not fucking reasonable at all. I’ve always hated your country, ever since that fat, gut-bucket king of yours murdered our brothers and took over our Church and spurted his sterile, diseased spunk into all those poor girls and then one by one had them murdered on the scaffold.”

Barings went pale. “I’m not sure this is getting us very far… sir.”

“I’ll show you where it’s getting you… you atheist fuck,” said Giacomo, pressing a button under his desk. Immediately the door opened and a couple of security men walked in accompanied by a priest. Giacomo turned to them: “Take this man below, empty him, and put him in the incinerator. No, that’s too severe,” he muttered under his breath. “Put him in storage for a hundred years.”

Barings stood up. “I simply don’t understand,” he wailed. “I’ve done nothing against you.”

“There’s no reward for that. You’ve done nothing for me,” said Giacomo, “and that’s what counts…old chap.”

“What about my family?”

“Don’t you worry about them. I’m not a horrible man, I’ll have them maggotized as well, then decommissioned. We’ll reactivate them at the same time as you, how’s that? When you wake up, my friend, you’ll find a nice, clean, empty world without so many annoying people in it. It’ll be quite lovely for your family; you’ll see. But you’ll have to take up gardening, because there won’t be any banks and no money, either. Or boarding schools!”

Barings was led off weeping.

Giacomo tried not to look too smug as he refocused on his think-tank. By this time they were looking mesmerized and uncomfortable, like rats lined up in front of a python. “You see,” he informed them pointedly, “my problem is I don’t like most people very much. People don’t seem to realize the world is an arena where God and the Devil are slugging it out. They think our planet is a place for humans to live, build factories, and drive cars. How very silly.” He turned to the biologist: “Smithsonian… do you actually understand the significance of the problem we’re facing? I need to get rid of the human race, quickly!” With a shake of his head, he refocused on her. “I mean you seem like a sweet woman; why on Earth didn’t you just stay at home and get married?”

Smithsonian worked hard to control herself — she grew intense and positively glowed with resentment. “Isn’t it enough for you that you took my life from me? Must you make me crawl on the ground? Do you understand what I’ve paid… my personal sacrifice for my liaison with you?”

Giacomo scowled. “Don’t try to blag me, you silly bitch. I’m not concerned with your feelings. We’re here to ensure that God wins the cosmic battle, and He will only do that if we sweep out the old, corrupt, secular institutions. Governments, for instance, have to go…” His eyes swept over his team as he addressed them: “I’m concerned that you people don’t fully understand our program. Do you?”

There was universal agreement that they did understand. Very quickly, the meeting broke up with handshakes and spilled coffee and a lingering smell of exclusive aftershave.

As soon as he was by himself, Giacomo had a fit of remorse. Maybe those bloody Churchill memoirs he was reading had gone to his head? He sat there for a while, then picked up the phone and dialed an extension.

“Has Barings been done yet? Barings… or what’s-his-name? That bastard I sent down. Has he been emptied yet?”

A weary voice at the other end informed him that what’s-his-name had been emptied and hung up to dry five minutes ago, but could certainly be resuscitated, except the shift had just changed. Reversing the process would thus necessitate calling back the last shift, paying overtime, holding back the new shift in the service elevator and…

“Forget it,” Giacomo cried and hung up.

The door clicked behind him and Paolo walked in. “I heard about your economist,” he said. “I suppose you’re regretting it already?”

“Yes. Of course. But what was I supposed to do? I’m a passionate man; I can’t help it.”

“Well,” said Paolo, struggling with the seal of a jumbo-pack of pork scratchings, “you could control yourself.”

“Ah, it’s all too much. Old Nick is running rings around us,” sighed Giacomo. “It’s like watching Brazil playing Belgium in the semi-final. And we have problems in Beijing.”

“In Beijing of all places?” said Paolo, munching. “Do we really care?”

“Paolo, the world is changing. The World of Matter is rising up to fight us. There’s no long, slow ride down the hill for us, my old friend, no waiting little inn surrounded by olive trees. Oh, no. And certainly no glasses of cold beer on the table. It wouldn’t surprise me if we end our days in an American prison, being waterboarded, having our asses interrogated off or flown around in planes to be tortured by Syrians.”

“Well, I suppose technically speaking we’re guilty of crimes against humanity,” said Paolo. “Most of the people we send down to the stripping room will never open their eyes again; let’s face it. There are too many maggots in the world. God wants to punish us and that’s all there is to it.”

“Pretty fucking disgraceful, aren’t we?” Giacomo chuckled diabolically, then stopped and shot his friend an irritated look. “We’re doing what we have to do, Paolo. That old word, humanity , that’s what’s causing all the trouble. When it boils down to it, who’s really human anyway? Or humane, should I say? If people really cared about each other, they’d sort out their fucking issues , wouldn’t they?”

“True enough,” Paolo agreed.

“But they don’t; they won’t even admit there are any issues. Let me tell you, Paolo, Homo sapiens will sink into the abyss while watching television and eating a bag of potato crisps. And because Homo sapiens refuses to sort out the problems, we’re going to have to do it for him. As for these prawn-eating, Rolex-wearing, Chinese simpletons, we can’t just let them take over, can we? Cut down our forests, drill up our oil, and turn Eden into a filthified dump, all for the sake of their blessed Lear jets and hookers and Bentleys and Picassos. Idiots!” Giacomo sucked in air and calmed himself. “In the final analysis we’ll be doing all the killing for humanitarian reasons.”

The two men sat quietly watching the rising smoke of their cigars.

Then, articulating a thought common to them both, Paolo muttered, “I suppose Michael and Ariel felt they could live without our friendship.” And then added wistfully, “In their place, I wouldn’t have turned down the chance of a long sleep.”

“There was something about that boy. How he got out of that cave I’ll never know. Bloody miracle if you ask me.”

“The odd thing is he doesn’t even believe in God.”

“It’s awful, but I think God prefers him to the both of us, Paolo. We’d better start praying there isn’t a heaven at all, because if there is I doubt we’ll ever see it. Which makes our sacrifice even greater.”

Paolo took him literally. “I agree. Let’s go and pray for a while.”

Reluctantly, Giacomo agreed.