Pasha Malla - People Park

Here we go, whispered Wagstaffe, and Kellogg, and hundreds of other dads.

The Podesta Tower searchlights, twirling like streamers in a gale, whipped together into a single spot upon the helicopter on the Grand Saloon’s roof. The fat white band dragged through the orchard’s drunk youngsters, down into the common, all the way up, slow as a sunrise, to the gazebo: the trunk opened and in this pillar of light stood Raven.

A roar rose up that Adine heard not just on TV, but through her windows, the whole island felt rocked by a seismic explosion. And the subsequent applause was the gallop of hot magma, thundering down.

Beaming at his public, arms wide to accept their adulation, Raven stepped from the trunk onto the catwalk. The stagelights came up. His tracksuit glowed, his baldhead was incandescent, he waved and blew kisses and grinned.

Yes, he cried into a headset microphone. Welcome!

Here he is, said Wagstaffe. Here’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Holy shet speak for yourself, said Adine, though no one heard her but Jeremiah.

WAY OUT IN Whitehall all Debbie could hear was a droning roar, changing as she moved through it, as she bumped against and slid away from strangers who fondled her and now she was fondling them back, and when a pair of lips came out of the dark and pressed to hers what could she do but return the kiss? For a moment she felt guilty, what about Adine —

But these thoughts were too distinct, too literal: they skidded away from her, lost in all that sound. She reached into the darkness for someone to touch. Hands found and passed her, one set to the next. And somehow the screaming began to disappear, to fold inside itself, becoming at once somehow bigger and smaller than silence.

The other people began to disappear inside it too: Debbie became pure sensation, she tingled and shivered, she was hot and cold and awake and asleep, all at once, and she knew that everything anyone had ever known could be found trapped inside this moment, this sound that was no longer audible, but something else.

Everything was here , everything was now . How could there ever be anything but this?

She felt her voice welling up. She too could make this sound, she understood at last how to make this essential sound, this non-sound, it gathered and swelled inside her and she opened her mouth to give it life —

And that was when the power went out.

ALL THE LIGHTS in People Park surged at once: the place glowed as if daytime had descended from the night sky. Kellogg reeled. Whoa, he said, that’s bright! But Gip stared into it, wide-eyed and trusting.

Look at you, laughed Raven, indicating the screens on either side of the stage.

Upon them appeared the crowd, alive in that blaze of light. And from the crowd hundreds of cameras pointed at the screens, and cameras shot the people shooting themselves shooting the screen and on the screens everyone saw themselves and roared in one voice: Ra- ven , Ra- ven , Ra- ven.

Look at you, said Raven, you’re beautiful, thank you!

ADINE TRIED EVERYTHING: when the remote failed she felt her way to the TV and twisted the volume, changed the channel, turned the set off and on — nothing. She picked up the cordless phone, hammered the buttons, listened. . It was dead too.

THE LIGHTS DIMMED. Raven compelled silence. And so there was silence.

People! he said, speaking the word as an imperative. Tonight we have come to bear witness to something truly spectacular. I must admit I have never attempted anything this ambitious before, and I am honoured to try it, here, in your city — not great, indeed, but well built.

This elicited a dubious and scant ovation.

But, people! What is most important is that I have discovered a truth manifest in this land. By means of your solitary situation I fear you are to yourselves unknown, apt enough to think there might be something supernatural about this place. Am I wrong?

He quashed a Ra- ven reprise with an impatient wave.

No, no indeed. What I need from you, from everyone in your fair city, is to know you are the right sort of people — are you? Are you the right sort of people?

They were sure about this: Yes! hollered the crowd.

Raven’s eyes widened. Are you really ? Do you believe ?

Yes! (Really! misspoke Kellogg.)

Because this will not work without the right sort of people — people who believe , people who are willing to open their eyes and look . None of us knows what the fair semblance of a city might conceal. Is it no better than a brushed exterior? A white sepulchre? Or perhaps rather illustrative than magical?

Cheers.

What you will see tonight will not be deception, nor an illusion, nor some spurious trick of the light.

More cheers.

It will be the truth! That is why I am here, that is what I plan to illustrate to you — humbly, of course. For many such journeys are possible. This is only one.

Again, in a single voice, the crowd performed on cue.

I’ve spent now two full days in your city. When I arrived I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. But, fortunately, I had some excellent guides who showed me around, and taught me some important lessons as well. .

Backstage, Olpert felt a twang of anxiety that the illustrationist might mention him by name. He actually felt faint, swooned a little. But Starx caught him — Whoa there, Bailie! — and guided him pondside into a deckchair branded Municipal Works . You okay, pal? Starx asked, kneeling. If you’re going to barf again, at least do it in the water.

Raven continued: But here we are! And what a perfect opportunity to reveal something deeply fundamental to what — I think, at least — this city is all about.

The crowd was buzzing now.

Wagstaffe said, Raven’s making hints about what’s to come, though at home in Laing Towers Rupe and his mother didn’t hear this, Cora was smacking the TV to coax a picture back. But the set was out. The whole Zone was out.

What sounded like a bomb went off on the common. Olpert nearly fell into the pond.

Easy, buddy, said Starx. No war on yet.

Right, said Olpert. Just the show.

You want to go watch?

Do you?

Hey, said Starx, you make the call. We’re B-Squad, right? Can’t split up B-Squad!

B-Squad, agreed Olpert. Then: Do you mind if we just stay here, Starx?

I do not.

They gazed out over Crocker Pond, a sheet of glossed ebony.

I should pitch a fifth pillar, said Starx. Fidelititum, or something. Because isn’t that what’s most important, Bailie?

Fidelititum?

Exactly.

From the common, another roar. The illustrationist’s voice echoed: Yes, yes!

So here’s my story, said Starx, pulling up a deckchair. I told you I used to be married?

You did.

Well. So. My wife, my ex-wife, she ran this bookshop in Mount Mustela — Bookland.

She ran that?

Still does. Inherited it from her parents. Anyway she’s working late one night. Just doing inventory or whatever. And man, I told her I don’t know how many times it was a bad idea to be there all alone so late. Even though it’s east of the canal.

I work alone late.

I know you do, pal. Listen for a sec though? So this one night she’s there, this is two years ago, it’s probably midnight or something, and she looks up and those people are doing that thing where they paint the windows black —