The Newspaceman

Bits and pieces I wrote on Facebook from October, just for thought purposes. I hope you like them, it is rather disheveled,

He checked the time: 2:10am. He went upstairs, checked the boy. He checked the locks again, went to the kitchen, took his bag off, sat down and took his soaking socks and trainers off. He rubbed his feet dry with an old rag, put on slippers, stood up and poured himself a very large malt whisky which he used to wash down 1.25 milligrams of diazepam. Them he lit his pre rolled banger, went to the back door, smoked it, downed the dregs of the whisky and retired to bed. It had been a productive nights work.

At 6:20 his alarm went off. He was already awake. He got up, splashed his face with water, scrubbed his hands , put on fresh socks and trainers and headed to the shop in his village. It was mid March, 2021 and there was a mood of optimism in the daily queue for the rationed bread and milk. A queue which had dwindled over the last two months. A vaccine had been found, the people were rejoicing, no more would the early morning talk be over who had died yesterday.

There was a caveat; it would take several months to roll out so the plan was to put the children first, they and the key workers would get vaccinated first, then the rest of us alphabetically. Once you were vaccinated you received a mark, a little chip under the skin which allowed you to access shops, trains, buses, museums, recreational facilities and suchlike with no need for a mask or social distancing. Without the mark you could do little but a mask did help sometimes.

He went home, he knew the job was fucked. No more listening in the morning queue, listening to hear who had died, then scavenging their houses late at night for alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals and whatever else short term currencies he could locate.

It was a shame for the children, their parents were given a slightly different vaccine, it didn’t agree with them. He had a job again.

......

.....

...,

It was a fine morning for a stroll up the hill; crisp, clear and bright. From the hill you could see for miles and so it was here he stood, as he did every morning, just watching, thinking, listening and sniffing the air.

When the wind was from the East he could also hear the sounds: the diggers, the tippers, the drillers, the builders. Whatever way the wind blew he could see the fence, 11ft high, metal, topped with rolls of barbed wire, electrified, heavily illuminated. Edenburgh : a covid free paradise. A fence which resembled a snake eating its own tail, bordering a much smaller city with far fewer occupants.

Many had died in the winter of 2020-2021.

He finished his smoke and headed back home; the old college campus at Ecclesmachan. It was here they had established their moon base alpha, a commune of misfits and wishful thinkers , drawn together by circumstance.

It was a well thought out location, an abandoned agricultural college, with decent facilities and potential. And it was working. They scavenged what was left of the old society and prepared for a new one.

In the new cities there was no need to scavenge, unlike the covid dripping brainless monkeys with clothes on who roamed the badlands. The state supplied all their needs: shelter, food, work and a 5G internet connection. It was paradise. It was freedom.

He went back to his apartment via the now defunct pig cultivation huts. The growing house, the finishing house etc etc.He remembered the smell which still lingered and probably would for years. Little had changed in some respects. He remembered Francis Bacon , his New Atlantis and he felt sick.

....

By late April 2021 it was clear that society, as we knew it, had collapsed. The scavenger stood in the queue, patiently awaiting his rations: one loaf of 50/50 , a packet of wee willie winkie sausages and 568ml of water-milk. This would be his last time in the queue.

With so many dead already it was requested that the survivors - mostly the children with the key workers, the vaccine avoiders and those few which the “poisoned” vaccine had miraculously spared- should move to the closest city centres: thus from 1st May, afterwards no food supplies would be delivered to the Scotmids in rural areas.

Landrovers patrolled the housing schemes on the peripherals , loudhailers proclaiming “there will be no more food deliveries to shops soon - head for your local city if you want to survive. You can return to your home soon, once the supply chain returns and everything goes back to normal”.

The covid survivors were weak, they saw mutton dressed as lamb, they sacrificed themselves for a Frankie and bennies that never materialised.

Nor did they ever return.

By May 2021 the scavenger knew, as he had always known. It was clear two human cultures were emerging. The question for many was: which path do you walk on.

But there was no whispering wind of reconciliation, no Loch Lomond to meet at again.

...

Who would have thought it, he thought, as he looked down from the hill at what was once, not long ago an agricultural college and equestrian centre, now Eccleshaven, a newly established community, risen, Phoenix style, from the ashes of the covid pandemic midden.

He looked again at the pencil notations on the back of the embassy filter fag packet. It was like the Pogues and the Irish Rover, he hadn’t written it.

20,000 : corned beef

18,000 : beans (of which 12,000 Heinz)

17,000 : spaghetti hoops ( 14,000 Heinz)

14,000 : beans and sausages (9,000 Heinz)

12,000 : spaghetti and sausages (9,000 H)

10,000 : salmon

10,000 : tuna

8,000 : tomatoes

4,000 : ham

2,500 : assorted soups

2,000 : meatballs (of which 1800 Campbell’s)

1,800 : ravioli (1,600 Heinz)

1,500 : fruit (of which 1000 peaches)

4 : goblin hamburgers from the olden days.

He was well pleased, there were approximately 250 in the community, of all ages, and this was just their tins, for the winter. They had other food too, eggs and bread and milk. They didn’t eat much new meat nowadays but the Scavenger appeased the vegans within the kibbutz by saying that there was no point in not eating the beef already corned in tins, otherwise the poor animals lives would have been pointless. It was a mutable point.

Everyone got on well in the community, there was no animosity, no greed, no selfishness. Everyone had their own space but there was a giant communal area where, over the months, everyone grew to love. Old ladies and gentlemen sat on their favourite armchairs, brought from their old abodes and played with the toddlers and children. It brought them back to life for it is curious that older people often revert to childhood pleasures and they smiled again and their eyes twinkled. In the afternoons everyone there ate cake.

Outside, those that could work were working. It was not hard, they were simply preparing for next year, tilling the soil , adding the vital organic matter so well supplied by horses. They had time to prepare, they had supplies.

At night they ate, they danced, they played bingo, they were happy, probably happier than they had ever been.

He put the stocktake back in his pocket. It was October 2021. He took the Purdey from inside his Massimo Osti jacket. He had sawn down the barrels and the stock,, it fitted beautifully between the inner and outer layers. There was other stock to take care of but it could wait till after Christmas. Time meant nothing, it was a case of opportunity.

He took a slug of whisky, climbed down the hill and onto his horse.

....

Edenburgh, formally known as Edinburgh, in October 2021 was a building site.

What was left, other than the castle and Holyrood Palace, were being torn down. The debris was used for levelling purposes and giant new student like accommodation blocks were being constructed. These would house the adults who, at the moment, were accommodated at the Saughton Prison and various university campuses: working , sleeping and eating noodles.

The children had been removed from them, taken elsewhere to be educated, thus allowing the adults more time to work and pay off the covid debt which by this point was astronomical. A giant digital screen had been erected on top of the Scott Monument which showed the debt on a daily basis. The whole purpose of life was to work, bring the debt down and, by means of such, help the children. The citizens were never allowed to forget the debt, nor the threat of viral contamination, either from covid or a fresh, newly mutated virus which might blow in from the Badlands. Anything could happen.

Luckily, the “gods”, as a very select few were known, had a plan. A domed roof, constructed with a newly found material that the gods had invented, was to built over the city: an ambitious plan but do-able. It would take the form of a spiders web as this was a proven structural technique. Once the roof was completed and the fences covered with the same material, the environment would be secure. To commemorate this event, a tree was to be planted in the city centre, close to the debt clock. It’s fruits were poisonous, they would instantly kill and it was to be a reminder to the survivors of what could happen.

Furthermore, once the roof was complete it was decreed that the survivors- the intelligencia - as the gods had crowned them, could abandon their clothing as it would be no longer required and, in fact was unhygienic.

...

It was 25th December 2021 . He awoke and took a glug of whisky , rolled out his scratcher and lit a salmon. It was still dark and too early for breakfast- he didn’t want to waken the other residents prematurely so he just put on his boots and climbed out the window.

He slept in his clothes, generally but not always.

Up the hill he went, as always, a morning ritual to be honest , to view Edenburgh - formerly known as Edinburgh, from a safe distance, its encaptured ignorant citizens blind to reality, electronically enslaved, busy working to pay the interest on the post Covid debt.

Even though it was Christmas, the slaves appeared to be hard at work, finishing off their self-build prison, the fences completed long ago with only the dome roof to finish. It reminded him of The Clangers.

He heard a slight noise behind him and turned swiftly, his finger quickly on the trigger, but it was nothing; an old dog fox out for breakfast, it’s old diet of KFC now curtailed

he had been obliged to move back to the countryside and scavenge for worms and mice as his ancestors had done. The scavenger was at one with Foxy Loxy, as he called him, he saw him many mornings.

He mused over the non existent Edenburgh Christmas and realised it had probably been moved to the Summer Solstice. There was good reason for that because in the “new world” - of which Edenburgh was capital, a new religion had begun with a new “Jesus” . It helped the slaves state of mind, gave them something to think about.

Since it was Christmas he had opened a fine malt, scavenged from a cellar of one of the better properties in Uphall. He took a swig, lit a home made salmon and headed home.

It was time to dress as Santa Claus.

...

It was midsummer- 21/06/22- and the enslaved citizens of Covid free Edenburgh, formally known as Edinburgh, were well chuffed. In recognition of their hard labour in fence building, the domed roof completion and the replica, to scale, Grand Pyramid, which had been constructed in the old Niddrie, close to the tree of the fruit they were forbidden to eat, close to the clock that showed the perpetual debt, a Holy Day had been granted. It was the first and it would last.

When they awoke at their leisure that morning, Edenburgh was in darkness, the fluorescent lighting which normally illuminated their city 18/7/365 having been dimmed. However the pyramid was spared and could be seen clearly from all angles, together with it’s missing capstone .

The silence , there were no noisy vehicles nor birdsong, was broken with the familiar tannoy speaking an unfamiliar phrase:

“All citizens must be available at 3:30pm, a special celebration is to be held”.

The lights went on and the people went to their refectories , as they always did, for their breakfast of bread and water. Today, as a bonus, they received an egg, the first they had seen for months and months. Over their breakfast they were told it was a present from a Mr. Amen- Ra, one of the “gods”.

How they rejoiced.

At 3:15 they assembled in the streets outwith their dormitories. Giant screens had been erected. Again the lights dimmed and the pyramid was illuminated. Suddenly, at 3:20, the screens showed the children, naked, surrounding the base of the pyramid. The children had previously been removed from them to be educated and allow the parents to work longer and reduce the debt. Some of the adults cried with joy. A misguided joy,

At 3:29 precisely, Edenburgh and the pyramid plunged into darkness. At 3:30 precisely, through a tiny chink on the dark domed roof, a tiny shaft of natural sunlight shone, illuminating the top of the pyramid and missing capstone.

A figure appeared, dressed in gold, the reflected sunlight vivid. The people gasped and the tannoy began to chant Amen Ra, Amen Ra, over and over. It was almost magical, the entity clearly feeding on their energy. It was almost symbiotic, the more they chanted, the brighter the figure got.

Suddenly at 3.33pm, the natural light vanished, the Sun having moved on. The pyramid was again artificially illuminated and the figure stayed, its clasped hands pointed upwards above its head.

The people were hypnotised, it could perhaps be said their brains were now lead and the pharaohonic figure gleaming gold. It was alchemy.

The golden age had begun.

Back up in the commune the scavenger was swimming . They had dammed the burn, built a pass for the sea trout and it was time to take it easy.

It’s been a long time since I posted , other than yesterday, but the time has come.

We are now in the “end times” albeit I am not religious.

This Christmas is the last in December, we will move the event to the summer solstice: Prince William’s sun drenched birthday.

Systems will fail and fall, it has to be done, alchemy requires everything to be back to base before the experiment takes place.

All magick is ritual.

Everything is sourced in Scotland: when Wills in crowned on the Stone of Destiny in an “independent” Scotland, that is the beginning. It is no different from King James’ Bible and freemasonry, they were just earlier chapters.

A global United Kingdom, a veritable electronic prison for the poor children who survive, is the end.

It is the alpha and omega, a cycle.

A new “Christ “ is imminent