Episode 1: Celebrations, expectations!
The Book of Life, or, to give it its proper title, Life: The Manual – You Have Questions, We Have Answers, open brackets, That May Or May Not Be Correct, close brackets, tells us that all the planets in all the parallel galaxies inhabited by sentient life forms have days when portions of the population take part in ritual exuberance and relaxation.
Perhaps the most celebrated anywhere is And Nothing But The Truth Day, on Blurg 705, a world found in the constellation of Ursa Major in, as its name suggests, Parallel Universe 705.
People go positively giddy on this day because they can avoid everyone they have ever met, on the pretext that otherwise they might reveal what they really think of them, and thus incriminate themselves .
One other notable feature of this day is the complete absence for one rotation of the planet of any adverts, newscasts or statements by politicians.
So revered is this festival that there are many songs and stories based around it and even more set on the following day, among them ‘Why Didn’t You Answer Your Phone Yesterday?’, ‘ What Are You Holding Back From Me?’ and ‘Oh, Look! Your Pants Are On Fire,’ all of which not only fail the six word limit for song titles test, but also can be found on the latest ‘Now That’s What I Call Being Evasive’ triple album, which is out now.
A day which inspires similar enthusiasm on Earth 404 is Christmas, and indeed this celebration has also inspired many tales set both around the day itself, and the period beforehand. This is one such recounting, and it actually happened… honest!
This train of events begins at approximately seven fifty-one on the evening of Saturday, December the twenty-second, in the year 2018.
In one sense, we find ourselves grounded in a room in a house in the Georgian District of Liverpool. But in another sense, we are Everywhere and Nowhere, as you will shortly come to see.
The focus of our attention is upon three Entities and a human, who are gathered together in a projection of the human’s living room, and that focus is so intense it is as though they were under a spotlight on a stage, with the human lying on a sofa, with all other details of the room darkened out.
The three Entities are either observing–or participating in–an attempt to revive the human, who is dead.
Quite dead.
Who are the Entities? Who is the human? How did the human come to be in this predicament? Why are the Entities attempting to revive him?
The answer to those questions is both a long story and a short story.
But even the three sentence version will require the tiniest of rewinds to a little earlier that same evening.
And so, Gentle Reader, allow me to present… December the twenty-second, sometime in the late afternoon!
We find ourselves in the green room of a famous Liverpool theatre, which is named after the late manager of one of the most stupendously talented and famous musical acts of all time, which fact alone is a source of considerable vexation to the human on the sofa, since he has up until now demonstrated himself to be quite the opposite.
That green room is initially devoid of people, but cluttered with the clothing and paraphernalia of actors, some of whom will be travelling home to other parts of the country as soon as this afternoon’s show is over.
The room is empty because the theatre’s yearly Christmas pantomime, Dick Rappington, has reached its finale, and all of the actors in the pantomime are at present onstage taking a bow.
It is the final performance until after the Christmas holidays, and the audience, as marinated in the Christmas spirit this close to The Twenty-Fifth as a plum pudding is in brandy, is especially enthusiastic in their applause.
Therefore, the only sign of human activity in this room at the beginning of this story, if you don’t count the clothing and other items, is the clapping of a more than satisfied crowd, some cheering, a few whistles, and, after a moment, a more rhythmical version of the applause, accompanied by cries of ‘More! More! More!’
A door then opens at the rear of the green room, and the volume of the audience’s demands increases when a cleaner, or janitor if you prefer, enters with a basket containing a squirty bottle of mirror cleaning fluid, cloths, and some other equipment.
In the interests of clarity and complete transparency, it should be understood that the cleaner is not the human who lies inert on the sofa in our opening sentences.
Indeed, it is unlikely that the events of this story would ever happen to this particular person. The reason why will become apparent later.
The cleaner takes a look around the room without moving, estimates the size of the job and how much can actually be done in advance without disturbing any of the belongings: tasks such as vacuuming the floor and wiping down the mirrors.
He wants to get as much done as possible in advance so he too can get home to his family and have Christmas fun.
He enters the green room further, puts down the basket of cleaning materials, then exits, closing the door behind him.
The volume of the demands for “More! More!” decreases momentarily and then the pulse of a ska song begins, causing the crowd to fall silent.
A voice says ‘And as Lord Mayor--finally--it gives me great pleasure to say “Let’s get this Christmas started!”’
The music morphs into the opening bars of It’s Christmas Time, and various cast members take it in turns to sing phrases from the song. The audience sings the response, which helpfully informs the casual listener what time of year the song is actually set in.
’There’s a feeling in the air – It’s Christmastime
A magic feeling in the air – It’s Christmastime…
Expectation, celebration, –’
It is at this point that Ben enters, dressed as a pantomime policeman.
He pulls off the policeman’s helmet, tosses it in the direction of a trunk, but misses. The helmet thumps to the floor and the badge falls off the front.
Ben looks at it for a moment, shrugs as if to say Oh, well, and begins to sing the song in a whiny voice and pulls faces to mock the sentiment and show his distaste, especially when the crowd joins in with the response ‘It’s Christmastime,’ as if it’s the most ridiculous song ever written.
He nonetheless dances, because he quite likes Ska music.
While his real name is Ben, his stage name is SCrewJ, and since he chose it many years ago following a long and arduous process of deliberation, it is how he shall be referred to going forward in our tale, in deference to his wishes.
It can also be revealed that, yes, he is the no-longer-with-us corpse depicted earlier.
This dance, in fact, is the most animated he will be until reaching that eventful moment just a few hours from now.
