Cosmic Tales 6: Tragedy Read online

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  234 rebooted and startled Andreas's son who dropped the winding device and ran as fast as his little bankrupt legs could take him. Andreas found Elwood sleeping upside down with his legs against the wall and his arms hanging over the edge of the bed.

  "Bad dream, earth man?"

  "Horrible. The whole world turned on its head."

  "We had better leave at once. Something horrible is coming. I can sense it."

  The group ventured to the nearest grocery store with a cash machine in the wall. Andreas gave his son a bankomatika card and once inserted, a message scrolled across the retro screen.

  "No money available. Dad, what does that mean?"

  Andreas checked his account balance and found sufficient funds, then went inside the shop for clarification.

  "Same problem across the capital," said the shopkeeper. "The banks are not dispensing. They are doing it to stop money going abroad. First they confiscate the public's money, then they will come for our homes."

  Andreas's son looked browbeaten. "Now I have no savings or a job," he said to Elwood. "Where do I go from here?"

  "You could always do an unpaid internship or volunteer work," said Elwood. "That's what young people from my region turn to. The only way I can help is by giving you this local currency penny. Here, take it."

  Elwood handed him the penny with the interchanging reptilian Merkill gleaming against the baking sunshine.

  "Thank you," said Andreas's son. "That should buy a loaf of bread."

  "You can get bread free from the handout stalls," Elwood reminded him.

  "Oh, right. Perhaps I'll invest it in something more valuable, like drugs or weapons."

  Andreas took them back to the urban centre where the eerie quietness and serenity of a barren ghost town had replaced the previous night's ruckus and pillaging. Litter and burned out remains lined the streets. The police were absent. The ambulances were missing. Taxi drivers slept at the wheel. Shops had their shutters down. Offices were up for sale. Banks had notices saying they had run out of cash. The national flag and the union flag had been taken down from the parliament building leaving empty flagpoles.

  Andreas looked at the pavement and saw an editorial. He scratched his head as he thumbed through the pages of the national newspaper. "Terrible," he said. "Gyros has been awarded a lifeline of 550 million notes for breathing space. Divided by 11 million Gyrosians, that equates to 50 notes per person. This money is supposed to last a month to avoid bankruptcy. 50 notes will last the average Gyrosian about a day. This ensures our debt burden will increase as we borrow yet more money we can never repay. Presuming we ever see this money, of course, and our politicians don't pocket it and have themselves a great day at the theatre."

  Just then, a new set of flags rose above the parliament building. It was the country of Chancellor Merkill and the Syriouzly? Party's emblem.

  "It is as I feared," said Andreas. "Gyros has left the union. Our country is now a satellite of the Tri-Fecked-Er. I sense foreign tanks and troops at our border."

  "Is there anything we can do?" said Elwood.

  "Learn to speak Deutschischisch and become punctual. We could sell off the marble and stone from the old monuments as scrap. We can privatise clean air."

  Andreas collapsed in the sun and they gave him water and several cigarettes. He sat up using the tiny amount of strength he had left. He said, "Socialism is finished. Gyros is now an individual state. I cannot bear the thought of not being like everyone else. I might have to move out from my parents' house. I might have to start paying taxes. This is a catastrophe."

  The newspaper blew away with the whistling wind. Business had ceased. Thousands of trucks labelled in Deutschischisch writing entered the square. Construction vehicles and personnel emerged wearing orange hats and black boots. The group watched as famous long standing buildings received a wrecking ball through their sides and were slowly flattened. Signs with large writing were erected around the square.

  "What does it say?" said Elwood. "I can't read word searches."

  "Your new cheap supermarket is coming soon," said Andreas's son. "Apply for jobs now. Dad, this is my chance."

  "Oh dear," said Andreas. "They are teaching my son their language, and now they want his labour. They want to turn my country into a gigantic retail park. There is nothing I can do to stop them. We will have to do what Gyrosians are best at. We must go to the beach for two months and hope things will improve on their own. Let's celebrate this change. Do you have that old currency note, earth man?"

  Elwood felt inside his wallet but it was gone. He then watched 234 meander into a shop filled with souvenirs.

  "Where is your robot going?" said Andreas.

  "Oh, 234 has a shopping fetish. It needs a memoir from everywhere it visits."

  Tears of joy and cries of triumph came from the shop. A small crowd gathered to witness the miraculous event. Unknowingly, by spending physical money instead of borrowing, 234 was subtly kick-starting Gyros's broken economy.

  "Stop it!" Andreas wailed.

  "Why? 234 is helping Gyros by supporting a business," said Elwood.

  "You don't understand. The union thrives on failure and self-pity. This is what the people want, not success or a future. We must have our misery. It is all we have."

  The shop owner took the currency note, then used it to pay his taxes at the tax office, then the tax office manager used the same note to pay for his gym membership, and then the gym manager took the note to pay for a week's worth of alcohol. The economy was beginning to boom.

  Andreas cornered 234 with its purchased clay figure memento of a toga clad Socratophocles. "Tin man, you have set in motion a chain of events that could lead to disaster for Gyros. You have started a genuine recovery. The people will murder you for this. Run, all of you, run!"

  A crowd swelled behind Andreas and he threw his arms out. "I will hold them off. Take a taxi as quickly as you can! Do not hesitate. Go!"

  234 broke into a taxi and fiddled with the wires of the ignition. Elwood made him move into the passenger seat as the crowd neared, swallowing Andreas into the mire and ripping his toga. His son managed to flee down the myriad of alleyways.

  "He didn't literally mean to take a taxi," said Elwood. "I can't read anything on the dashboard. It's all Greek to me."

  234 lowered the handbrake and the taxi rolled forward. Elwood hit the gas and propelled them away from the maddening crowd, now and then swerving off the sidewalk to avoid pedestrians.

  About twenty miles later, Elwood clipped a grass verge, rose from the path and trundled into a tree like a loose wagon. They crawled out of the smoking wreckage and squinted at the oppressive sun. There was white sand, a turquoise shoreline, small pools of coral, greenery in the distant hills, sun loungers with umbrellas and men wearing jackets lined with fake watches. They reminisced, Elwood thinking about the lack of interruption, riots or disturbances, and 234 about economics. Pure untarnished tranquillity.

  "I'm trillions of miles from Yorkshire, and this place reminds me of somewhere closer to home," said Elwood. "I can't quite pinpoint where though."

  "Sir, I am intrigued. I see the traits in the Gyrosian personality differ from yours. What are the humans like in your province?"

  "Like our weather. Clouded, occasionally bright, but mostly cold and unpredictable."

  "How do you cope with that level of instability?"

  "We emigrate."

  "Us robots are similar. We are mass produced functioning machines intended for factory work and carrying out maintenance, making us complex and barely comprehensible."

  "Like Geordies."

  A bolt of lightning almost from the King God himself shattered the sky and a flash blinked the shore. Elwood and 234 witnessed a metallic lipstick case swoop, hover and rotate as it lost altitude. It drifted over the shore casting a gargantuan shadow onto the beach and blowing away several sun loungers, including the fake watch sellers. The engines hissed to idle and
then deactivated, the pneumatic legs touched sand and the welcome ramp creaked open. Elwood felt the heat radiating from the ship's re-entry, reminding him of many evenings spent at home leaving his dinner in the oven for too long.

  Along the ramp came Captain Wingclipper wearing a flower chain around his neck, a tropical shirt and guiding a bikini clad model under each tattooed arm, both carrying bottles of untaxed beer. Wingclipper's aviator sunglasses reflected a tinge of brown and yellow and Elwood could think of one word: twat.

  "Hey bitches, I have bitches," said Wingclipper. He cast the two women from his arms, picked one up and threw her into the sea. He delved into his belt, put a cigar in his mouth and fanned a wad of local currency notes into Elwood's face.

  "Let's turn this country into a party," he said.

  "Kangaroos can hop backwards," Elwood replied.

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  Written by Richard C. Parr

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  About the Author

  Richard C. Parr was born in 1986 in England and lives in Nottingham. He has travelled to 20 countries and runs a blog at HumanEmbodiment.com.

  Contact Me

  Email: [email protected]

  Twitter: @HumanEmbodiment