DEADBEATS                    "I found the tombs very
                                               interesting and quite thrilling
               by Oisin Hurley                 -- lovely cool marble slabs,   
                                               emotionally and respectably    
              Copyright (c)1992                engraved with paeans about the 
                                               late lamented."

We opened the door, and entered Paris. We found ourselves just a little away from the church at Montmartre, right beside the little funicular in fact. It was a beautiful day, sometime in early spring I'd say by the smell of it, and the rush of good living air gave us all pause to take a breath. Looking about we saw very few people, I suppose it was early morning for them and most of them were still ensconced in their beds. I repressed a small surge of what I suppose was jealousy, thinking of these little, simple people who could attain comfort and peace so simply. Dave suggested that we go into the church, as there might be some people in there at an early morning service, so we did. The place was deserted of course and we all laughed at Dave. Jane gave him a punch in the kidneys which we all thought was funny too. They're bosom buddies really, and have worked together on many occasions in the past, doing some honestly breathtaking tasks. Their commitment is second to none. So we wandered around the church for a while. I found the tombs very interesting and quite thrilling -- lovely cool marble slabs, emotionally and respectably engraved with paeans about the late lamented. Looking at some of the names and reading some of the stones I almost felt I had known these people personally. Dave had gone off snuffling around the pews in one of the darker areas, most likely he was looking for bugs. A bit of an entomologist, our Dave, he's especially fascinated by parasites, holds them in great regard altogether, says they do a lot of very useful work that might otherwise go undone and unnoticed, to everybody's detriment. Or detritus. Sorry about that, I have always found puns quite irresistible, though many have said that they are no sign of wit.

As I rested against one of the sarcophagi, Simon came stalking along, chewing on something black and nasty-looking. It turned out that he been poking about up around the bell tower and had caught a bat. This was the black object he was currently ingesting. I declined his offer of entrails and pointed him in the direction of the sacristy where he could get some wine to slake his thirst. He has told me in the past that bats make him very thirsty. I watched him go, tall and very very thin, like a strange piece of very old parchment stretched over a random collection of sticks. He stopped to talk to Jane, who was etching bad runes into the back of the pews, and offered her some bat. She turned and stabbed him in the thigh with her stylus, Simon's grunt causing Dave to look up and laugh. She ran over to him and kicked him in the gut. I said nothing. I had often thought that she might have a soft spot for me, seeing as she doesn't kick the shit out of me very often, but now I think it's because of some sort of respect or perhaps even fear that she tends to keep her distance. A lot of people are afraid of me, even those whom I could call my friends. I'm not affected by that any more, I suppose it comes with the job. Simon came back from the direction of the sacristy, earnestly chugging a bottle of french altar wine. As an afterthought, he crunched up the bottle also, then belched resoundingly. A small spatter of blood appeared on a pillar just beside his head, but it disappeared quickly. I called all of them over to me, and opened a door.

And stepped into Beirut. Jane looked around, her eyes shining. She rushed over to hug me, and kissed my face. As she scrambled around the rubble, giggling, Dave began to look for rats. I found a small dog with a broken back whimpering behind a rock. Its coat was scorched and trampled and it drooled blood-flecked saliva. I stood on its head and it died. Simon came over to me and asked if he could eat it. I shrugged, but Dave called over that this it was probably not a very good idea to eat it raw. Disappointed, Simon sat on a rock and chucked pebbles at nearby burnt-out vehicles. Behind me I heard a scuffle, so I turned and looked up at the roof of a ruined store. There was a young person there, of unknowable sex, perhaps none at all, for it appeared but a child. It was wearing combat fatigues and carried a small sub-machine gun. As I watched the childs eyes, seeing its doom, there was a crack behind me and the childs forehead blossomed scarlet. Jane had shot it with a small handgun she had discovered in the wreck of a nearby house. Simon cringed visibly as she shouted "Casualty of War!" to the sky. We had all seen this much too often and quite frankly we were all pretty bored with it, but I suppose selfexpression is an important thing too, and it may be rarer than life. I walked up the broken edge of the shop to where the body lay on the roof. Its eyes were still open and it was twitching visibly, raising little ripples in its sauce of blood. I sighed and touched its head to shut its eyes and the child died. Looking down from the roof I saw that Jane was beating Dave quite severely about the head with the end of the handgun and I decided it was time to go. I opened a door and pushed them in.

We fell out in Moghadishu. It was hot, hot, summer time. The earth was baking and the air had been broiled many times over. All sounds were muted by the heat, except for the crack of superheated stones, the carrion razor buzz of the flies, and the weak whimpering cries of the people. I sat down in the shade of a rickety shanty hut, took out a battered cigarette and lit it. Jane joined me and asked for a cigarette too. Small rivulets of perspiration made clear tracks on her dust-smeared temples, changed course as she threw her head back to exhale. She was watching the other two intently as they prowled and stalked their way around the fallen down huts and bloated and attenuated children and adults. Simon appeared to be nodding in a satisfied sort of way while Dave prowled and frowned and pointed, saying inaudible things to Simon who would rapidly nod and smile. A woman went by, bent under the weight of small sack of maize. I watched Simon approach her and offer to carry the sack to her dwelling, a brown shambles maybe thirty yards away. She just dropped the bag, too fatigued and weak to do anything else. Dave put out his hand to steady her and she straightened and even smiled slightly. Simon walked off ahead toward her hut, beckoning to follow. I glanced at Jane who was shaking her head slightly. She had seen this particular trick before too. I caught her eye and she glanced quickly away, possibly a bit ashamed of her own excesses which we had all seen just recently. The woman couldn't keep pace with Simon, who was now just approaching her shanty. He came to the sagging entrance, paused, then continued past. The woman uttered a small wail and attempted to speed up her pace to catch Simon and regain her sack of precious grain. Simon walked faster, and the woman began to falter. She appeared to be getting progressively weaker with every step, and her flesh appear to melt from off her bones. After eleven steps, she collapsed, a brown wrinkled leather bag of dry bones like sticks of driftwood. Again I walked out into the searing heat and approached the woman. I knelt to turn her head and looked into her unseeing eyes. I felt her die then. Jane had come over behind me and was staring with slitted eyes and pursed lips at a point over my shoulder. Her jaw muscles moved, clenched, moved, clenched. I looked around to see Simon eating the maize from the bag. Dave was nearby playing with some flies. It was definitely time to go. I opened a door.

And stepped out into sunshine and a warm breeze coming in off the sea. We stood on a slightly dried but still well manicured lawn in front of a large very white building with lots of windows. A small sign on my left said something in Greek. Dave looked around and sniffed, then headed for a set of large glass doors. We all entered the building which contained people wearing blue and white clothes and apparently walking aimlessly about. The smell of the building was very familiar to me, I had been in a lot of these places over the years. I didn't recognize this particular one, but I do tend to travel a lot, and faces and places always blur in my memory. We all followed Dave around green and white corridors, through arches and rooms and places lined with beds to a large white door. Above it, a sign said something in Greek. We pushed in and we were in a big white room with beds in it. There were people in the beds and people walking around. The people walking around wore great big plastic bags and walked really slowly. Simon laughed very loud and Jane punched him in the kidneys and we all laughed. I sat down on an unused bed and played with some metal instruments I found in a metal bowl. Some were very sharp and some were very funny shapes, all of them were glistening and beautifully, beautifully sterile. Impressed, I gave a small knife to Jane, who looked at it and smiled. Then she buried it in Simon's left buttock, and we howled with laughter to see Simon hopping around with the little knife wobbling about. Dave shouted at us to shut up as he was trying to talk to the people in the beds. After a while he began shouting at them and became angry. He began to swear and kick things and search about, eventually finding a smaller room. He went inside and we waited. After a couple of seconds bottles and flasks and glasses came flying out of the little room to smash on the floor of the big room. We could hear Dave shouting over the noise of breaking glass and splintering plastic and were we glad that he was enjoying himself so much. He's usually pretty taciturn and reserved. When he had broken everything and had come over, panting, to where the rest of us were sitting (except for Simon of course, who's arse was very sore) I decided that the holiday was over and now it was time to go to work. We couldn't spend all eternity mucking around. So I opened a door.

Jane started the job, with a little support from Simon. When events started moving under their own power, I put Simon in a more involved role, allowing him to spread out his influence and to produce basic raw material for Dave. Jane of course had put together a good bit of produce for Dave and myself at this stage so I congratulated her and told her to rest until the Grand Finale. I started Dave into fulltime involvement with the project while I myself cleared up loose ends which gave the two lads extra working space. They certainly make a great team: while Simon is slow and very steady in his methods, Dave is rash and brilliant and can be completely unstoppable. I weaved in and out, here and there, mopping up here, cleaning up a problem there, helping out with the backlog and eventually accounting for all the important bits that come in at the end. Generally I don't get much praise for this, since my involvement is quite fragmented, but I'm there at every stage, and I hate to think what would happen if I was ever excluded from the team. I told the two lads to rest up while I chopped off all the rough edges and put a few of my own finishing touches to the thing. Then we all took a rest for a while, to get ready for the End Ceremony. Then I opened a door.

And we arrived in a small town in West Connemara, just beside a tiny train station. When we went inside, we found that it had been gutted by fire in the recent troubles, but the four fireproof rentable lockers were still there. Inside, each of us had stashed our ceremonial garments which we used to parade around at the completion and wind-up of a project. I personally think it's all a bit old fashioned, but our immediate bosses say it's important to impress the clients. So as we dressed in our regalia of office, I opened a door, and four horses came through. I think this is very old-fashioned too, but who can change tradition?

ohurley@dsg.cs.tcd.ie
Quanta is Copyright(c)1994 Daniel K. Appelquist.
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