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NEW AUTHORS SHOWCASE
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01-03-09 12M p129 |
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Kalinka and the Guardians of the Universe by Jonnie Dansie |
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Kalinka looked despondently around Milton Keynes town centre. She was alone. The silence was deafening. Then, faintly but clearly, she heard the distant approach of spacecraft. She could barely make out the Dygon fleet heading towards her in battle formation. The echo of her elder self returned to her ears. ‘Beware of the Dygons’ had been her last prophetic words. ‘So this is how it all ends’, Kalinka thought. She stared into the morning sky, mesmerized by the sound and sight of the approaching Dygons. The fleet increased its rate of approach steadily until, almost within eye to eye contact with its enemy, it prepared to fire its missiles at Kalinka and her Milton Keynes’ surrounds. In a hopeless gesture she flung out her arms in resolute defiance of the attack. And then…...the lights went out!
CHAPTER 21 THE SAVIOUR OF MILTON KEYNES God had forgotten to put a shilling in the meter. It is perhaps ironic that, whilst in his retreat he was examining the possibility of new technology being introduced into heaven, he had forgotten about some of the older technology that still abounded in the place. And the oldest technology of all was the coin in the slot meter that he used to provide the heavenly power supply. It had long been his intention to change to a quarterly payments system but there had been so much to think about. In the early days of course, the meter had not caused a material problem. The pound sterling gave value for money and a handful of shillings had lasted for several days. Since the growth in the value of the Dygon dollar and the adverse effect that this had on the value of the pound however a handful of shillings was gone in the blink of an eyelid and the Dygon dollar had now become the standard intergalactic exchange currency. This proved problematic when the Dygons came to empty the meter since on every visit the pound had been devalued further and there was always an excess bill to be settled amounting to several thousand per cent of the actual money in the meter. In desperation, whilst trying to decide which marketing promotion would best serve his overall purpose, God had scoured the universe in an attempt to find a meter that took Dygon dollars but no equipment was to be found that would the support the modern standard exchange currency. In a sophisticated monetary environment coin in the slot meters were of no practical use whatsoever. There were so many things to be done that God had not considered the changeover from meters to quarterly payments to be a priority. After all, whilst he regularly stuffed the meter with shillings before retiring at night everything had always run smoothly until the following morning. Now, however, during his retreat, which was made necessary by both his anxiety about his penis enlargement (which showed no sign of its own retreat) and his relationship with Kalinka and Preeti, Heaven had gone to rack and ruin and there was panic among the cherubim and seraphim at not being able to discover where God had hidden his sack of shillings. In a muddle of emotions God had, at times, felt that he, like the gods of old. had done the right and proper thing with the two women and that he was a better God for it. After all, what possible good could a God be that divorced himself so far from the reality of his kingdom that he lost touch completely with the feelings and emotions of his subjects? On one occasion, spurred on by this kind of wayward emotion God had done the unthinkable and appointed a woman as an Archangel. The Archangel Charlene had always been something of a misfit in heavenly circles and it was generally felt that there must have been some suffering soul in hell who had mistakenly swapped places with her. Either this was the case or she had been lucky enough to win the lottery in the ‘green card’ system which gave one sinner in ten million of those who had been condemned to hell a free pass to heaven. The founding argument for the ‘green card’ activity had been that even the worst of sinners should be able to redeem their souls and so there had been a pilot trial whereby a lucky card winner was given the opportunity of a death time. The system was designed by the Divine Institute of Social Workers and had long been a target for abolition by the Paradise Gazette. The trial had initiated a battle between Heaven and Hell for the middle ground of the afterlife and there had been occasions when the gap between redeemable activity and that for which the only punishment was eternal hellfire had become extremely blurred. The Archangel Charlene was a highly painted individual who flew with an amorous flourish which suited God’s confused state of mind. He was able to use her as an instrument of both pleasure and penance, doing things with her which made him suffer tortuous, but exquisite, pain and helping him to understand the profane side of his earthly subjects’ behaviour. The Guild of Archangels was in uproar, though not in respect of Charlene’s immoral behaviour you must understand. There had always been an acceptance that death and divinity did not preclude sexual activity in the afterlife and that junior angels were fair game provided lust was kept within modest bounds and was practiced with tasteful discretion. No, the Guild’s concern was that the position of Archangel always had been and always should be open only to men. There was ample biblical evidence to support this and Charlene’s appointment was an indication of the decadent lifestyle into which the afterlife was now descending. What with the appointment of the Archangel Charlene, God’s almost continuous absence, the tasteless size of his penis and, according to the paradise bush telegraph, the fall of Satan (albeit to a fallen archangel who had committed himself to a transsexual human) all vacancies in the afterlife, and some posts that were not yet vacant, seemed to be up for grabs. God himself might be the next deity to fall into the pit of hell. At any rate, the heavenly operations centre was in chaos. It had been a long time now since the initial divine plan had been agreed. Since the exponential growth of universes and the adoption of a freewheeling attitude towards time and space travel God had needed to keep adding to and taking away from his original vision. Although the original heavens took only one day to create, the maintenance was proving to be a much more complicated business and God had adopted his temporary coin in the slot systems to help with the expanding activity. The meters could be replenished every time the heavenly energy ran out in any particular circuit. It was, of course, only intended to be an interim measure until a system was designed which would encompass heaven, all known stars, their peripherals and their occupants, but it had led to God being overwhelmed with work. He had not allocated the meter feeding to subordinates because he had no-one he could trust that far, and overwork combined with the lack of control he had over the new universes and their afterlives had sent him into the fit of depression in which he now indulged.
To return to the story of Kalinka, however, one of God’s juniors had finally tripped the switch which gave one week’s emergency supply at enhanced rates and at the same time turned back on the circuit to which Kalinka’s world was connected.
The thunderous crash of cannon and ship had nearly burst Kalinka’s eardrums. She waited, eyes closed tight, fists clenched, head held high and arms outstretched, a crucifant awaiting her own destruction. Her ears softened to the sound of silence, then, as the lights were switched back on she experienced the comforting noise of the divine power circuits in the wind which, for the first time ever had, for a brief moment, disappeared. She opened her eyes and saw in front of her Milton Keynes as it always had been. In her confusion she peered through, her squinting eyes, now adjusting themselves to the light, for signs of the devil or for Dygons. She turned to discover a sight that amazed her. There, embedded in the debris of the Milton Keynes Municipal Centre, was the entire Dygon fleet, its armoury and its crew. It is from this extraordinary moment in history that the expression ‘As dead as a Dygon’ emanates It appeared that, when the lights were turned off during the attack on the Town Hall, the Dygon fleet, in its confusion, had simply continued in the path it had already taken, firing in the dark at will and eventually embedding every craft in the command into the hallowed building.
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