Mosaic Monologues
The prophecy
The muted sounds of an aeroplane take-off.
(Epic.) ‘Fiery the Angels rose, and as they rose deep thunder roll’d Around their shores:
Indignant burning with the fires of Orc…
In an airport departure lounge.
(Conversational.) I told them, if they got in, I’d leave the country. Unbelievable. So I’m looking up at the departure boards. (Looking up, he reads.) 10:15 Montego Bay TOM124. Relax. 10:35 Athens. Boarding. Tenerife. Final Call. Ibiza’s cancelled… which explains the grumpy students in a circle of backpacks on the floor, a web of charger wires going into the wall. No one else can plug in. Thanks.
Walk past. Hood up. I look dubious. I don’t care. Already had the ‘random stop’ I always get at security. No one wants to offer me a squirt of fragrance when I roll through Duty Free… Standard. So it’s hood up. I like having my hood up. So far today I’ve enjoyed a scorching hot breakfast panini and tried to cut it with the flimsy disposable cutlery to let the heat escape, you know. Still burnt the roof of my mouth. I just need to find somewhere nice to chill.
(Looks up at departure boards.) Another flight cancelled. Relax. I wanna put on some music or a podcast or something. You know, make my hooded isolation complete, but I’ve left my headphones at the hotel. The WHSmith reminds me that people still buy the Sun newspaper. I look at the paperbacks. A colourful row of snake-oil self-help books telling us we can all be saved by just looking at one aspect of who we are… which doesn’t matter actually. People tend to forget the acronyms or any 5 key steps immediately after reading. Self-help sits atop reams of summer romance reads that are closer to surrealism than real relationships. Crap conspiracies with boring protagonists that race to stop Armageddon… again. And in between a few pulpy horror books there’s… a book on Blake. Hardcover. And not an obvious one either – not Songs of Innocence. It’s one of his prophetic ones I think. I’m not sure which one. Why’s this in a Manchester airport? Blake in Manchester. I swipe it through self-checkout and slide it into my hoodie tube pocket. They did discover some of his anti-slavery prints in a Manchester library years ago. 2012, I think, year of the Mayan end of the world. It’ll be good to read some mad Blakean mythology when I speculate how frequent air crashes are as the plane taxis.
Morning sun steams through the terminal windows. Planes land with no noise. Sheet glass… soundproofed. Inside it’s uninterrupted humanity here. I don’t want any part of it. A man is trying to manoeuvre a designer carry-on through the student charger cords, while continuing a hands free conversation with his PA probably. He’s having a go, but it looks like he’s ranting at ghosts. The twenty-first century got us looking like we’re talking to ourselves, our demons. Tucked into our minds via Bluetooth. Ten minutes to the gate, thank God. Air hostess, caked on product within an inch of her life, but can’t obscure crow’s feet from the twenty-odd years of fake smiles and free rides. Bet she’s thankful for her free flight now. The city’s got curfews, well at least here.
Did she just look at me? Can’t tell how old she is. This beautiful black woman. Her eyes seem soft. She cuts a striking figure against the artificial glares of the retail zone. What is she wearing? Yo, who wears a shirt and trackie bottoms? She’s even got a battered pair of slip on men’s shoes. Maybe she’s a cleaner?… An asylum seeker?… She’s talking to herself… no AirPods in. An old couple are arguing about having to throw their 100 mil in the bin. ‘You never listen to me, Jerry!’ Where is she? She’s disappeared. I notice a lesbian couple with a kid, bemused by Jerry and his missus’ Kerfuffle. I realise I’m smiling too. To be fair, they’re probably leaving this waste-paper bin fire for the same reason as me… I’m not gonna acknowledge ‘em. If I start talking to them, I’ll start thinking about my family. Besides, they look like the types who thought they were gonna save the world by using disposable wooden knives instead of plastic ones. Hood stays up. Armed police officers. Pretend to be oblivious to the peaked hats, body armour and casually held submachine guns. Index fingers on itchy trigger guards.
(Epic.) ‘She saw her sons in her dark bosom; she called them forth;
Then the Spectre drew Orc, and the shadowy female gave
Her man to the embraces of sorrows.’
(Conversational.) Anyway, I’m out of here now. Burn this country. The raids. The arrests. New laws. Old intolerances. I’m gone. My kids. Where am I going? Athens flight cancelled. Okay. Loads of time. ‘Relax/Wait in Lounge.’
‘Going on holiday?’
Trackie bottoms. Leather man’s slip on shoes. It’s her. My gaze is locked. My head’s pulsing. My heart’s thumping like…
‘Where are you going?’
I look at all the flight board numbers and it all gets blurry. WZY 143… all the numbers. Go to gate 34. Relax. Last call for… the screen start to fizz, and I don’t know where I am flying to anymore.
‘Are you traveling home? Why have you got your hood up?’
‘Its cold.’
‘No, it’s not. To protect you from reality? To hide?’
‘Right.’
‘You’re abandoning the country?’
‘When the country abandons you, it is time to leave, I say. I’m born here, and they say you don’t belong.’
‘Belonging is not home.’
‘Well, how can it be home if you can’t protect your family anymore?’
Head’s pounding. She’s stunning.
‘You can tell us about it. I’ve got time’
‘Have you?’
(Epic.) ‘The angry shores, and the fierce rushing of the inhabitants together
The citizens of London close their books and lock their chests.’
At an airport Starbucks.
(Conversational.) I’ve just gone for a chai latte. I pass her water in a branded see-through plastic cup. The little Starbucks siren mermaid smiles. It’s like she’s been waiting for me, for more than 5 minutes, I mean. Like we’d set up a date on Tinder. Or like, the universal consciousness. I should write that one…
‘You write?’
‘Well I rap… What’s your name again?’
‘Enitharmon.’
‘Where’s that from?’
‘I am the numberless.’
‘Oh right, so you’re not a number. Not to be classified or filled away. Got it.’
‘No. Numberless. There’s too many of me to count.’
Her eyes… they’re hard now.
‘You’re one of many… victims?’
‘I am the land.’
‘Your parents were hippies?’
‘My name is a convergence of my parents’ names… Enion and Tharmas.’
I nod, as if it means something to me. I’m barely listening. I’m trying not to give myself away. I’m just watching her lips. My skin is alive with all my sexual urges buzzing through my nervous system. She’s not even my type. What is it about her that I’m thinking about?
‘My kisses.’
How did she…?
‘You want to know what they mean?’
‘What they mean? Is this a date?’
She sips her water through the green straw.
‘Are you working?’
‘Soliciting?… You think I’m a whore?’
‘Of course not.’
‘How much money do you have?’
‘Pardon?’
She laughs. She looks towards the planes.
‘I saw you pick up the book. This is a convergence.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To survive.’
‘You want help? We all need help!’
‘The children.’
‘Yeah, but if the bastards keep voting for it.’
‘Are you mourning the loss of your complacency? So you chose the long-haul flights of fancy, trapped in a cycle of consumption. Your heart wants to do something, yet you do nothing.’
I tell her, ‘I hate the things I consume. I wish I lived in a community where this wasn’t the norm.’
‘You run.’
‘Are you a poet?’
The departure boards… each line is turning red. More flights cancelled.
‘Your children.’
I freeze.
‘Where are you going to go? These islands are surrounded by water. Europe? Or if you swim a little further, America?’
‘Although this is an airport. Not to be a black stereotype but I’m crap at swimming. A lot of us are going to Ghana. They must be sick of us. Besides, same thing… it’ll be just as bad.
‘Now Albion will be destroyed too.’
I’m trying to keep up with her. Albion? Okay. Britain. England. I’m not sure whether to be turned on or terrified. I go with terrified.
‘How do you know I’ve got kids?’
‘I kiss and weep over my sons… Orc.’
‘Orc? Blake?’
She drinks up all the water.
‘Rap something, rapper.’
I look around the airport. Okay, I like rapping. This is my comfortable place. I launch into… (tries to rap) ‘Yo, look… listen.’ And I can’t… I’ve got all these bars addressing things and flexing and I’m… I can’t rap. What has she done to me??? Is this her gig? Hypnosis? Where’s my wallet?
‘I want to survive.’ She looks like she’s going to cry.
(Whispering.) ‘I do have money… well, a debit card. I can…’
‘I’m sick. In my womb.’
Screens. Cancelled, cancelled. Red lines.
‘Oh, there is a worm, it is growing. It will become a serpent.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I want the gates to be broken down.’
Some armed officers are running across the concourse.
‘The Departure gates?’
‘The gates of hell. The gates in your mind.’
Red lines. She holds my wrist. Hard. All the screens have turned red.
‘I want you to speak for your children.’
Her eyes are bulging now. Is she high?
Somebody on the other side of the terminal is screaming. Everyone seems to be on their phone, texting. The businessman is shrieking at his demons on the hands free. The barista’s got his phone out, filming something. His eyes are locked onto his camera, his mouth is open. I turn my head to see what he is trying to capture. Jerry and his wife are transfixed, palms on the glass. Something on the tarmac, across the airfield and up… The sky. Fire. The sky, like an upside-down bonfire. I can’t move my wrist. My cephalic vein pulses.
She’s crying. ‘I am that fiery heartbeat. I am that 20 generations of man’s heartbeats all beating now.’
My head’s pounding… Terminal windows. Silent flames engulf the clouds.
‘I was like you. Part of the veil. You are going to help me tear it down. You are going to stay.’
‘Let me go to my family.’
‘No.’
Sharp puncture near my stomach. There’s something sticking out of my belly. Four little wooden knives she’s taped together for strength. My hand pulls them out. They’ve splintered. Hot ecstasy of pain. Red lines. I can see my blood.
‘These cycles don’t finish. What can you see?… Prophesy.’
I’m dying. I could just about whisper… I whisper.
(Rap starting as a whisper, growing more emotional as it continues.)
‘The guardian of Albion burns in his nightly palaces
Sullen fires surround us, the North sea, a glow rises in the Atlantic,
Igniting the Channel, blaze ascends to these shores
Generations’ aftershocks echo – traumatise all, Empire the common chord.
Prophecies of Blake on repeat. The reviving of Urizen, he never went away
Blight on Blighty cos the blight is the lie
The los is chained while the eternal itch
Repelled by betrayal of imagination, the failure of reformation
Revolution is the Ancient guardian rotating in his grave
A bended bow is lifted in history and an iron chain cascades link by link
Across Albion’s cliffs inland, bind the mothers and sons of England
Believing that all their wealth could protect their children from the fire on the wind
Slaveship becomes enflamed, Enitharmon’s mourns their decision
The Earth loses another portion of the infinite.
Albion is on fire.’
© Testament
Testament
Testament is a writer for theatre and television, a rapper and world record-holding beatboxer.
