The Downfall Of Manifesto The Great

Chapter One The Orphan “In the beginning, there was Beryl.”—Verruca 1935 Beryl was discovered by an elderly reader sitting at the feet of the unfinished statue of her father. Her mother, a woman with painted nails and love for lying in bed, had passed away moaning about her caffeine not being “hot enough.” Beryl had two choices. To be swallowed up by the family groomed for a good match or do as her mother suggested and “run away.” She got as far as the courtyard of greatness and realized running away with nowhere to run was a stupid as the headless statue where she now sat. “Sit at his feet,” she’d tell Beryl, usually while Beryl was making her comfortable in bed, “it will lead to things.” Like what? thought Beryl. She had watched the sun rise, and now it was going down; was she to sleep here? Clutching her rucksack, she thought of a future with “the family,” aunts preening her, telling her what a “no good” her mother was . . . “Aunts are an earth’s invention,” her mother used to say, and “you are more him than me.” She wondered if she should go back, take her chances. She hardly noticed the reader until he stopped. He looked at the shivering child; her face was familiar, like a colleague he’d worked with years ago in the good old days, when things were easier . . . She caught his eye. “My mother told me to wait here,” she said. He looked at her solemn face; she was not even ten. “At my father’s feet,” said Beryl. “Squirt was your father?” said the reader. Beryl nodded. “And your mother was that woman?” He whistled through his teeth. Beryl was one of the last to be born from a man; infertility had ripped through the city like a plague of smallpox, and no one knew why, despite the Librarian pointing to the food chain, but then who listened to the Librarian? He could see she was special. She had the intelligent look of her father and the intriguing face of her mother. A heady mixture for an elderly gent who liked intelligent females that were “easy on the eye.” Beryl’s father was from the right side of the tracks, who used his head to make profits and mold Beryl’s “gullible” mother before she went, well . . . mad. The reader, a man with no partner and no desire for one, eyed this slip of a girl. She had potential; he thought maybe even replace that “I have an answer for everything” LM-2, and god knows Manifesto the Great could sure use a new one of her. Manifesto the Great’s ideas were anything but brilliant; in fact, most pissed off the women, sparking “sit-ins” and “sit-outs”—codes for “no bed-diving,” which Manifesto the Great in his wisdom blamed on the lack of children; perhaps this Beryl could change things? If he had known what Beryl’s true potential was, he would have sent her to the Art Centre, where children were welcomed, had the freedom to argue, and soon learned it didn’t get them anywhere. But he didn’t; instead, he took her back to the Building of Opulence, placed her under the wing of the Librarian, a decision that in the end was the true downfall of Manifesto the Great. In the ten years of Manifesto the Great’s reign, the city had changed into “us and them”; “us” being the readers who ruled and “them” being the rest who bore the brunt of the readers’ decisions. Even though fewer babies were born every year, that less fish swam the rivers, that hills had turned barren, the readers, true “eat drink and be merry” followers, were deaf to any warnings, apart, that is, from the new chairman . . . There was not even a shellfish to scavenge or a leg to barbecue; flesh-eating had become a luxury and noisy kindergartens a distant memory. All that was left was the odd scraggy four-legged creatures hidden deep in the hills. Meat was rationed on par with World War II restrictions, sparking off fights over sausages, brawls at barbecues, and demonstrations on par with a four-legged stampede. The city missed its barbecues and cheese, and, for once, the leaders could do little to help. It wasn’t long before hunting and fishing became a distant memory, and meat went underground, illegally stashed under counters and traded in alleyways. The Librarian, a man not partial to the “eat drink and be merry” philosophy, had warned, but who listened to an elderly man in a wheelchair, especially a man with a passion for wigs? Then when word got out of favors being traded for prawns and giblets, something had to be done. Manifesto the Great, a positive man, instructed the institute to work on a robust form of fertilization. The institute came up with growth food, which led to animals large enough to eat within weeks but with flesh toxic with hormones and bland as the Librarian’s jokes. The “new meat,” still in its infant stage, was rationed to men under the belief that man’s seed was the cure to the whole bugger-all babies issue. Not exactly a popular ruling. “What about the women?” said the Librarian. “Let them eat mush,” said a voice from the back. “Here, here,” chorused a few. The Librarian looked at the idiots around the table. “You honestly think a woman is going to eat mush while grilling a chop for her man?” “Great decisions,” said the chairman with an eye on his leader, “are not always greeted with a round of applause.”