Servants of Silence

SERVANTS OF SILENCE

Counting teeth, one by one, tongue flicking back and forth across his mouth. Sixteen, like the first girl. Seventeen, my mothers house. Eighteen, when I became old enough for everything in life. Nineteen, the seconds it took to writhe and die. He rocked gently in the velour seat of the British Rail carriage. Twenty, the days before his final Zoroastrian end. Reaching into his raincoat the unshaven man pulled out a brown paper bag, loosely drawn together at the top. Glancing furtively out of the compartment door, he re-assured himself that nobody had decided to intrude on his private place. After all, the compartment was sacred, the only one he used these days, after his re-birth. Twenty-one, how he must have stared and stared into the sun, before they took his eyes. Turning his back on the door he drew the bag slowly down over the object contained within, revealing at first a glass ball. Twenty-two, oh how blue, the deadly hue. The electric lighting illuminated the ball to create a perfectly inverted image of the man, reflected in the compartment windows, coloured otherwise by the darkness of a cold November night. Gently smoothing his hands over the ball, he smiled, how beautiful, how symmetrical in construction, how alike to the element of water in its clarity. The man clasped his hand fully over the globe and gently jerked it upwards, revealing a glass tail, as thick as just one of his fingers. Raising the brown bag to his lips the man puckered grotesquely, threw his head back and swallowed three times. Let soul eat the soul. Let fire consume the fire. Let water wash away water. Let earth swallow the Earth. Let air clear the air. I will be there, dealing with man. Lowering the bag, the man’s lips shone wet and scarlet. He grinned once more.


“Anthony you must learn, first and foremost, that it is not your place to make a judgement, that is for the jury, that is their role, you are there to present the facts in a way which is favourable to the prosecution you are making. The moment you begin to doubt the validity of your case, the more likely you are to lose it. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir, Mr Broadgate, I understand. But have you ever had cause enough to drop a prosecution on the basis that you believed the case to be well…trumped up, false or –“

“Heavens no!”, Broadgate snorted a laugh from his pug like face. “The whole business of litigation is to be in the business of being litigious! Let me tell you something Price-Morris, there is almost no greater thing in this profession than winning a case that appears to be impossible to win.” Broadgate laughed again and raised his coffee cup as if making a toast, “Amen to that!”

Anthony Price-Morris had joined the prestigious firm Baker, Broadgate and Plumpton in January 1996, and had spent a year shadowing one of the supposed legal geniuses of the firm – Jeremy Broadgate. It had certainly provided some valuable lessons: how to twist the truth to the point of breaking, how to manipulate the minds of strangers to believe in every word said, how to threaten and cajole a defendant to the point of tears in ways so subtle as to barely cause a defence objection – to name but a few. Anthony, or Tony to his friends, wasn’t sure whether these lessons railed against his naïve sense of equity, or not. He felt at times too sensitive to the process, to empathic to the feelings of the defendant. He knew this, and sadly, so Anthony believed, did Broadgate.

“Price-Morris!” Broadgate cut rudely into his thoughts, “Isn’t it time you stopped dreaming and got to work on the background for the Shmichel case?”

Anthony’s eyes, soft with uncertainty and youth, watered slightly at the rebuke. “Certainly Sir, I’ll go and do that right away.” Anthony left his chair and made for the door.

“Anthony…” Broadgate addressed him again.

“Yes Sir?”

Broadgate had risen from behind his desk to straighten his shirt and tie. Anthony stared at him, a 5’6” corpulent man with black greasy hair and an expensive suit; not what he would have imagined a genius prosecutor to look like, not powerful or noble, more mean spirited and devious. “Anthony, you’ve been following me now for a year and I think it’s time we gave you a try out.”

“Sir?”

“You should take the next litigation Anthony, the next suitable case is yours. You okay with that?”

“Yes Sir, I…well, it’d be an honour sir.”

“Good, it’s settled then.” Broadgate paused to give the boy an encouraging nod. “Close the door after you go.”

Anthony left Broadgate’s room with a belly full of butterflies. The frozen environment of the main office greeted him, providing an unwelcome taste of the season. It was almost February now and the air-conditioning system, which cooled the office in Summer and warmed it in Winter, had of course broken down. Broadgate and the other partners had commissioned gas heaters for their offices until the air-con was fixed, but the main office was the central hall of the manor house and was almost impossible to heat without the huge General Electric blowers. Consequently, all the junior staff were forced to wear layers and jackets to keep warm until the system could be fixed. It was fine once you were used to it, Anthony thought, but from the heat of a partners office into the cold was uncomfortable. Anthony walked back toward his desk, wondering with each step, what the next case would be. He knew one thing, whatever it was, he had to win it. It could mean the difference between having a legal career, and prematurely receiving a P45.


“Circuits okay, fins okay, brackets and fans, valves and values okay. Make the air-con mine. It’s mine in it’s wholeness, it gives itself to me, I understand it, it understands me. I relate to it. It cleans and heats, it cleans and cools, keeping the air so pure, keeping the element of air so clean and whole.” The rooftop was already beginning to get dark as the man coaxed and coerced the hulking steel lungs of the air conditioning system toward some sort of action. He’d been on site for two days and had fitted over a dozen new parts, but to no avail. He stood back from the unit and took it all in. A steel beast with huge gaping maw for eating up the air, chewing it with the giant fan system, digesting it through the radiators and shitting it into the building as clean and cold or as clean and hot. He’d been through the body of the beast, he knew it’s every idiosyncrasy. He’d performed a forty eight hour surgery on it, but it was steely in it’s resistance to regeneration. It appeared to want nothing more than to give up and sleep under the wintry night sky, unwilling to purify, unwilling to serve the air as it once had done. Had the Zend-Avesta ever mentioned this as a possibility? He was sure the scriptures would mention unwillingness to serve. The AC was a holy creation, it was sure to be mentioned; had the prophet mentioned it? The man frowned at the hulk, concentrating on the form. He could think of little more to do, other than to strip down again. He sat back against the AC and looked about him. The roof was flat and oblong with a stairwell at either end. The stairwells were housed inside stone turrets. The AC was of course the dominant force on the roof, standing 6 feet tall and 12 foot wide and situated centrally between the turrets, just as a crown might sit between the ears of the Lord of Darkness. So proud. Housed in a wooden louver-board style casement, the AC really was glorious. The man had had the chance to serve the AC at the Manor House once before, with more success. This time, despite his most careful ministrations, the AC remained stubborn. As the man continued to consider his next move a large black crow landed on the wooden casement. The man turned carefully and reached out to the bird, which fixed him with a glassy eye. It was what he’d come to expect, the crows served the house, just as he served the AC. And they were tame to him, they recognised him as a servant loyal to his master, just as they were loyal to their own. As he touched the first bird, a second landed, the first two of many. Beautiful black servants of silence. The man felt sure that all would soon be well.

It began to rain.


“Mr Broadgate, I’m sorry to disturb you, but it seems we have another problem with the building, I’ve got Jack out here. Can he come in?”

Broadgate gathered his eyebrows into a frown, the day hadn’t been good. Susan had managed to delete one of the most important files in the Shmichel case and it meant reproducing two hours worth of work. Bloody woman. Price-Morris hadn’t done much better either, labouring far too long over client letters, a complete waste of time. Broadgate felt a familiar bubbling of anger inside, normally indicating his approach to the end of a diminutive personal fuse.

“Come,” he shouted at the door rather than using the speaker phone. Jack, the maintenance man pushed open the door and impressed his sixty year old seventeen stone presence into Broadgates office.

“Mr Broadgate, I’m afraid we have a rather serious problem, the roof is leaking in the records room.” Jacks voice was deep and growly, with the sort of intonation associated with only those men that are still innocent and honest and that almost always sleep well at night. Broadgate twitched a step closer to the brink.

“Jack, will you bring me a solution next time you come with a problem.” It was about as polite as he felt he could be.

Jack flushed slightly, “Mr Broadgate, I’ve spoken to a roofer, but it’s too late for them to come out now. And they tell me that they won’t be able to fix the leak anyway, at least not until the storm passes over.”

“Jack, do whatever you need to do to keep the problem under control, get some buckets in there or something.”

“Okay Mr Broadgate, I just thought you should know, that’s all.”

“Okay Jack, thank you; and please close the door behind you.” Jack walked out of the office and the door clicked gently behind him. Broadgate got up from his desk and belted his right foot into the wastepaper basket, which flew, scattering all of it’s contents, into the wall of his office. Turning back toward his desk he punched Susan’s extension into his telephone.

“Susan, tell me, has that layabout finished working on our air-conditioning system yet?”


The rain fell in great pendulous drops, slapping into his face as he returned to the side of the AC with his voltmeter. Thankfully, he thought, the case would protect the machine from the wet whilst he continued his work. But then, it was almost 5.30pm and it would soon be time to return home, it’d been a long day, and though he loved the AC he needed very much to rest. His arms were aching from fitting the new fan, it was heavy work in an awkward space. But he was strong, he was used to it, his hands were callused. Tiredness was not important, he was after all servant of the AC, servant to all AC.

“What in God’s name is taking you so long? Do you realise I’ve got twenty highly paid staff working in impossible conditions downstairs because you can’t do your bloody job right? I’ll be speaking to your employer tomorrow, this has gone on long enough, you must be a bloody layabout. What’s wrong with the infernal machine anyway?” The voice behind him barked through the darkness. He felt his body change. Stiff, rigid, confused, awkward. Standing up straight he turned toward the voice. The angry man stood in a suit just a few metres away in the rain. “Christ, are you a trainee or something?” Again the angry man barked at him. He didn’t understand, the AC needed love and attention, it would take a little longer.

“I need some more time,” Norman spoke quietly.

“Well, you’re running out of time Norman. That’s your name isn’t it? Well Norman, I mean what I say. This air conditioning system better be working by tomorrow or I’ll be forced to report that you’re a fucking doughnut eating lazy arsehole that should stick to fixing push bikes.”

He stared at the angry man, “I need some more time. I’ll fix it.”

“Well, you better had. Tonight.” The man turned and marched back toward the stairs, leaving Norman Marshall in the rain and the dark, with the AC. Turning back toward his work he hesitated only momentarily, to issue a prayer to Zarathustra. He hoped it would be answered, he loved his job, it was how he served. It was his goodness. Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds – so he’d been taught, so must he live, so must he work.


At 10pm Norman clicked back the final panels and threw the switch once more. The AC throbbed into action, emitting a loud ‘uvvarr’ noise as it sucked the first gout of air through it’s fans and into it’s stomach. Norman grinned. He rested his head momentarily on the side of the AC. “Blessed Zarathustra, you have answered my prayers and the AC cleans for you the element of air. Long may it be so.” He whispered his thanks into the night as the rain continued to beat down on the roof. He gathered his tools and re-entered the building. He had to make final checks on the internal grilles, to ensure the flow was the right temperature, it was part of his job, part of the contract. He inspected each grille with pleasure, counting them off one by one, like green bottles, “15 air grilles mounted in the floor, and if one single air grille should purposefully thaw, there’ll be fourteen air grilles for inspection in the floor” At 11 o’clock he checked the last of the grilles, in the records room. “Zarathustra has sent water to this place, the heat from the grille is good, it is fixed, no more grilles for inspection in the floor.” Norman traced his name in the water, it disappeared a moment later. The room was very hot, the computers kept it warm without the AC, the AC warmed it further. Norman was tired, he felt like sleeping in the room. He would then be able to see why Zarathustra had sent water where only air should be. But he knew he could not. He closed the door on the room, left the building and went home, happy that he would keep his job. He was happy with how warm the building was, happy that the angry man would be happy with him and that he could still do his job, serving the AC. So happy.


The AC gulped air in, churning it with the suction fan, driving it through the great radiator fins – hot to the point of burning, then through a second fan to enter the network of air ducts, spread like tendons throughout the body of the building. The manor house began to heat up, driving the chill of the February night out of its interior. In the records room the large dark pool, surrounded by buckets half filled with captured rain water, began to warm. The two LAN servers sited in the records room, connected like brain cortex to the neural transmitters in the mind of Baker, Broadgate and Plumpton, hummed gently as the water began to evaporate, creating moist tepid air. They continued to hum as the water in the room became fully air born, gently caressing bundles of valuable paperwork, some old some new, some bound in black, some in red. Lightly touching, but careless, like a child investigating with sticky fingers. Slowly but surely adding moisture to ream after ream of paper, contract after contract, will after will, case after case. With hours to work the paper was a small challenge indeed, and by 3pm the vapour could do little more than it had already done. But something still remained, the computers still hummed, the brains were still alive, still functioning at the heart of the room. The machines were housed inside a steel and glass shell, but not impervious, not invulnerable, not indestructible. Gently the vapour crept inside the shell, through crevices and joints, working like arthritis into the very bones of the machines, but not sleeping there – progressing – creeping across painted circuit boards filled full of electricity, carelessly stepping and treading on tougher looking stuff, yet so vulnerable to the power of this apparently gentle form – water. Stumbling around in a clumsy fashion inside the two halves of the Baker, Broadgate and Plumpton brain, the antediluvian creature, unaware of it’s own power, finally shorted the power of an utterly modern beast harnessed for the purpose of the angry man on the roof under the darkening sky. The power indicator lights clicked off, like eyes seeing their last. Condensation ran like tears down the windows of the record room. The elements slept.


Norman looked mistily across the court room from the dock. A young man, no older than Norman himself was talking to the jury about things that he couldn’t understand. The AC had worked, he’d fixed it up as well as anybody could fix it, but now he was at the County Court House and he was supposed to speak soon. The first he knew of it had been the morning after, how sudden it had been. His supervisor had rung him at 8.30am shouting about condensation in the manor house, how the AC had only pumped air in, how the units weren’t set to recycle. “The damage could cost tens of thousands to fix Norman, do you know what that means?” The young prosecutor addressed him with the very same question his supervisor had used that morning.

“I understand.” Norman’s voice felt small in the big room.

“Norman, you have told the jury that you spent two days trying to fix the air-conditioning system and that you finally fixed it after an argument with Mr Broadgate. You fixed it at 10pm and inspected the grilles before you left. Is this true?”

“Yes Sir.”

“I put it to you Mr Marshall that you were pre-disposed to do damage to the house because you felt aggrieved after your argument with Mr Broadgate.”

“No, no…I…it was written that the elements should invade the house, good amongst the bad –“

“You make a judgement about the firm do you Mr Marshal, that the elements should wash away the sins, is that right?”

“I speak only of the will of the unseen one, perhaps the prophet will come and enlighten you. Zarathustra believes it was the will of the unseen one.”

“Zarathustra is a prophet of the Zoroastrian religion, Zoroastrianism is a religion upheld by the Parsi; you are an English man from London, you are a heating engineer.” The young prosecutor pressed the point with an expression of exasperation.

“Objection you honour. What is the prosecution’s point?”

“Continue Mr Price-Morris. Please make it brief,” the man in the especially large wig replied.

“I put it to you Mr Marshall that you did not do your job with the efficiency that your company expects and that, as we’ve heard from Mr Broadgates testimony, you regularly left the house for no apparent reason, you were found fraternising with the female employees of the firm on more than one occasion and when confronted by Mr Broadgate after two days of this you pushed him physically away and behaved in a threatening manner. Is this true?”

“No Sir, I left the site to get parts, I serve the AC, it is a cleaner of the elements.”

“You tell us that you serve your prophet Zarathustra and yet it is evident that you are a fake. You are faking dedication to a God that you do not worship, bastardising the beliefs of an ancient and noble religion to help your defence and thereby mocking the court and our judicial system. You damaged the property of Baker, Broadgate and Plumpton wilfully after you were caught shirking by Mr Broadgate. Is this the case Mr Marshall?”

Norman, hot from head to toe, stared at the young man in the wig. How could he be so wrong? How could he not see the purity of belief, the goodness, the good thoughts, good words, good deeds. “I…”, Norman began to shake, confused and angry, “No, NO. I fixed the machine. I FIXED IT. WHY AM I HERE? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? The AC is my master!”

“Please Mr Marshall, calm yourself.” the man in the big wig spoke again.

Norman began to cry, and through his pain and sickness he stared at the eyes of the smiling chubby face of the man from the roof – so happy – barely able to control his mirth. Norman felt a powerful new force inside himself, a child suddenly born from his churning stomach, offspring of the outrage he felt at the core of his being. A revelation had come, he opened his eyes wide and blinked hard, it was a new time, he was to become a different type of servant, a purifier of a different element. It was a new time and Norman was cheered by the thought, he was happy again.


It was 5pm at Baker, Broadgate and Plumpton when Mr Broadgate left his office to address the staff. “I’d like to have everybody’s attention please.” He stepped forward into the central office of the manor house, his face beaming. “Some of you will have noticed that there is some champagne chilling on the table over there, please find yourself a glass and pour – I’m going to raise a toast.” The collected staff charged their glasses and returned to their seats attentively. “We have in our midst a new face in the world of law, a man that has just cut his teeth on a case close to all our hearts – a case of criminal negligence against this very firm. We all saw the results of our reckless engineer and I thank all those that helped repair the damage. But my greatest thanks go to the man that nailed the culprit, our Mr Anthony Price-Morris. Please raise a toast to his first successful case, the Condensation Litigation 1997.” Broadgate paused to smile at Anthony, “Here’s to you Anthony.” A cacophony of cheer’s and well done’s erupted from the assembly.

As Broadgate raised his glass Norman stared at the man’s pig like face again. He stood, just out of sight, in the reception area. He was wearing his spare overalls, the overalls he had kept after being fired from his job. Norman watched on as the pig-face beamed at the people collected in the room, raising their glasses at the same time – all happy. He continued to look on as the young solicitor was presented with a decanter to celebrate his victory, to celebrate Norman’s prosecution.

“…treasure this small gift Mr Price-Morris, it’s filled with the finest scotch and engraved with the name of this first case. I hope that the contents continue to warm your heart for many cold winters to come.”

Norman glowered from the shadows of the reception area. Nobody watching him, everybody watching the pig-face. Nobody expected him, not here, not so soon, not ever. But he was, and he was determined to be happy, he was determined to warm the heart of the pig face – the cold one, the angry man from the roof. He felt a new force inside himself, it spoke of new beginnings, of deeds good because they undid so much bad, of words and thoughts that were strong but fair, that clarified, that purified; he had become the AC, he was the machine now, he was the conditioning force, his element was not the air, or water, or fire, or earth, it was the paragon of minds, the man. He would process and clean mankind. He had to begin at the place he knew to be the worst, the worst was the pig-face – the angry man from the roof.


Anthony accepted the decanter with some embarrassment. He had felt the case might have been difficult to win had there been a lucid defendant, but it hadn’t been difficult; the man in the dock had been delusional, it had been a simple matter to ruin his credibility. And yet Broadgate had thought the performance worthy of merit, and who was he to argue, he was a junior prosecutor, not a legal genius. “Thank you Mr Broadgate, I really don’t know what to say…”

Say nothing, silence is everything, silence is all, let silence cleanse your words from this place, from my mind.

“I…I must say it’s been pleasure shadowing you this past year and I hope sincerely to put the learning to even better use in the future.”

Your future is bright and cool and quiet, this I know, young one.

“Good, very good Anthony, here’s to that!” Broadgate beamed as the other people in the room clapped.

Too many people to begin cleaning right away. Norman walked quietly away from the presentation and took the stairs to the roof. As he crept into the presence of the AC he reminisced. It was a beautiful masterpiece of cleaning, it had cleaned non-stop for two months in his absence. Such a waste, that purity of purpose be denigrated by the lies and deceit in the hearts of those that breathed it’s ejaculate. No more. He would cleanse the root of the evil, put an end to evil words.

In contrast to the night he had fixed the machine, the sky was clear, the stars shone down brightly. He looked up into the distance, incalculably far, a vastness, a void, a place of unparalleled emptiness. It was the oldest place, the venue of every fight of good verses evil, the stage for all prophecy. The right place to be reborn, on the AC. Climbing onto the casement he held out his arms and began to wail, staring all the time upwards into the darkness. One by one they came, the crows, the ambassadors.


“Goodnight Mr Broadgate, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Anthony, having finished a paper on the Shmichel case, raised his hand and smiled at his senior. “Yes, goodnight Anthony, it was good work you know, well done.” Broadgate didn’t look up from his desk.

“Thank you sir, goodnight.”

“Yes, goodnight.”

Anthony picked up the decanter from his desk and made his way toward reception. The glass felt cool in his hand. Entering reception he made his way toward the door. Reaching for the brass knob, he stopped. A strong callused hand clasped around the decanter as he held it. Smile fading, he began to turn. Then, a deafening noise, like the bough of a tree snapping and splintering inside his head. A searing white heat from the back of his head. Turning, turning. The man from the dock. The wrench coming down again. He tried to speak, to say no, to beg, please no, I’m young and love life, please no. Words came out, but they were not the words he tried to speak and not in the order he wished to speak them. The wrench thumped cleanly down on the bridge of his cranium, the noise was sickening; wet , hot and slushy. He reached out to the man, wanting company, if not of his mother, then this man, any man, any human being. Blood covered his face and eyes, his tears mixed salt in cells. His throat thickened with bile. Darkness surrounded his vision and his last word issued forth: “Marrrma.”

Broadgate heard the noise from reception, like nothing he had ever heard before, or would ever hear again. There had been the noise of something breaking and then the sound of Price-Morris saying something – but it wasn’t clear speech, more like that of a sleep walker, confused and incoherent.

“Anthony?” Broadgates voice, to his own surprise, wavered. “Anthony…” he called a little louder, getting up from his desk and walking toward the office door, “…are you okay?” The building was suddenly too quiet for Broadgates liking. “Are you oh –“
standing in the doorway of his office he felt his own voice fail. The engineer stood now in the central office looking at him, a dark crimson stain shiny and wet, covering his chest.

“You. It’s…you” Broadgate’s mind, trained to expect and prepare for the unexpected, coughed and spluttered on fuel too rich for clear thought.

“The young one now wanders through the valley of the lost, pain cleansing his soul from the sins he has done under you.” The engineers voice spoke the words in a slow sibilant whisper, “Zarathustra has chosen me as his principle, you are to be brought to the tower of silence.”

Broadgate, sweat breaking out all over his body, took a single step backwards. The engineer was young and strong, more than a match for him. “Look, if you put the weapon down and allow me a telephone call we might save young Anthony over there – and I can help you – I’ll do my best for you. I promise I will.” He hesitated, there was something about the way the engineer moved: fluid, graceful, inevitable.

“You will come with me and be saved,” the engineer advanced to within a foot of Broadgate. The corpulent man shook with fear. “Now.” the wrench smacked into the side of Broadgate’s face, instantly dislocating his jaw and breaking his cheek bone. An avalanche of pain swept into his mind, muffling sound, whiting out vision and finally, freezing consciousness.


“An Kana Ran situana. Kal pursa, palt resinal pur sen knellitan, lessena clawsantalana par rakal ten trasana.” The voice crept into his mind as part of a nightmare vision of suffocation. He tried to move his arms, but found them impossibly heavy. Then his feet, which moved only a little. Blinking back salt he stared into the black eyes of the engineer. The man, an inch from his face, spoke a series of incomprehensible words, some came as a shout, some no louder than a whisper. Turning his head he saw trees through the darkness. Dimly he became aware that he was tied to a great wooden box that hummed and growled. The engineer was with him, sometimes crouching, sometimes standing, always reciting the strange incantation. Broadgates eyes closed down to tunnel vision, then winked out again.


“Now you are ready, it is time to end this ceremony, you will be cleansed from this place, this world.” The engineer whispered, this time in his ear. Broadgate opened his eyes a crack and saw the eyes and beak of a crow. It stood on his chest. He closed his eyes again, wishing the vision away, hoping to end the madness of a fevered dream. “Because you are in greatest need of deliverance I have decided that something extra is needed to bring you to the breast of Zarathustra.” Broadgate felt a second pain sharply break into his mind, this time his arm. Struggling against his bonds he whipped his head toward the engineer. The man was eagerly sucking at a slash cut into the middle of his tethered arm. Watching on, teeth bared in agony, Broadgate saw the engineer remove his mouth, watch the blood well out of an artery for a full minute – then violently plug the incision with a piece of copper pipe. Broadgate made an attempt at crying for help, nerve endings twitched inside his mouth, hoping to move the pulverised flesh in some ordered fashion, to make sound, to bring someone, anyone. Suddenly, without warning, the angry humming beneath him stopped. In the absence of noise came the dawning realisation of where he was tied. The air-conditioning system.

“Pleesh,” he pushed the word from his lungs, by-passing any attempt at using his jaw. As he gasped the word he felt a third violent pain, this time his other arm, “Pleeesh, no…”

“Your voice now is almost ended. Your anger now is close to subsided. I will deliver you into the air where peace will always surround you. To help me, the mighty AC will cleanse you. Then the servants of silence will come and take your flesh and my work will be done.” The engineer spoke the words as much to the sky as to Broadgate, who had lost consciousness again. “You will be merely an extension of the AC.” the engineer took a third copper pipe and stabbed it deep into the angry mans windpipe. The man’s eyes opened wide and his mouth worked as if forming a scream. No sound came. Quickly attaching a rubber hose to the windpipe tube he sucked until blood welled out. Picking up the decanter, stolen earlier, he emptied the pungent contents onto the roof. Placing the windpipe tube over the neck of the decanter it began to fill.

Norman Marshall had never felt better, replacing the stopper on the decanter he held it overhead watching as the moonlight played over the fine clarity of it’s structure, a structure that imprisoned the evil of the mans words. “My work is near done Zarathustra.” Placing the decanter carefully at his feet he smiled at the crows that had assembled themselves, in readiness, over the mans body.

“Fan siphon fixed to airway, radiator fin fixed to arterial veins.” Taking a Stanley Blade the engineer made several deep cuts running the length of the mans body, cutting through clothes and skin to reveal the blubbery fats that he knew would be there. The man gurgled a little. Kneeling in prayer one last time Norman dreamt of a warm welcome for the angry mans lost soul, then he flicked the switch. The AC roared into action, instantly vacuuming the man’s lungs, causing them to implode. The air now part of the AC, clean and good. The man’s blood was pumped systematically out of his body, directly into the radiator fins, then replaced with boiling waters, the life force of the AC. All part of the cleanse, the special treatment required for this case. Norman watched the angry man jump and contort, then die, then begin to leak pink diluted filth from every pore. He then nodded at the crows, which on command began to peck eagerly at the pink carrion that had once been a legal genius.

“I know that the AC will warm your heart during the darkest of nights, just as the blood of your words will warm my own, “ Norman stroked the fat mans face as if in farewell, “and I hope the contents and memory of your heart continue to warm this house for many cold winters to come. Blessed prophet, let it be so.” With that, the engineer picked up his tools and left the manor house for good, happy that he had a new job, happy with how warm the angry mans heart was, happy that Zarathustra would be happy with him and that he could continue to do his job – serving the prophet. So happy.

He did not go home.





Chris McCann. June 2000.