The other side of the coin.

I am lying awake with my girlfriend, Jill, who is asleep beside me. I never close the blinds as I like to wake to the sun striking my eyelids as it announces a new dawn through the expansive windows of my well-appointed, high-rise apartment. Jill stirs a little.

“Are you asleep,” I ask.

“Duh, yes”.

I smile to myself as I knew what her answer would be. Jill’s a night owl and I’m a lark.

“Well, don’t forget I’ve got an appointment today with that guy I told you about. Do you want to come with me?”

“Not really, I don’t know what you’re traipsing half way across town for just to buy an old coin anyway.”

“Why not?”  You know me. I can’t resist little oddities and curios, besides; it’s how I started off. It’s good for the soul.  Don’t worry, I shouldn’t be too long.”

“Who’s worried? Just don’t wake me when you get back,” she said snuggling back down into the duvet.

I collect anything. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than scouring through dusty second hand shops, making an offer for anything that catches my eye. Sometimes I get wind of a house clearance and would find myself climbing rickety steps into people’s attics to see what treasures lay within.

Friends likened me to a vulture feeding off the desperation of others who, finding themselves on hard times, had resorted to selling their personal belongings. But I just saw it as a service; they wanted rid and I loved to collect. Besides, I was no expert and I always offered them what I considered to be a fair price.

Eventually, my garage was so full I had to start selling items off to make room for more and, to my surprise; I found that I was turning quite a nice profit. And so my hobby became a business and it wasn’t long before I had opened first one shop, then another and then another. Times have never been better for an entrepreneur such as myself and now, thanks to the internet, a global market was there for the taking and the Americans and Chinese just can’t get enough of our faded empires bric-a-brac.

I fold back the duvet and get out of bed, being careful not to wake Jill who was sleeping soundly again. We have been together for nearly five years. She is stunningly attractive, fun to be with and we make a great team. We met at Sotheby’s, the world famous auction house, where she had a part time job presenting the lots. Her knowledge of antiques is far greater than mine but more than that she has a great business brain and it is thanks to the latter that has got me... us... where we are today.

After a shower and quick breakfast, I let Jill know that I’m off. She murmurs something unintelligible and I leave the apartment. It’s such a nice day and I decide not to take the Mercedes. The capacious lift, carpeted and cladded with polished mahogany and sparkling mirrors, whisks me silently down to the ground floor. The sidewalk “travellators” skim me past towering blocks of banks and shopping malls built of steel and glass, the sun arrogantly reflected from their windows. I hop off at the newly built Metro station where a sign boasts “… the latest technology in comfortable, subterranean cross-city travel” and its sleek train carries me silently and comfortably to my stop.

I step off the escalator and leave the station at my destination and narrow my eyes against the sunlight as I follow the pedestrianised street, dodging the throng of shoppers. The warm air is heady with the scent of flowers that are set in baskets that flank the street and I remove my jacket and sling it over one shoulder.

I’d been counting my blessings all morning, but things could have been so different. Not just for me, but for everyone in this bustling, wealthy, booming country. Some fifteen years ago there was a massive shift of economic power to Asia and the western countries relinquished their grip on the global world of finance. First the banks went under and then, despite the governments pumping ever more money into circulation, the value of currency spiralled downwards. Riots followed in all of the major cities, and governments were toppled. Anarchy took hold and there was even talk of war. But skilful negotiations from Western leaders with their Asian counterparts lead to a deal, a partnership, and though we had teetered on the brink and peered into the depths of the economic abyss we were pulled back and normality re-asserted itself. It’s funny, though, how I don’t remember much prior to then.

The email had contained clear instructions on the pub's location also, strangely, the seller had been especially specific on the time and how I must not be late. I checked my watch. There is still ten minutes to go before our agreed rendezvous time; enough time then to get a drink. Just before I step into the pub, a pretty young woman offers me a flyer for the latest fashion boutique that had just opened. I thank her and push it into my pocket.

It’s lunchtime and, as you'd expect on a weekday, the place is fairly quiet. I was expecting the interior to be chrome bar stools, leather sofas and waxed floorboards; the minimalist feminine-friendly type of bar that was springing up everywhere nowadays but it is decorated in the style of a traditional pub; new, but traditional. There is the usual thin spread of people around the bar: a young, smartly dressed couple and a sprinkle of office workers are knocking back lagers and eating lunch at the bar. I scan the room and notice an empty table in an alcove. I decide that I will park myself there as it has a good view of the street where I will be able to keep a lookout for the seller. I walk to the bar to get a drink and a pretty, young barmaid smiles and greets me.

“Good afternoon, Sir, what can I get you?”

“I’ll have a glass of house red, please.”

“Certainly, Sir.”

She measures out the drink with her back to me and I take the opportunity to admire her curves. She passes me the drink and I take a sip. It’s full–bodied and fruity, just like the barmaid, who smiles and gives me my change. I move away from the bar to take my seat and wait for the seller and it suddenly strikes me that I don’t know what the guy looks like. The seller had omitted to give me a description. I look towards the alcove and see someone is now sitting there and he’s staring straight at me. Tentatively, I walk towards him…

“Mr Illyushun?” I enquire. He seems a little startled and doesn’t respond and so I extend my hand and ask again.

“Excuse me, but are you Mr Illyushun? My name is Clarke, Peter Clarke.”

“Ah, my E-Bay name, call me Geoff but, no matter, yes, I am the seller of the piece you are after”.

He looks at my hand, stalls for a moment, and then shakes it briefly, our palms hardly touching. I notice that he has long, well manicured nails. His hair is long also, shoulder-length, which he pushes back behind his ears after first wiping his palms, discretely, down the sides of his jacket.

“Can I get you a drink?” I ask, noticing that he doesn’t have one before him.

“No, that’s O.K.,” he replies “I have another appointment in half an hour and so I can’t stay long.”

“Fair enough,”

I pull up a chair and sit across from him at the table. Geoff looks at me and smiles and says “No point in wasting time, is there.” and looking first to the left and then to the right produces a small package from the pocket of his coat and places it on the table between us. I pick up the package, open it, and tip its contents into the palm of my left hand. There are two coins, two Roman Lepta coins to be precise, the same coins that were said to be placed on the eyes of Christ after his execution and which, according to some academics, show up in the image on the Turin shroud; the Roman blanket that was placed over his body. I turn my attention back to the seller who is looking around the room as if it is the first time he had noticed it. He turns his head towards mine and there is a curious smile on his lips.

“Well?”

“Everything seems to be in order,” I say and hand him the agreed sum. He makes a tight fist around the money as if it should fly away and seems inordinately happy with the transaction. I immediately wonder whether I should have knocked him down a bit.

“Thank you, Mr Clarke, It’s been a real pleasure doing business with you, believe me, but now I must be on my way.”

I bid the seller goodbye as he leaves and take a sip from my glass. The wine tastes of vinegar and I spit it back into the glass. I’m surprised as it tasted OK before. A young couple sit down at my table and they kiss each other open-mouthed; their tongues wrestling like snakes. I watch, shocked by their apparent disregard for anyone else in the room. He starts to fondle her breasts and I get up to leave. As I pass by the adjoining table a hand grabs my elbow and I look down into the pitiful eyes of an old man.

“Spare us some money for a drink, will yer,” he slurs.

“I’m sorry, mate, but I’ve got no change,”

“Get him a drink, you miserable bastard,” says the youth.

“If you’re that bothered buy him one yourself,” I said as I pull my arm away from the old mans grip.

The youth stands up and glares at me; he’s tensed and ready for a fight but his girlfriend makes him sit down.

“Calm down,” she says “he’s not worth it.”  He holds my eyes for a while, leers, and then turns his head and shoves his tongue back into her mouth,”

The old man is crying now and wipes the tears away with his dirty sleeve. “I only want a drink. Just one more drink, please,” he implores.

I push my hand into my pocket and pull out a fistful of coins and drop them on the table in front of him. A couple of coins roll on to the floor and he chases them across the filthy, threadbare carpet. Leaving him, I make my way across the room as a loud shout and raucous laughter breaks from the bar. The office workers are drunk and the barmaid has drenched one of them with the soft drinks siphon. His colleagues are having a good laugh at him and I can see from his expression that he doesn’t see the joke.

He turns to me as I pass, cola dripping from his nose, and says “leaving so early, sunshine, come and join us for a drink”. I quicken my pace to the door and hear them laughing behind me. The loudest laugh was from the barmaid.

I step outside. No more than an hour had passed since I had first walked into the pub and yet it was so gloomy. The lowering monotony of the dark sky was made darker still from the noxious fumes pumping out of the in-numerous smoke stacks that thrust themselves impertinently skyward. My face tingles from the smog-filtered acid rain and I turn up the collar of my coat and hunker down into it as much as I can before continuing on my way. The streets are greasy with filth and damp and threatening knots of youths are hanging around on the corners. What the hell is going on? Am I going mad? I feel disoriented and afraid by the sudden change in the environment and I decide I need to get home, firstly, to make sure Jill is safe and then try to make sense of it all.

I make my way to the metro, walking close to the wall, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. I pass an alleyway and hear a girl scream. A youth is holding her up against the wall and I count at least another two males with him although it’s hard to see. The girl shouts “rape” and struggles to get away as he pulls at her blouse. I take a couple of steps into the alley, hoping that my presence will frighten them off,  but keeping a far enough distance should I need to take flight. I can see the girl clearly now, she looks at me with dead eyes; her lipstick, whore-red, smeared across her face.

“Rape,” she screams again and then laughs.

Her attacker turns to me and says “What the fuck are you looking at. Do you want some an’ all?”

I retreat from the alley and make my way to the Metro entrance. Carefully, because the treads are slippery, I make my way down the now stationery escalator. Judging by the amount of accumulated filth and litter on the treads it doesn’t look like the escalator has been in working order for a long time. When I reach the platform I saw before me a vision of Bedlam! Not one of the faces that stared hollowly back at mine was free from some sort of disease or evidence of malnutrition and a chorus of coughing and hawking was all around. The man standing next to me coughed thickly and spat out a thick gob of mucus onto the floor. He wiped the spittle from his unshaven chin and stared at me challengingly with rheum-filled eyes. A foul smelling breeze presaged the arrival of the dirty, ageing Metro train and it lurches to a stop with much squealing of brakes. I step into the dingy carriage and the train groans and wheezes as it picks up steam and stutters forward. Many of my fellow passengers are crippled and trying to maintain their balance with the help of a stick. A small child sat on the floor tugs at the hem of my coat. Looking down, I realised that my own clothes are as coarse and dirty as my fellow passengers.

It’s a relief to get out of the subway and walk the streets to my home. There are no gleaming towers and smart city streets; just row after row of depressing tenements against a backdrop of more chimneys pumping filth into the air. The apartment lobby walls are covered in graffiti and the lift doors were jammed half open. The smell of stale piss informed me that it had been used as a toilet. I climb the stairs to my floor and hear people arguing behind their doors as I pass.  I finally reach the door to my apartment, which is battered and sprayed with graffiti the same as the rest. I push open the door and let myself into the gloomy confines. Jill is sat in front of the television and gives me a weary wave of acknowledgement. She is as fat and lumpy as the old sofa she is sitting in. Her mousey hair hangs lank around her face as she pushes crisps into her mouth, her eyes fixed on the screen, as she watches a mindless game show.

I pull back the ragged curtains and a sickly greyish light illuminates the room through the filthy windows. Before me is a small table and on it is an ancient looking computer. I switch the computer on hoping to find something on the internet that could give me a clue to what has happened. While I wait for the computer to boot up I take the small package out of my pocket and examine its contents. I notice a small fold of paper lodged within which I carefully extract and unfold. It is a hand written note…

“Dear Buyer, by now you will be wondering what is going on. It is evident that the coins enables the owner to see things as they truly are, to see beyond the illusion within which we are all living. What happened exactly I cannot tell, but it is clear that civilisation has broken down and the governments are deceiving us into believing that we live in pleasant, ordered societies. How they do this I do not know. Maybe they have laced our water supplies with an hallucinogenic or perhaps they pump illusory drugs into the air from the chimneys?. What I do know is, that the longer you keep the coins in your possession the longer the effects of the coins will last and, who knows, possibly consigning you to endure the truth forever. I decided that I would rather live the illusion than the truth and that is why I have sold the coins on to you. The choice is yours, my friend but if you do decide to sell them, then extend this warning to them as I have to you. It is the only decent thing to do in a world that no longer understands the word.

Regards,

Illyushun”.

The hard drive in the computer whirs and clicks as the screen flashes on and off. I hope and pray it boots up OK. When it does I’ll load up E-Bay. I have a sale to make!