Ben Elton - This Other Eden

BEN ELTON

This Other Eden

ForSophie

In which a much-loved man

pursues the elusive green light

Arats tale.

A rat feeds greedily onrotten meat.

A ratfeeds greedily on rotten human meat. A rotting, human limb, attached toa living body.

Thedesperate man knows it will be easier to detach the limb from the body than therat from the limb. The diner is stronger than the dinner, for the diner has nodrug to numb its pain. The rats head is buried deep in the silver green flesh,its claws hidden beneath the blackened skin. Only its plump body and twitchingrump can be seen as it pushes deeper and deeper into the decaying muscle. Thedesperate man knows that the hungry rat will never let go. Yet if it remains,how long before it or its friends and relations discover the living meat beyondthe putrid thigh? Not very long, surely, and even a rat must prefer fresh meatto foul.

If oneis to die, then there are better ways than being eaten alive by enormousflea-ridden rats; even in his weary, drifting state, the man can see that.Swallowing two sparkling capsules, the only bright thing in his dull world, theman waits for the drugs to rush his brain and then takes up his big knife. Theknife is blunt, but the flesh is rotten and falls apart before the blade, as ifit has been braised. In a moment, man and leg are parted. His mind on other things,he pulls himself away, leaving the rat to its refreshment.

This ishow it will be in the century to come. No savage biker tribes, no lone still-humanheroes, no Mad Max millennium, only ill, old people and large hungry ratseating them.

Thosewho love you hurt you most.

Nathan knew it was good;it was the best work hed ever done. That was why he so desperately wanted thejob. This was more than just a bit of seriously good copy. This was prophecy,this was the truth.

Buttelling the truth is never easy. Nathan was drained. The night Los Angelesre-ignited, as it did at regular intervals these days, he had been a prisonerin his hotel room for a week. Held captive not by a gunman or a sex criminal oreven the fantastical illusion that the room service he had ordered in aprevious life might one day arrive, but by a great and terrible desire toplease.

Therewere people in that town who loved Nathan and he had to justify that love. Heknew they loved him, for they had told him so many times, and they had alsosent a limousine to collect him at the airport, when they might easily havesuggested that he take a cab and keep the receipt. For a man used, as Nathanwas, to the finances of British radio this was big love indeed.

Sometimesthough, mere love is not enough. In Hollywood one can be embraced and rejectedwith equal fervour and integrity by the same people and at the same time. This,over the years, had led to movie people getting something of a reputation forcraven hypocrisy. But there is nothing disingenuous about combining love withrejection. It is quite possible, and indeed reasonable, to like and admire,yes, even love somebody without wishing to commit hundreds of millions ofdollars on the strength of their script.

Everyday, all over town, writers faced producers, producers faced bigger producers,bigger producers faced studio heads and the same tortured mantra was heard:You are a great artist and we all love you. Speaking personally, yours is thekind of talent that was the reason I came into this business in the firstplace. Will we be picking up your project? No, I dont think so, but thatsabout us, it isnt about you.

Nathanunderstood his position. They loved him, but he frustrated them for, try as hemight, Nathan had so far been unable to produce a scenario in which the plot curvedsufficiently or in which the characters possessed heart, moral worth and,above all, warmth.

Itsno good this guy dying, one-legged in a polluted world, the men who lovedNathan would tell him, if we dont care that he dies.

Nathanunderstood what was required of him. He returned to his room and tried to makethe people who loved him care; for if they cared, then so would Mr and MsAmerica, and if Mr and Ms America cared then it was a reasonable presumptionthat the whole world would care. That was Nathans brief, to make the wholeworld care. If he could achieve that then he would truly have justified thefaith which Plastic Tolstoy had placed in him. With this thought Nathan turnedwearily back to his computer. For when Plastic Tolstoy placed faith in you, itwas wise to justify that faith. For Plastic Tolstoy was the most important manin the whole communications industry. It was his job to market the end of theworld.

Everythingis fascinating when you should be working.

All week Nathan had mopedfrom his bed to his desk to his bathroom and back to his bed. Trying to thinkof ways to make those who loved him, Mr and Ms America, the world in generaland above all, Plastic Tolstoy, care. But everything is fascinating when youshould be working, and Nathan had also spent his week fighting the desire tostare out of the window, leafing through magazines and flicking through theendless permutations available on the in-room entertainment system.

TheHitler trial was reaching its climax. That sad, grey monster stood before thecameras every day, his shocked and baffled face devoid of any real understandingof the crimes they told him he had committed. Under normal circumstances DNAcloning was banned; the world was overcrowded enough without people re-growingthe dead. However, when a lock of Hitlers hair had been unearthed, the WorldCourt ruled that an exception might be made, the general feeling being thatHitler was one villain for whom being dead should not prevent justice beingdone. Besides, the UN was as always hugely in debt and the TV rights to thetrial were worth a fortune.

Nathancarried on through the news channels. They were all pretty similar which,considering they were all owned by the same company (Plastic TolstoyCommunications System), was hardly surprising. The daughter of the British kinghad been videoed turning tricks in Piccadilly, although a lot of people said itwas just a clever hologram. Jurgen Thor was to address the European parliamentyet again, on the subject of banning or at least massively taxingClaustrospheres. A new fish had been developed that was capable of surviving inthe dead waters of the Atlantic; a fish which had the added advantage of beingso radioactive it could cook itself while the busy house-spouse prepared asalad.

Undernormal circumstances Nathan would not have dreamt of watching a news item aboutmarine research. Nor would he have allowed himself to get sucked into a publicforum-style chat-show, where victims of pedestrian-dog faeces encounter werebrought together with dog-owners, in order to come to terms with their anger.But everything is fascinating when you should be working.

Makingthem care.

Nathan snapped the TV off,as he had done a hundred times that week. He dragged his hand angrily from deepwithin the great plastic sack of Bacon Cheezos on his lap. He resisted thecolossal temptation to spend twenty minutes staring at the wall and scratchinghis balls. He avoided the Virtual

Realityhelmet beckoning him from the coffee table. He must concentrate, he must focus.He had to make those who loved him care.

What Ineed, Nathan mused to himself, is a kid a cute kid who is in some wayrelying on the dying man who chops off his leg ..

Nathangrabbed his Voice to Screen DictaType Transmitter. Suddenly, after all thewaiting and prevaricating, inspiration struck. The words tumbled out.

Allright, so the man has a child a tiny little girl who peeks out from herhiding place amidst the mountain of rotten garbage rotten stinkingputrid garbage Uhm shes dirty and thin but cute, verycute the dying world has yet to dull her bonny beauty nice sentence,