The Soul of the World
by John McGroarty
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: None.
Description: Can Lizzie exorcise the anxiety that torments her?
_____________________________________________________________________
Lizzie knew about the darkness. How it would rise up from the earth and take possession of the bones and the sinews and the soul of her. A little homunculus of fear and anxiety and guilt it was. Tears like blood seeping from its almond starred eyes. From its oblong head and slimy torso. Life destroying it was. Lizzie knew that. But how to fight it? How to defeat it? She looked at the office clock. Three. The hour Sartre had said was either too early or too late to do anything. Not for her today. She stood up and put on her coat, the new green one she had bought at Selfridge’s sale. She looked across at Jimmy Quinn. He looked content. He liked his job. He was jingling his change frantically and boring big Peter Murray about the football and the Liberal Democrats. He glanced at Lizzie, taking in the fact that she was leaving early. Dolly looked up too. She was too stupid to be anything else but happy. What with her two children and red-bearded husband and her weekends in the Lake District. Wandering all harmonious like daft meaningless clouds through the Wordsworthian hills. Patsy Ralston was worse. Resigned to the aesthetic. He would force his books on you given the chance. The detective Paddy Sprite series. Noir stories. What the hell did that moron know about a noir life? With his never put a foot wrong wife and top of the class children and happy childhood. It was just a hobby, just a hobby. Aye. Jimmy Quinn approached Lizzie, rattling his change in a demented way. In more than ten years working together Jimmy had never shown any sign of higher intellectual functioning. Never shown any particular skill beyond the three Rs he had been taught at primary school. He applied this great academic achievement to voting for Nick Clegg. He went to the football at the weekend and was big on Formula One. On Sundays he went for drives in the country with his wife. He was a thing in itself, part of the office. Like the PC or the stapler.
“Three already,” he said, without the hint of a sigh in his voice.
Lizzie hated him. Hated them all. Her face twitched.
“Who is it this weekend?” she asked, just managing to keep her disgust in check.
“Hamilton Accies in the Cup,” said Jimmy, to his credit not too animatedly.
She picked up her handbag and left the office.
Outside, Lizzie moved up Sauchiehall Street, crossed the motorway and headed in the direction of the park. You are really bad today, Marlowe, she thought. This was her Friday routine. Afternoon tea and tart in a café and half an hour browsing in the second hand bookshops. It was one of the small things that kept her sane. For it was a mad world. And that was the thing. To keep yourself sane in the midst of it all. Especially when the darkness was on you. She knew that people thought her odd. A queer fish. But she didn’t care. Maybe she had read too many books. That was Eddie’s answer when she wanted to talk about something. About what it all means. About where we are going. All of us. He would get up, make an excuse and go to the kitchen for something, mumbling that this was getting too deep. Her sisters were the same. Cathie had told her that she didn’t live in the real world, that life was hard, that she had to accept it. Buckle down. Grow up was what Lizzie imagined that she thought she meant. She felt alone. Alone with the darkness. The last months had been hell. The constant panic and anxiety. Sleeplessness and no calm.
She went straight to the bookshop as she didn’t fancy a coffee. Shredded her nerves worse anyway. She started browsing in the philosophy section. Behind her a presence. She turned slowly. The old man who owned the shop was standing there.
“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?” he said.
“No, nothing special,” she said.
It wasn’t a book she was after. The man reached out and took her arm. “Come with me, I have a book you might like.”
He picked up a book from behind the counter and handed it to her.
“The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” he said, “Dostoevsky, one of his last stories.”
“I’ve read it, a hundred times, it doesn’t help now.”
Lizzie got her purse out.
“No charge,” said the man.
“He wasn’t really a human being, you know, Dostoevsky,” he continued.
“No, he wasn’t,” agreed Lizzie.
“No,” said the man, “but who cares about such things now, eh? Just academics. People think you are mad if you talk about Dostoevsky or Kierkegaard or things like that, people get a little suspicious.”
He licked his lips pronouncing suspicious. He started to laugh.
Lizzie started to say something and the man made a sign to say that a response was not needed.
“Come on, let me treat you to a coffee,” he said.
He took the book and put it in a brown paper bag. He then pulled on a coat and ushered Lizzie out of the shop.
In the café they bought mugs of hot chocolate and two, the man insisted, large slices of home-made apple pie.
“How did you know, about Dostoevsky?” Lizzie asked the man.
He chewed, swallowed, wiped his mouth.
“You just look like you read that sort of stuff; you look a little in des……” The man cut himself off. He took another slice of apple tart onto his spoon.
“A little what?” said Lizzie.
“A little, how can I say, oh, you know.”
He smiled.
Lizzie felt awkward. The anxiety rose up in her breast again. A clavicle knot.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said, “I know what you’re looking for, and I thought that Dostoevsky was your man, that’s all.”
There was silence and then Lizzie said, “Things are moving too quickly, I can’t find my feet and nobody cares.”
“Aye,” said the man, “it all moves so quickly, aye.”
Her mobile sounded. She listened for a few seconds. “Yes,” she said, “next Friday, okay, see you later.”
She turned to the man, “That was Eddie, my husband; we’re going to Naples for next weekend.”
“That will be nice,” said the man. His eyes flashed.
“Eddie is a good man, he thinks that if we see the world I will be happy. You were going to tell me what I was looking for,” she said.
“Oh yes,” said the man, “you are looking for that thing that we lost somewhere.”
He scooped up the last of his pie.
“I can never find it. I don’t believe, it’s impossible,” she said, “nothing, I believe in nothing, not even in books now.”
“It makes no difference if you believe or not, there is a God,” he said.
Put down his spoon next to the empty bowl. Thought for a minute, picked it up and put it inside.
“Can I show you something?” he asked.
“Okay, but what …?”
“It’s what you’re looking for. Your soul. The soul of man, the soul of the world.”
He stood up and put on his coat.
Lizzie scrambled to her feet.
She took the man’s arm and they walked down the street and moved into the park.
Night had fallen and the park was sinister. There were shapes lurking in the shadows. Lizzie held on tight. You could see the stars.
“I mony an unco warl’ the nicht the fatefu’ bairnies cry,” she said.
“I was thinking the same, do you write poetry?” the man asked.
“Oh no, just appreciate, well, when I was a teenager I wrote some things and sometimes I get ideas, you know, sort of inspirations.”
“You should write, it helps. The only thing that does. It will all be over soon anyway.”
“Aye, but I have a lazy streak.”
“Aye, that’s one of the problems, no doubt about it. Did you like school?”
“Some of it, but I never let it show, you know, give yourself away.”
The man laughed.
“During the exams when I heard that sound, you know, the frantic scribbling of ballpoints, like rats trying to gnaw their way out of a sinking ship, well I just couldn’t, anyway, it’s all one now.”
“It’s too late to scribble your way out.”
They walked on in silence. Lizzie didn’t feel cold. She was making some kind of confession.
“Are we going to the Art Galleries?”
“Aye. I know a way in at night. ”
They walked across the car park.
“What do you think of the new Galleries?” the man asked Lizzie.
“I preferred it the way it was before. It was like going to Mass, now it’s like going to a shopping centre.”
“In here,” said the man.
He opened a small door with a key he had produced from his coat pocket.
They went inside and started to descend a flight of stone steps.
“It’s hot,” said Lizzie.
“Oh aye, it’s hot,” said the man.
They reached a big chamber at the bottom of the stairs. There were lots of people working in a room like a medieval factory. They were pushing boxes on wheels towards a huge incinerator at the end of the hall. Lizzie took off her Miss Selfridge coat. She was sweating. She looked in one of the boxes and started back, stifling a scream. She looked at the man with horror in her eyes.
“There you have it,” he said, “the soul of modern man.”
Then she heard it. The babies screaming. Wailing. She walked down the rows of people pushing the incubators towards the flames. There at the end was a Lincolnish man in a top hat throwing the babies into the fire.
“All around the world in the places of the highest culture there are chambers like this, burning bairnies, on this warl’, the nicht. Listen to them scream, it’s the future that we’re burning, their future, listen to their souls screaming.”
Lizzie could hear it clearly now. Her anxiety torment. The souls screaming. She ran up the stairs and out into the night. She kept running down towards the River Kelvin. She knew it now. No more doubt. Her instincts were right. Her soul was already on fire. The soul of man was already on fire. She plunged into the water and splashed through and out into the park. She ran wildly through the trees for half an hour. Completely alone she was. With the trees and the stars and the defeated sylvan Gods. She sat down on a bench in the dark. She opened her coat and ripped out the homunculus of fear from her breast. It slithered in her fingers trying to escape and enter her body again. But now she knew. With knowledge she could defeat it. She walked back down to the river and drowned the homunculus of fear in the cold river Kelvin. She washed the slime off her hands and headed home. In some far off way, she felt strangely happy.
Swearwords: None.
Description: Can Lizzie exorcise the anxiety that torments her?
_____________________________________________________________________
Lizzie knew about the darkness. How it would rise up from the earth and take possession of the bones and the sinews and the soul of her. A little homunculus of fear and anxiety and guilt it was. Tears like blood seeping from its almond starred eyes. From its oblong head and slimy torso. Life destroying it was. Lizzie knew that. But how to fight it? How to defeat it? She looked at the office clock. Three. The hour Sartre had said was either too early or too late to do anything. Not for her today. She stood up and put on her coat, the new green one she had bought at Selfridge’s sale. She looked across at Jimmy Quinn. He looked content. He liked his job. He was jingling his change frantically and boring big Peter Murray about the football and the Liberal Democrats. He glanced at Lizzie, taking in the fact that she was leaving early. Dolly looked up too. She was too stupid to be anything else but happy. What with her two children and red-bearded husband and her weekends in the Lake District. Wandering all harmonious like daft meaningless clouds through the Wordsworthian hills. Patsy Ralston was worse. Resigned to the aesthetic. He would force his books on you given the chance. The detective Paddy Sprite series. Noir stories. What the hell did that moron know about a noir life? With his never put a foot wrong wife and top of the class children and happy childhood. It was just a hobby, just a hobby. Aye. Jimmy Quinn approached Lizzie, rattling his change in a demented way. In more than ten years working together Jimmy had never shown any sign of higher intellectual functioning. Never shown any particular skill beyond the three Rs he had been taught at primary school. He applied this great academic achievement to voting for Nick Clegg. He went to the football at the weekend and was big on Formula One. On Sundays he went for drives in the country with his wife. He was a thing in itself, part of the office. Like the PC or the stapler.
“Three already,” he said, without the hint of a sigh in his voice.
Lizzie hated him. Hated them all. Her face twitched.
“Who is it this weekend?” she asked, just managing to keep her disgust in check.
“Hamilton Accies in the Cup,” said Jimmy, to his credit not too animatedly.
She picked up her handbag and left the office.
Outside, Lizzie moved up Sauchiehall Street, crossed the motorway and headed in the direction of the park. You are really bad today, Marlowe, she thought. This was her Friday routine. Afternoon tea and tart in a café and half an hour browsing in the second hand bookshops. It was one of the small things that kept her sane. For it was a mad world. And that was the thing. To keep yourself sane in the midst of it all. Especially when the darkness was on you. She knew that people thought her odd. A queer fish. But she didn’t care. Maybe she had read too many books. That was Eddie’s answer when she wanted to talk about something. About what it all means. About where we are going. All of us. He would get up, make an excuse and go to the kitchen for something, mumbling that this was getting too deep. Her sisters were the same. Cathie had told her that she didn’t live in the real world, that life was hard, that she had to accept it. Buckle down. Grow up was what Lizzie imagined that she thought she meant. She felt alone. Alone with the darkness. The last months had been hell. The constant panic and anxiety. Sleeplessness and no calm.
She went straight to the bookshop as she didn’t fancy a coffee. Shredded her nerves worse anyway. She started browsing in the philosophy section. Behind her a presence. She turned slowly. The old man who owned the shop was standing there.
“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?” he said.
“No, nothing special,” she said.
It wasn’t a book she was after. The man reached out and took her arm. “Come with me, I have a book you might like.”
He picked up a book from behind the counter and handed it to her.
“The Dream of a Ridiculous Man,” he said, “Dostoevsky, one of his last stories.”
“I’ve read it, a hundred times, it doesn’t help now.”
Lizzie got her purse out.
“No charge,” said the man.
“He wasn’t really a human being, you know, Dostoevsky,” he continued.
“No, he wasn’t,” agreed Lizzie.
“No,” said the man, “but who cares about such things now, eh? Just academics. People think you are mad if you talk about Dostoevsky or Kierkegaard or things like that, people get a little suspicious.”
He licked his lips pronouncing suspicious. He started to laugh.
Lizzie started to say something and the man made a sign to say that a response was not needed.
“Come on, let me treat you to a coffee,” he said.
He took the book and put it in a brown paper bag. He then pulled on a coat and ushered Lizzie out of the shop.
In the café they bought mugs of hot chocolate and two, the man insisted, large slices of home-made apple pie.
“How did you know, about Dostoevsky?” Lizzie asked the man.
He chewed, swallowed, wiped his mouth.
“You just look like you read that sort of stuff; you look a little in des……” The man cut himself off. He took another slice of apple tart onto his spoon.
“A little what?” said Lizzie.
“A little, how can I say, oh, you know.”
He smiled.
Lizzie felt awkward. The anxiety rose up in her breast again. A clavicle knot.
“Don’t feel bad,” he said, “I know what you’re looking for, and I thought that Dostoevsky was your man, that’s all.”
There was silence and then Lizzie said, “Things are moving too quickly, I can’t find my feet and nobody cares.”
“Aye,” said the man, “it all moves so quickly, aye.”
Her mobile sounded. She listened for a few seconds. “Yes,” she said, “next Friday, okay, see you later.”
She turned to the man, “That was Eddie, my husband; we’re going to Naples for next weekend.”
“That will be nice,” said the man. His eyes flashed.
“Eddie is a good man, he thinks that if we see the world I will be happy. You were going to tell me what I was looking for,” she said.
“Oh yes,” said the man, “you are looking for that thing that we lost somewhere.”
He scooped up the last of his pie.
“I can never find it. I don’t believe, it’s impossible,” she said, “nothing, I believe in nothing, not even in books now.”
“It makes no difference if you believe or not, there is a God,” he said.
Put down his spoon next to the empty bowl. Thought for a minute, picked it up and put it inside.
“Can I show you something?” he asked.
“Okay, but what …?”
“It’s what you’re looking for. Your soul. The soul of man, the soul of the world.”
He stood up and put on his coat.
Lizzie scrambled to her feet.
She took the man’s arm and they walked down the street and moved into the park.
Night had fallen and the park was sinister. There were shapes lurking in the shadows. Lizzie held on tight. You could see the stars.
“I mony an unco warl’ the nicht the fatefu’ bairnies cry,” she said.
“I was thinking the same, do you write poetry?” the man asked.
“Oh no, just appreciate, well, when I was a teenager I wrote some things and sometimes I get ideas, you know, sort of inspirations.”
“You should write, it helps. The only thing that does. It will all be over soon anyway.”
“Aye, but I have a lazy streak.”
“Aye, that’s one of the problems, no doubt about it. Did you like school?”
“Some of it, but I never let it show, you know, give yourself away.”
The man laughed.
“During the exams when I heard that sound, you know, the frantic scribbling of ballpoints, like rats trying to gnaw their way out of a sinking ship, well I just couldn’t, anyway, it’s all one now.”
“It’s too late to scribble your way out.”
They walked on in silence. Lizzie didn’t feel cold. She was making some kind of confession.
“Are we going to the Art Galleries?”
“Aye. I know a way in at night. ”
They walked across the car park.
“What do you think of the new Galleries?” the man asked Lizzie.
“I preferred it the way it was before. It was like going to Mass, now it’s like going to a shopping centre.”
“In here,” said the man.
He opened a small door with a key he had produced from his coat pocket.
They went inside and started to descend a flight of stone steps.
“It’s hot,” said Lizzie.
“Oh aye, it’s hot,” said the man.
They reached a big chamber at the bottom of the stairs. There were lots of people working in a room like a medieval factory. They were pushing boxes on wheels towards a huge incinerator at the end of the hall. Lizzie took off her Miss Selfridge coat. She was sweating. She looked in one of the boxes and started back, stifling a scream. She looked at the man with horror in her eyes.
“There you have it,” he said, “the soul of modern man.”
Then she heard it. The babies screaming. Wailing. She walked down the rows of people pushing the incubators towards the flames. There at the end was a Lincolnish man in a top hat throwing the babies into the fire.
“All around the world in the places of the highest culture there are chambers like this, burning bairnies, on this warl’, the nicht. Listen to them scream, it’s the future that we’re burning, their future, listen to their souls screaming.”
Lizzie could hear it clearly now. Her anxiety torment. The souls screaming. She ran up the stairs and out into the night. She kept running down towards the River Kelvin. She knew it now. No more doubt. Her instincts were right. Her soul was already on fire. The soul of man was already on fire. She plunged into the water and splashed through and out into the park. She ran wildly through the trees for half an hour. Completely alone she was. With the trees and the stars and the defeated sylvan Gods. She sat down on a bench in the dark. She opened her coat and ripped out the homunculus of fear from her breast. It slithered in her fingers trying to escape and enter her body again. But now she knew. With knowledge she could defeat it. She walked back down to the river and drowned the homunculus of fear in the cold river Kelvin. She washed the slime off her hands and headed home. In some far off way, she felt strangely happy.
About the Author
John McGroarty was born in Glasgow and now lives in Barcelona, where he works as an English teacher. He has been writing short stories for many years. His long short story Rainbow, his novel The Tower and his short fiction collection Everywhere are McStorytellers publications.
You can read John's full profile at McVoices.
You can read John's full profile at McVoices.