The Year of the Fruit Cake Read online

  Me, my problem is why the heck things went the way they went on Earth.

  If we go by what humans did and said to each other in that single year, then everything should have followed perfectly ordinary paths. They would have been Judged and either gone forever into the dust and debris of their solar system and their world freed for normal colonisation, or joined us as members of a colleague world. A very junior colleague world, given the evidence.

  Instead, the whole system is adrift and there are inquiries into forty-six different situations of which this was the first. The pivotal one that led to all the others, but merely one of forty-six. Forty-six irksome fruitcakes. In a surprisingly short time period.

  Incredible.

  If I were to list the main news items on Earth in a single day, then the whole subject looks cut and dried. You’ll be able to see our quandary more easily, perhaps. There’s both a problem and no problem at all.

  Before I make my little list, let me be frank about its contents: it doesn’t help. It’s part of my traditional approach, and this examination of main news headlines has to be shown not to work in this instance. Irksome fruitcake is still entirely inexplicable, and the situation is still a foul-smelling mess. Or maybe a chocolate-smelling mess. There’s certainly chocolate in this fruitcake. (I need to ponder upon the prevalence of chocolate.)

  Moreover, I can see nothing in a group of five middle-aged women that would cause our system to come crashing down. Nothing. And I can see everything in the shape of the Earth in that year that would cause a rational Judge to choose death. The continuation of whatever was happening on Earth just then wasn’t even an option. Humanity at that time was spiralling downwards, and no-one sane would think it had anything redeemable about itself. It’s that simple.

  Except, in reality, it wasn’t. Reality ignored all the equations and all the considered outcomes. We got irksome fruitcake.

  Yes, I like typing “irksome fruitcake”—right now I have very few small joys, so permit me this one. If there were a word in English for this phenomenon, I’d probably still have used “irksome fruitcake”, for it’s the best description of this situation I’ve ever seen.

  One single day. Let me take that one single day. Using random function is not a problem, as long as the time period I focus on comes from within the confines of the research period. So it’s a random date within a non-random context. This date will show you why I’m annoyed. Or maybe it won’t.

  That day is (drumroll, please): 3 November 2016

  The viewpoint is Australia, because that’s where everything went to pieces. All this means is that my list is derived from a composite of the Australian news headlines that day from various news sources, as compiled…by humans. What a surprise. I’ve quickly compared headlines from other countries’ viewpoints (with equal sarcasm, of course) and they’re no saner. In fact, the US is completely bonkers both in that year and on that day. If the Judgement had been made in the US…

  Thinking about alternate series of examinations that never happen­ed would be diverting, but it’s not going to help. It’s the sort of thing that humans consider, and humans are trouble. With a capital T. And besides, there’s always the (distant, but less distant than before) possibility that the fruitcake was not actually caused by the perversions of humanity.

  These are the top ten news stories in numerical order from a randomly selected Australian news compilation website.

  A man is found guilty of murdering his wife

  Someone retires

  A TV show will be continued in 2017, even though no-one watched it in 2016

  Someone apologises for causing a lot of trouble after he ignored safety proceedings and got lost in the bush

  Famous sportsman on trial for child sex

  Someone lost in another place ate wild greens to stay alive

  A senator resigns and the government loses the balance of power, just before critical legislation is put to the Senate.

  The fate of the world is at stake if Trump wins the election

  Rebels reject the latest offer from Russia, and Syria is still at war

  United Nations special rapporteur to investigate Australian immigration laws

  Ten is such a very human number. Sixes and tens make up so many of their counting systems. Personally, I’d rather have ninety-eight, but in this case, ninety-eight won’t be any more illuminating than ten. It’s more fun arithmetically, however. And more satisfying emotionally.

  Do you know how few humans spend their leisure time playing advanced arithmetic games? Almost none. Humans are depressing. They’re the flour in the fruitcake, if I want to take the metaphor too far. Which of course I do. In which case lions are the raisins. I like lions. I would eat one if I were given the opportunity.

  The headlines are listed in order of importance to the compiler of the stories. I erased the drama out of them and leeched all the shock from them. This is why they make such little sense. The sense is given to them in the way they’re written and the way they’re presented. Headlines help. One can’t judge a society on headlines, however. Well, one can, but one would get into trouble from the Ethics Board.

  I wonder why I’m bothering, even for completeness-sake. Except that they do show how warped humanity was in the year it was being judged. How it was very, very fortunate that we don’t judge species using this kind of material. Humanity had a chance. Several chances more than it deserved, in fact. I learned that from my early research.

  I hate human politics. I hate the way humans hate people. And it doesn’t help that now I’m using a human language and that my emotions are somewhat human. I hate the way humans hate people, and my hate is a very human hate.

  The fact that humans murder wives, damage children, ignore guidelines and rules, go to war, treat other humans harshly, is enough, isn’t it? Then one adds the human who was surprised he could stay alive by eating food that occurred naturally in the region he was walking, and the fact that entertainment need not be entertaining, and one wonders about the intelligence of the species.

  Except that when I learned the language, my perspective changed. The hate came into it, of course, as the emotions link more closely with one’s own as one enters the depths of language. From my new perspective, humans did all the bad things and all the stupid things and all the random things, and yet they still gave meaning to their lives and they hadn’t (mostly) destroyed themselves or the planet by the time we explored their world.

  And I can see why, however much I hate humans, their comp­lexity and capacity to learn means they couldn’t simply be disposed of by a superficial decision based on the Hitler report. We had to do more than go through the motions of Judging back then, and we have to do more than go through the motions of sorting this mess out now.

  We once deleted a species because they were capable of doing to us what humanity has already done to itself. This is why Judgement was established. Power is something that should never be wielded without due care. And once a species is dust, all we have are records. There’s a deep lack of ethics.

  I’ll be honest and admit that the only reason humanity had a second chance is because that first time was so catastrophic. We’ve changed (most of the time), but not that much, really.

  I don’t like the process. I also don’t like the fact that I’ve been delegated to find explanations. There’s no rule or guideline that says I have to be kind to humans. If I’m stuck seeing the close, small lives of the five women, and am solely reliant on sources they had ready access to for everything else, then so be it, but I don’t have to be polite or kind or gentle or nice. Humans aren’t nice, and I’m doing this study in a human language. If you want backup and evidence and so forth for this decision, look again at my list of ten. Examine it. Admire it. And accept that it forces me to be sarcastic. In someone else’s voice.

  The woman’s slow voice...
r />   was counting again

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. I was twelve in 1975. I say it often so that I can remem­ber. Twelve in 1975.

  I went to high school. I wore a uniform and I caught a bus. There was a lot more to high school than this, but every school day began and ended the same way: with a bus.

  I remember getting off the bus with my friend. Every day. I never remember catching the bus.

  I don’t know where the bus left from anymore.

  I ought to know. I caught it every day. Every school day for all those years. Six.

  I can count them. I can count the steps going down, one two three four. I cannot count them going up for I cannot remember going up any stairs into a bus at all. There was a vertiginous quality to descending the steps: it was personal. My feet were at war with the metal. Why can’t I remember ascending, then?

  I need help with my memory. There’s something wrong with it. I need to start counting again. Maybe if I count again, I can remember getting onto the bus. Counting is supposed to reinforce my human memory. That’s what the techs say. Every time they say it. I ask every time, as if it were the first.

  Every school morning. I remember sitting on the bus. My favourite seat was halfway down, where I could hear the boys at the back and see what was happening at the front. I can remember walking to the front and getting off. I can’t remember getting on the bus. I need to remember. It’s become important to me. A hole in the memory of a critical year of my life.

  Let me try again.

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. I was twelve in 1975. I say it often so that I can remember. Twelve in 1975. But I never got on that bus. I must have. But I never did.

  Let me try again.

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten…

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  “I really need my hot chocolate today,” said Trina. “I’m so full of PMT that fire will emanate from my eyes and smoke from my ears if anyone so much as looks my way ironically.”

  “I’m exceptionally thankful that I’m past that,” said Leanne, twiddling with the flower Janet had just given her.

  “I don’t get it as badly as you, for obvious reasons.” Antoinette’s daisy was sitting in her hair, its brightness providing counterpoint to the seriousness of her tone. “Sometimes I wish I could, then I see what my friends go through and I’m grateful. I would have loved to be able to become pregnant and bear my own children. But the full evil of overwhelming hormones? My teen years were more than enough,” Antoinette sounded yearning, despite the firmness of her statement. She recognised her mixed emotions and immediately qualified what she’d just said. “Mind you, I’d rather have had the capacity and a hysterectomy than to go the route I did.”

  Diana was the only one in the group who looked puzzled. “Hysterectomies are big operations, though,” she said. “It’s not the easy option.”

  “Nor is…whatever they call it these days. Gender confirmation?” said Janet.

  “I’m missing something, I believe,” said Diana. “A hop or a skip. My PMT is so bad that it feels as if I’m trying to break out of my own body, but that’s not what I’m missing, is it? It’s not having PMT at all.”

  “I have PMT,” Antoinette said. “HRT can’t actually give me periods, but I have cycles. I just don’t get PMT as impossibly as either of you, and I’ve never actually bled, obviously. And what you’re missing, Diana, is that I was assigned male at birth—I’m a transgender wom­an.”

  “Now it makes sense,” said Diana, “Thanks. I think this means we need chocolate all round, to support those who need it more.”

  “Yes! I like being supported in my time of woe.” Trina’s enthusiasm illuminated her woe. It was more marked than usual, and her voice was a little on edge. It sounded perhaps a trifle sharp. “And chocolate is our saviour.”

  Whenever any of them had any kind of hormonal fluttering from then on, it became an excuse for chocolate. Leanne complained, occasionally, that it wasn’t fair, leaving the menopausal woman out of things.

  “You’re having chocolate for all the years that went before,” said Janet. “You don’t need to earn it again.”

  The Observer’s Notes

  Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.

  —Marcel Proust, read online (quotation not verified)

  Today I’m obsessed with hands. When I stop thinking about hands, I worry about my husband. He didn’t come home last night and he can’t remember why.

  Hands are safer. I always watch hands, anyhow. If I look at them long enough, I can see so much about a person. Their age is easy. It’s the first thing I decide on, as a rule. Classify the easy aspects of a person first, then move on to the more difficult. Analysis depends on collection and the amount one understands, after all. And age is a straightforward datum.

  The man on my left right now is my current theoretical age (or thereabouts). His hands are still a little plump with adulthood but already a little stained with age. The woman on my right is younger—the stains are from outdoors and her skin shines from the sun.

  Data collection isn’t the only use I have for hands. I can tell so much about a person by their hands. I befriended someone once, because her hands were exquisite and graceful and reliable and trustworthy. Rare, rare hands. They reflected some of her inner self, which was sufficient. My husband’s hands reflect his inner self, too. Pragmatic. Solid. Mostly honest. Honest enough so that I know he was telling the truth when he couldn’t remember. We were both worried. All we could do was move on. Pretend it hadn’t happened. My memory is enough of a burden.

  I need to think of hands and to escape, but now, though, I’m tired of hands. Even the word is ugly to me. “Hands.” Too short a word. Too open a word. I dislike it.

  My obsession is not with staring at them and analysing them. I’ve done that. Duty has filled my soul and exhausted me.

  I’m tired of hands. Tired of grasping human digits. Tired of the curves and kinks. Tired of sun-stained and age stained. Tired of nail polish and stickers and cuticles and knuckles and tattoos. I gave my report yesterday and I’m already forgetting the reason for the obsession.

  My memory funks make a nonsense of my observations. Yesterday I knew hands. I had a vast array of data that I fed into our ever-hungry system. Today I’m a frail human being with slender paws that are just beginning to look old, and tomorrow all I’ll know is that I was obsessed with hands for a while and that I’m suddenly quite over that obsession.

  Hands will be annoying. Not just the word, but everything to do with them will frustrate me because they’ll point to things I knew and no longer remember. I’ll start learning my humanity another way, and I’ll take that into the next report. I’ll see humans afresh.

  I fail to achieve a deep or broad understanding by this method. What good is it to anyone? Why do they make me forget? And does this have anything to do with my husband going missing overnight?

  The woman’s slow voice...

  was counting again

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

  University. A place for lost people like me. Lost people who have reached drinking age. For some people it’s a bad thing that the two coincide, but for me it was most excellent. University and drinking were such a powerful combination. I learned how to blend. I learned how to belong. I argued and spat fire about politics. I laughed at anyone who took student politics seriously. I joined clubs for their social events, and especially for the wine and cheese parties. I sat on park benches and talked and talked and talked. My eighteenth year was the year of wine and cheese. And pizza. And coffee. And words. So many words.

&n
bsp; Money was a mystery. I could afford things, I know, for I remem­ber them so clearly, but I don’t remember holiday jobs. Holiday jobs weren’t important, anyhow. What was important was finding friends. People like me. Sharing pizzas. Drinking coffee until three in the morning. Bringing my intellect and emotions to bear on everything as if no-one had ever done this before.

  Becoming an adult.

  The Observer’s Notes

  “Go away.”

  —said by me, everywhere, all the time

  Why can’t I just find my burrow and squirrel into it and sleep out this cold? It comes from inside me, and nothing I do will help with it. Nothing. Not medication. Not rest. Not anything.

  Most certainly not this man who tells me thing after thing after thing as if I can pay attention. This man who asks me thing after thing after thing as if I can do each of them for him at once. This man who wants thing after thing after thing, as if his needs ought to be my universe. This man who can’t even find his socks.

  I can’t find my burrow because humans don’t have burrows. That’s why. They live together. Such a stupid, stupid thing to do.

  Stupid humans.

  Stupid virus.

  Notes towards an

  Understanding of the Problem

  “This isn’t our usual place,” Leanne said, stating the obvious with much satisfaction.

  “We plan something for weeks, and all you can say is ‘this isn’t our usual place.’” Diana was annoyed. “Any moment you’ll say ‘and these aren’t our usual flowers.’”

  “Well, they aren’t. Roses are not daisies. Not even in my imag­ination. Even yellow ones. And I’m a very amusing woman. I amuse myself all day long.” This was one of Leanne’s favourite sayings when she felt witty.