The 2084 Precept

By Anthony D. Thompson

THE 2084 PRECEPT (A Novel)

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and the stupidity of the human race, and I'm not quite sure about the former."
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

"Forgive them, for they know not what they do."
Jesus Christ (The Christian Bible, Luke 23-34)

What would you do if you met a businessman in a London coffee shop, who made you a ridiculous offer of €500,000...merely for you to participate in a series of interviews? Would you assume the offer to be that of a deranged person, a fraudster or a joker? And irrespective of that, for €100,000 in advance and non-returnable, would you attend an initial meeting? Well.....would you?
And if you did attend the initial meeting, and your interviewer claimed not only to be a successful businessman but also a discharged inmate of an institution for the mentally ill? And if he was suffering from the delusion that he was an extraterrestrial student, and that he wanted to interview you for his thesis on the dominant lifeform on this planet? And if the €100,000 advance turned out to be real? Would you report him to the authorities as a deranged person in dire need of care?

Or if you postponed reporting him, and the ensuing payments were also real and continued to flow, what then? And would you stop if subsequently questioned by an obscure department of the national security forces?

Interesting questions for cynical business consultant Peter O'Donoghue. Would you have done as he did?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthony D. Thompson
• Release date: May 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310130236

Anthony D. Thompson

The author describes his novel, 'The 2084 Precept', as a philosophical mystery. He is an Englishman but dislikes nationalistic (or as some prefer to say: patriotic) tendencies and describes himself as a European. He flits around those countries with whose languages he feels comfortable: Spain, Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland and the U.K. - and more or less whenever he feels like it. He also ventures further afield, but only from time to time. Fate appears to have turned him into a rootless human being - not a state of affairs he strongly recommends - but hey, you can't have it all.Anthony lives by the motto: "Life, basically, is time. And if you believe that time is the only thing we humans really possess, then the only rational thing to do with it is enjoy it."

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The tall, blond man was standing in the middle of the room. He was dressed casually. Sports jacket, chinos and a polo shirt. He was looking out of the window. The trees were leaning in submission to a strong wind and the snow was falling in gusty swirls and had made everything white already.

Nice day, thought the man to himself. But nothing which his overcoat and scarf wouldn't solve, and certainly it was no danger to his relaxed good mood. On the contrary, he liked wind and snow. Always had.

The room could have been a meeting room in a modern budget hotel. Simple furniture, white walls, the décor and the lighting easy on the eye. Looking good and smelling clean.

But the room was not a meeting room in a modern budget hotel. It was a meeting room on a ward in a U.K. low security unit for the mentally ill, a reduced security unit to which the man had eventually been transferred as his apparent return to sanity had become increasingly impossible to ignore.

The door to the room opened and he counted the number of people as they came in. Fourteen. More than usual for a meeting of this nature, he knew. But then, as he also knew, he was something of a celebrity. His was a rare case and had attracted a lot of attention. He had been the subject of many professional conferences, both internal and external, over a prolonged period of time.

Only to be expected of course. Years ago he had been classified as potentially dangerous, both to himself and to others. He had not actually harmed anybody but he nearly had. He had been insane. He had been classified as a DSPD patient—one of those who suffer from dangerous and severe personality disorders of various kinds. In other words, a potentially violent psychopath.

All of this he knew and agreed with. And then a remarkable improvement in his condition and his increasing ability to intelligently discuss and analyze his past and present situations had led to his transfer, thanks also to the modernized principles enshrined in the 1994 Reed Report, from his initial high security environment to a medium security one, and thence to this low security unit.

The man's repeated requests to be released and returned to the community had resulted in a gradual withdrawal of all medication. The psychological and psychiatric testing programs were intensified. Periods of escorted 'leave' outside of the institution were approved. After his transfer to the low security unit, a certain amount of unescorted leave was also added to the program. And eventually a recommendation was presented by the responsible consultant psychiatrist for an absolute discharge. And this had been approved by a First Tier Tribunal.

The man had been aware of the applicable procedures. He was aware of the fact that neither the Ministry of Justice nor any other jurisdictions were involved, as his detention had not been subject to any criminal or civil restriction orders. He was not surprised that the discharge had been an absolute one. Such discharges were rare for inmates with his given medical history, but they were not unknown. The psychiatrists must have been totally convinced of his return to sanity. Alternatively, they had possibly considered his detention all those years ago to have been a mistake of some kind, faulty judgment resulting in an overstatement of his medical condition at that time. Or even that his mental illness had, back then, and for whatever reason, been intentionally faked.

As the others sat down, the man also took a chair out of courtesy, placed his small suitcase beside him on the floor and laid his overcoat and scarf on top of it. He was calm and collected, and he continued to glance out of the window. At the snow, at the wind, at the freedom.

As is usually the case, he had been informed of his release several days ago. This was merely the formal goodbye. They told him again of his aftercare rights under section 117 of the MHA. They informed him that mental health and social care needs would be provided under the CPA umbrella whenever he wished and for as long as he wished. And they hoped he would be taking advantage of such facilities, in spite of his statement to the contrary.

The man had no friends. A social worker would, for one week, take over control from the Court of Protection of the £50,000 he had inherited when his mother had died two years ago. After that, control of the full amount, less accommodation and related costs incurred during that week, would revert solely to him.

They confirmed that the taxi had been ordered and would arrive in thirty minutes. They confirmed that it would take him to the hotel he had requested, where adjoining rooms had been booked for himself and a CPN. The community psychiatric nurse would assist and further evaluate him until a community support worker had helped him obtain permanent accommodation.

They repeated their wish that he maintain regular contact with the aftercare team. They reiterated the fact that, as mandated by the law, he was free from restrictions of any kind. They handed him his private documentation and his copies of the non-confidential medical documentation pertaining to his case history. And they wished him well.

The man had given them his full attention during these proceedings. He had done so out of courtesy and also because he had no reason to want to cause them any inconvenience, let alone trouble. These were pleasant people and they were genuine professionals. They had treated him well, and they were proud of their involvement in his progress toward a discharge.

He smiled and looked around the group for the last time. The Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, who was also the Clinical Director, was there. One of his assistants was there. The unit's general manager was there. A psychologist was there. Two registered nurses were there. A physiotherapist and an occupational therapist were there. The designated CPN, two social-cum-support workers, two health care nurses and a researcher were also there.

He stood up and said thank you. He wished them continued good health and success in both their professional and their private lives. He put on his overcoat and scarf. There was some shaking of hands and then he and his suitcase were accompanied out of the room by two male nurses. In addition to low security patients, there was a small medium security section on this site, and they had to pass through two locked doors to exit the ward and enter the main corridor. They then walked about one hundred meters to the next set of locked doors and hurried out into the swirling snow and crossed over an internal road to the reception building. Two electrically operated doors controlled their passage through the airlock area and then, nodding to the area's security man, they moved on and out into the institution's open portal.

Into the outside world. The sane outside world. So it is said.

The three persons who would accompany him to the hotel arrived. They waited and watched the snow swirling and falling until the taxi appeared. They climbed into the taxi and it drove off into the whiteness, its lazy blue exhaust spirals being snatched up by the wind and blown back without delay into their previous state of non-existence.

DAY 1

It was just one of those ordinary days.

A day pushing us closer to the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Assuming of course that you happen to patronize the Gregorian calendar, a solar calendar introduced in the year 1582 to replace the Julian calendar mandated by Julius Caesar’s minions in the year 46 BC. This reformed calendar changed the length of the year by 0.002%. It also retroactively confirmed its starting point as the year of birth of the key deity in one of our religions. Or, if you prefer, of that deity's self-proclaimed representative. But in either case in human form. Universal acceptance of the calendar in the western world took its time, but its adoption by Greece in the year 1923 completed the process.

On the other hand, if you are one of the large number of people who use a Chinese calendar, things are more complicated. The Chinese have a number of calendars, including lunar ones with 354 days to the year. They are all more or less complex and you could now be in the year 4,711 or in the year 102 or in some other year, depending on which one you use. You might also need to use a converter-calendar to check with the Western one in order to know how old you are and so on.

Alternatively, you may be the user of an Arab calendar, of which there are also several. But you would normally be the follower of one of the Islamic ones which tell you that you are in the year 1435 AH. The starting point here is the date of a journey, more or less forced, of that religion's self-proclaimed key prophet from Mecca to Yathrib (or Medina, as the latter is nowadays called).

And of course if you operate on the basis of a Hebrew calendar, the method used to measure your time is a notably singular one. This calendar is a lunisolar one. It gauges time by comingling three unrelated astronomical phenomena: the Earth’s rotation on its own axis, its own revolution around the sun, and the moon’s revolution around the Earth. Those utilizing this calendar are aware of the fact that the resulting inaccuracies require the corrective interpolation of a thirteen-month year from time to time. And you are now in the year 5775 which, as you know, is the year both the universe and the human species were created.

Not that it matters in the slightest, does it, what year we humans are in.

***

And in any case, as I was saying, it was just one of those ordinary days.

You know what I mean, you get up, you shave—if you are a man, that is—you paint yourself with various chemicals and so on if you are a woman, maybe also do a bit of shaving here and there, you go to work, you have coffee breaks, you have lunch, you go home, or you go to a bar or a restaurant or maybe to the movies or, if you are one of those kinds of people, to an art show or a museum, or maybe you just stay at home, maybe you read a book or, if you are one of those kinds of people, you watch T.V. Then you go to bed, and if you are lucky enough to still be at a decent stage of a relationship, maybe you have sex. And if you are really still into it, then maybe even before you go to bed. Or maybe you don't.

And maybe you take a bit of time while all of this is going on to send some daily prayers in a vertically upwards direction. Or—with bowed head or kneeling or both—vertically downwards. Or perhaps in an easterly direction. Or, feel free, in whichever direction you prefer. Or maybe you don't. Whatever.

And then you get up the next day and you do those same things all over again, more or less anyway. Life is what we call it. Others of course do different things such as being full-time caretakers of offspring—these caretakers being mainly female, although these days you never know—and this is the driving force in their lives, the main reason for their existence. Or so I am told and so they say.

Sociologists have estimated that the average adult in the developed world—ignoring for the moment what we mean by 'developed'—spends at least 16,000 days of his or her life in this way. That is a large whack out of anyone's life, considering that the adult lifespan of an average 'developed' human on this planet is approximately 22,000 days (out of a total span of around 30,000). How accurate this estimate is I have no idea, nor, what's more, do I care. And in any case, we are all unconscious for the equivalent of 10,000 of those 30,000 days. Sleep, we call it.

So, there we are, such is life, an existence of limited duration—extremely limited if you ask me—and exorbitantly limited for those who have had bad luck, or for whom bad luck awaits in the future. Time, in fact—if you think about it—is the only thing we really possess. And this, to a large extent, is what we do with it. We don't know why we do it, we just do it. It's the way things are, it's the way it is, there is no point in analyzing the matter.

And as for the meaning of it all, the purpose of it all, what is that supposed to signify? A laughable question for someone such as myself, who would simply reply that there is no meaning at all and there is no purpose either. But if we wish to be fair, and we do, I fully respect all other opinions including the one that the main reason is to have babies, spend tortuous, messy and stinky years of the limited number available trying to turn them into creatures identical or at least similar to yourself, sometimes failing and finding that you have produced a murderer or a rapist or a child molester or whatever, and more often than not - a statistical fact - at the same time going through hellish relationships, with or without a divorce or other forms of unpleasantness, in order to eventually…well, eventually what?

In order to eventually disappear, hop off, expire, kick the bucket, bite the bullet, perish, cease existing, vanish (I offend no religions here, I refer to vanishing from this planet).

And the foremost objective of all of this, or so I am told, is for the offspring to go off and do exactly the same thing in order also to vanish. Or whatever your preferred expression is – possibly a more cultivated one: decease perhaps, or pass away or pass on. And this vanishing is a theme all on its own. It can occur in prolonged pain, diabolical suffering, agony, torment and misery or—if you are lucky—it can occur abruptly and usually without prolonged agony as in traffic accidents, heart attacks and terrorist bombs. Or you get murdered. Or—if you really mess things up in the wrong way, at the wrong time and in the wrong place—it could occur in an electric chair. For example.

But according to those who claim to be in the know, there is indeed a purpose behind this convoluted and ongoing biological recycling exercise. They do not, however, say what it is—and going to a church is not going to enlighten you either. A church, according to my friend Steve, is merely a place where peculiarly robed persons who have never been to heaven stand up and boast about it to people who will never get there.

But, be all of that as it may, and without fear of repeating myself—joke—it was just one of those ordinary days.

***

It was about 10 a.m. on a warm spring morning, and it was a Friday, and I was feeling good. I was tooling my way across a corner of Green Park en route from my hotel to one of my breakfast haunts. The trees were showing plenty of green already, the birds were singing, the park was humming with people going to wherever people go to, and with a cup of coffee and my newspaper coming up, the world was great and perfectly in order.

For me at least. For others, including the 150,000 humans involved in one of our planet's compulsory daily occurrences, namely dying, not necessarily so.

I went down the pedestrian subway and up again on the other side, and I swung right into Half Moon Street. There are other Half Moon Streets in this country, and for all I know elsewhere, but I refer to the central London one here. London, England, that is, as opposed to those in ten other countries, including the eighteen to be found in the United States.

I turned out of Half Moon Street and into Curzon Street, strolled along to the café and settled myself down at a small outdoor table.

All tables in England are small. It's annoying.

Perhaps it's because the country is obscenely overpopulated and space is at a premium. As you possibly know, in 2013 England overtook Holland to become Europe's most densely populated nation, with nearly 400 inhabitants per km². In fact England is now one of the most densely populated countries in the world. A bit different, say, to a country like Namibia, which has a population density of 2.6 per km². But of course, 70% of England's population growth in recent years has been due to immigration.

Which reminds me of my friend Steve's thoughts on the matter. The birdbrains—one of Steve's charming sobriquets for politicians—running the U.K. have an immigration policy which places no restrictions at all and no limits of any kind on the numbers of qualifying migrants they have to accept. The few intelligent politicians (such as Enoch Powell in the middle of the last century) who explained what simple mathematical extrapolation is, and what the results of that would be, were first ignored and then ostracized. Well done guys! Three cheers! Get rid of Enoch. All and any of our critics are racists! Down the hatch chaps, Bangladesh here we come! Carry on, what?!

It's the same in the USA. Last year, fewer white babies were born than in non-white ethnic groups. And the white populations in Texas and California are already a minority. The discussion here is not about immigration, nor even about educated immigration versus ignorant, non-educated and therefore unproductive and expensive immigration. And it has nothing at all to do with racism, as certain handicapped imbeciles erroneously claim from time to time. The discussion is about restricting immigration in general so that you can keep the steady erosion of your own culture and your own standards down to a reasonable level. And which does not, naturally, prevent any of us from continuing to assist as many people as we wish on-site in their own native countries.

Or maybe the English have another, more obscure reason for their tiny and uncomfortable tables and chairs. Who knows?

My newspaper was not one of those hideous British tabloids, but the IHT—the International Herald Tribune. At least, that is what it used to be. Some newly promoted executive there recently used his or her superior brain power to change the paper's name to the International New York Times, presumably in the belief that consequently more Americans will buy it.

The coffee and croissants arrived and I flipped through the international news pages. Conflict deaths in five different countries (the good old human race), three terrorist suicide bombings (the good old human race), debt crises everywhere (the good old human race), and I was about to start on the important section—the sports section—when a shadow fell across my table.

As we know, this is what shadows tend to do when someone or something places itself between you and your light-source. I looked up in order to identify the origin, and there was a man standing there. Next to my table. Just standing there. Looking at me. And preventing the sunlight from reaching my table. And there were other tables free.

My first reaction in such a situation is to wonder whether this is just another of the many simple weirdos to be found on this planet; or perhaps one of those people whose pleasure it is in life to cause mild annoyance a few times a day; or whether he might even be a homosexual on the hunt, they´re all over the place these days, and more and more of them each passing year.

It reminds me of a short story I read ages ago, in which homosexuality had become the norm (if you are of the Christian persuasion, you would have to imagine that God had created Adam and Bruce) and the heterosexuals were hounded by the authorities and only able to meet in dark, dingy bars late at night, with half of them disguising themselves as members of the opposite sex.

I have nothing against homosexuals. They are simply aberrations of nature; nor are such aberrations restricted to the human animal. But it's not their fault, is how I look at it, nor can they do anything about it. Nor, I suppose, do they wish to. I accept them and ignore them and will continue to do so, providing they respect my personal space. Particularly, for example, on the beach. And providing that that short story hypothesis remains what it was: a hypothesis.

Nevertheless, and as I have mentioned, I was in a good mood. I merely raised a polite eyebrow to my silent observer, upon which he gave me a reasonably acceptable smile in return.

Excuse me sir, he said, "I am indeed sorry to trouble you, but I wonder if I may take up a moment of your time? I am conducting a survey and it really need only take about two minutes. A maximum of two minutes I assure you, I can guarantee you that. Or would it be preferable for me to return in a short while sir, after you have finished your breakfast?"

Well now, he sounded normal, he sounded educated—not something you can take for granted in the U.K. these days—and I liked the guarantee of the two minutes, something rarely proffered by most of the poor sods taking surveys. And anyway, it would be interesting to find out if he was telling the truth about the two minutes or not. A morsel of psychological entertainment on a sunny morning, why not?

He was dressed fairly formally and, it seemed to me, expensively. Dark blue overcoat, dark blue suit, black shoes, looked new, white shirt and a yellow tie you wouldn't find in one of your department stores for the masses. Early forties I would guess, a somewhat roundish face but not too fleshy, short blond hair, not too fat, not too thin, and a few inches smaller than myself but still fairly tall, around six feet. All in all an optically presentable kind of chap.

No, no, it's fine, it's no problem, I said pleasantly. I am usually pleasant of course, there is no point in being otherwise unless provoked. Which happens. Occasionally.

Take a pew and fire away, dear sir. My pleasure, I said. I didn't offer him coffee, not much point in doing that for just two minutes, I am sure you agree.

He sat down, awkwardly of course, hampered as all tall people are, and a lot of short ones also, by the smallness of the British tables and chairs. But he sat sideways to avoid bashing his knees against mine (aha, definitely educated). Otherwise I would have had to shift sideways. I do not enjoy physical contact with others, not even if I know them—good looking females, needless to say, being the exception to the rule, whether I know them or not.

Well, sir, I thank you for your courtesy, he said. "This survey is actually not a survey at all, sir. It is merely an initial contact with just one question, one single question, which is as follows. Would you possibly, I emphasize possibly, be prepared, I emphasize be prepared, to consider, and I emphasize consider also, undertaking a project for my organization, a perfectly legal project and to your satisfaction provably so, a consultancy role involving little or no active endeavor on your part? The project’s estimated duration is three months, perhaps even less. It pays a fee of €500,000, of which €100,000 will be paid in advance and is non-returnable. The latter is irrespective of the usefulness or otherwise of your contribution. It also retains its validity in the event you resign from the task prematurely. You may resign overnight by the way, without reason, and from our side, there is no requirement for a contract, either verbal or written. And, as I have mentioned, you would get to keep the €100,000."

All of this was spoken in a rush, perhaps because of the two minutes he´d quoted, and he leaned back in his tiny chair and looked at me carefully, as if trying to calculate what effect his ludicrous and impossible query might have had on me.

As well he might. I really don't need my pleasant mornings to be messed about with by conversations with nutcases or criminal fraudsters, whichever of the two he turned out to be. And so I just stared at him—I am good at staring—while considering the most effective and least offensive manner in which to reply and get rid of him. On the one hand, I wished to avoid any unpleasantness and on the other, I wished to return to my sports pages. No more wasting of my personal time on this fine sunny morning. No sir, this would go no further. That might result in my good mood mutating into a peevish one. And we wouldn't want that.

If I may be so bold, he said, we only have another twenty seconds or so, sir, he said, sounding for all the world like a normal, pleasant business person mentioning the need to reach a decision before an agreed contract deadline.

May God, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Thor or whatever your preference is, or whatever you were brainwashed into believing as a child, spare me. I should simply have said 'No', but I was desirous of saying 'No' in a way that would be fully understood, supporting my negative in other words, with a concise, clear and descriptive rationality which would allow no further room for discussion, nor for his continued presence at my breakfast table.

Which, if you look at it one way, was a mistake which involved me in a pretty weird series of events over the next few weeks, including an unwanted acquaintance with some rather obscure representatives of our national security forces. But if you look at it another way, it wasn't a mistake. Money is rarely a mistake and, as it turned out, I was to receive quite a lot of it. Sophie Tucker was the one who paraphrased it best. I've been rich, she said, and I've been poor; and let me tell you…rich is better.

It just goes to show, life is an ocean and its waves are sometimes quiet and languid and gentle, and sometimes they are huge and noisy and life-threatening, and these waves can take us to just about wherever they want to take us and the only thing we can do about it is to learn how to swim in all the varying conditions because, like all animals, we don't want to sink, drown, perish before our time. Do we?

Let us forget about the two minutes, I told him, three minutes is O.K. by me and my answer is 'No' and I'll tell you why. I mean this politely, I have no wish to insult you in any way, trust me on that, I would merely like to terminate our brief encounter without further ado, and that is hopefully O.K. with you? You are obviously, I continued, not in a position to know whether I am a person of normal intelligence or not. But—as it so happens—I am. And, as such, I can tell you that in my opinion your offer is either an illegal one, a failed attempt at a not very good joke, or else you are insane, again no offence intended. In my opinion, that is, right or wrong. But my opinion happens to be the only one I have and, regrettably or otherwise from your point of view, it is therefore the only one that counts. Yes, so…I apologize for repeating myself but the answer is no, and thank you very much. Have a nice day.

You will forgive my use of the latter phrase. It is an American expression converted unintentionally into the imperative by omitting the admittedly superfluous 'I hope you will'. If you have been to the USA, you are certainly acquainted with the expression, as you will have heard it a few thousand times every day. But it definitely serves a purpose and I certainly employ it from time to time.

Well now, I am also, said the stranger, "a man of normal intelligence. And I was consequently expecting your reply to be more or less as it was, sir…despite the fact that my question was merely whether you would consider, or rather, merely possibly consider. On the small chance, however, that you might possibly change your mind, may I take the liberty of leaving you with my business card?"

He removed a card from his wallet and placed it on the table.

And I hope you will accept my apologies for having taken a portion of your time, he continued, and may you also have a nice day or, perhaps, and I could swear his eyes were twinkling—a ridiculous phrase, but it serves to portray a certain facial expression—a nice life.

And with that he stood up, smiled politely with his round and pleasant face, and walked away.

***

Well, for a nutcase, he certainly wasn't a troublesome one. So much the better. I ordered another coffee and got back to the sports pages. for consumption by persons with the mental capacity of a dying snail, of which, as we know, there are a large number on this planet, very large in fact. And also for the jellyfish, as my friend Steve would say (jellyfish being one of the few creatures on the planet which do not possess a brain of any kind at all).

The IHT on the other hand is an interesting journal, it has real sports articles written by journalists with a literary education and it is more international to boot. I checked the mid-week European results, I briefly perused the text devoted to what had actually happened in the games, and then I leaned back—metaphorically of course, given the chair I was sitting in—and I lit up a cigarette (yes I know, it is boring and furthermore you are right; and also furthermore, I have plenty of other defects, should you so wish) and picked up the nutcase's visiting card.

OBRIX CONSULTANCY PARTNERS

Suite 12, Royal Strand Towers

The Strand

London WC2N 5RS

U.K.

Jeremy Parker, Senior Partner

Tel. [phone]

Typical. Not only a fraudster but an amateur one. It doesn't tell you what they do, the suite address possibly denotes temporary office space and, oh dear me, a mobile phone number. But no doubt he picks up a customer here or there, there are always enough simpletons to be found on this planet and there always will be. This planet of ours contains a sizeable percentage of human beings with severely limited cerebral capabilities, no change century after century, today and tomorrow, being born right now as you and I drink our coffee. My estimate, in my opinion, is a pretty good one - 10% intelligent, 50% neither intelligent nor stupid, or intelligent only in certain ways and therefore not intelligent, and 40% stupid, thick as two planks. Not their fault, they don't make their own brains, they´re just born the way they are, you can see the differences already when they´re young, walk into any old school and take a good look, ask a teacher. All walks of life, good lawyers and lousy ones, productive factory workers and useless ones, good politicians and brainless liars and wafflers, you name it. The same percentages all through, more or less.

You know those bars, cafés, restaurants where you can´t pay, no matter how much you try, and it can take you up to half an hour sometimes? That´s because the waiters and waitresses are morons or at least semi-morons. I don't mean that nastily—as I have just mentioned, they don't manufacture their own brains—I am merely employing the word factually as per the dictionary. They never come near your table, and whenever they appear somewhere else, they never look at you and so you can't attract their attention—unless you choose to shout across the intervening space in Mediterranean fashion, upon which they become haughtily offended and disappear again. These people are unable to grasp the fact that someone may be wishing to leave and that it is their job to facilitate this. They have no idea whatsoever of how long that person has been trying to leave. Their brains tell them that it has only been a minute or so and if the customer isn't prepared to behave normally and politely and wait for as long as he, the waiter, feels like, then he'll be treated as he deserves. Morons, as I say, as per the dictionary.

But such is life. These things do not seriously disturb me. They are the flotsam and jetsam of our existence. They are not to be avoided but they cause no serious harm. And if I have a habit of making observations to myself on such matters, well…they cause no harm either.

So I left some money on the table (no tip for a service not received), and not my problem if another human being steals it. Not that this type of waiter would care less if someone did. I stood up and headed off westwards down Curzon Street.

I was still in a good mood, the sun was still shining, I had only about an hour's meeting to deal with, the weekend was coming up and life was definitely pleasant—pleasant, needless to say, within the restrictions prevailing on our particular revolving lump of rock.

So…right into South Audley Street, a couple of minutes up the road, into the office building, up to the third floor (or fourth, if you are American), and into the offices of United Fasteners PLC, and a real grin for that swish, swish receptionist with the crooked smile.

Hi Susi, TGIF right? Need company for the weekend, platonic of course, boyfriend maybe on a foreign business trip, just let me know. Chuckle, chuckle, keep it light, just a joke, just in case.

It pays to remain excessively polite with women you don't really know—most of them appreciate that, you are showing respect, it shows you are an educated male, maybe you even have true emotions in addition to your sexual ones. And in any case, as a consultant, you carefully toe the line to avoid unwanted situations with the client's employees, especially the female ones needless to say. It reminds me of one of my early trips to the U.S. when I greeted the boss's secretary with Hi Cherry, you're looking dangerously fantastic this morning. How do you do it? Peter, do not, she replied in a whisper, say things like that in such a loud voice. You may be European, but that doesn't change the fact that just about anything you say around here is capable of getting you into serious trouble for perceived sexual harassment. So I turned a few cubicle rats' heads when I shouted, I meant your brain, Cherry, I meant that your brain is looking dangerously fantastic this morning. They can't put me in jail for that now, can they? Or can they? The way things are on this planet nowadays, you never really know.

You wish… said Susi, but perhaps another time, and in any case the question would need to be put in a more charming manner. A smile, the crooked smile. "And, Peter, I did ask you a few weeks ago to please call me Susanne, I don't like Susi."

But with another smile, oh yes, another smile. Crooked and wicked. An offer if there ever was one. There are smiles and there are smiles and I am gifted, as indeed some of us are, at telling the difference. Usually, that is to say; if we want to be truthful, and we do, I have made a couple of mistakes here and there. But no doubt about this smile, enough to put my neurons off their stroke, send them into a minor frenzy. A minor sexual frenzy if you insist on my being explicit. One of the things which make life on this planet worth living, if you don’t mind my saying so.

But I am digressing.

O.K. Susi, it's Susanne next time. Promise. A wink, on down the hall and into the office I've been given to use whenever I'm here. No way, I reminded myself, will I actually undertake anything with a headquarters employee. At least, not until the project is over and done with. And then perhaps she might become one of what my friend Steve refers to as 'blinking red lights', a few of which I have flashing away here and there around Europe, although not as many as Steve.

I should explain that I was at the headquarters of the company which had hired me to get rid of the losses at one of its manufacturing subsidiaries in Slough, a few kilometers west on the M4. I occasionally turn up here in central London to give a presentation on what I've been doing, what effects are being achieved and what the outlook is. I've done four months already and things have gone fast, the company is already profitable and, we can rest assured, it is profitable on a permanent basis and there is more to come on top of that. Not that I am a genius. I am not. I just happen to be good. And no apologies for saying so. And if one were to insist, I would have to say yes, there are also plenty of things I am not good at, I am happy to keep the record straight.

In any case, things can only go this fast when you have a very badly managed company, one with major problems that are easy to identify and when those problems, or at least some of them, can be easily and rapidly dealt with. Quick fixes, low-lying fruit, there is plenty of jargon for this. And such was the situation here. It is always a pleasant surprise to find a company like this, not that I tell it to the people who have hired me of course. And as for bad management, I never talk about that either unless pointedly asked to—and sometimes not even then—because, after all, you never know who is friends with whom in this world.

The office was small and fairly ordinary, but it had everything I needed and in any case I am not a person who requires status symbols. I saw the note on the desk as soon as I walked in and I picked it up. TODAY'S MEETING POSTPONED UNTIL A WEEK ON MONDAY AT 9 A.M. APOLOGIES. ROGER CALLED AWAY AT SHORT NOTICE. COULDN'T CATCH YOU ON YOUR MOBILE. SEE YOU THEN. HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND, GEOFF.

Roger was the Group CEO, Geoff the Group V.P. Finance. Friday, nice weather, Roger probably called away at short notice to his golf course down in Surrey. Actually, not fair. No proof. Maybe he's got his nose hard to the grindstone somewhere else, what do I know?

You'll note the first names. Thank God, if you'll forgive the expression, that I am not back on my previous assignment, a bottling machine manufacturer in Stuttgart. Six months of Herr this and Frau that and please use the formal Sie version of you, Du would be far too familiar, and please don't forget to address Herr Karrenbauer as Herr Doktor Karrenbauer, thank you. They revel in their doctor titles over there, a bit like the old English army majors still insisting on being called Major long after they've been shoveled back into civilian life or retirement. And some of the German docs have studied for so long that they have two Doktor titles and are quickly fitting in a modicum of work before having to retire. Then you are supposed to say "Guten Morgen, Herr Doktor Doktor von Heydecker. And before I am corrected on the Morgen", it so happens that all of their nouns start with a capital letter. There must be a reason for that but I've no idea what it is. And some people have been sitting at adjoining office desks for over twenty years and still address each other as Herr this and Frau that. Amazing. Different culture. No problem. Respect it, don't have to enjoy it.

So…no meeting. Never mind, I'll be paid my full day's rate for doing nothing—not that my work schedule will show that of course, it will show hours of analytical work back at the hotel—and nothing to do except turn up at the factory again on Monday morning. Another of life’s pleasant surprises, like landing in bed with a girl who’s told you she’s not like that. Even so, I would have liked to learn for how long they wanted me to continue. On the one hand it's easy money for me now, just implementing what is still pending, and on the other hand there is the possibility of another project for me down in Spain and if that materializes, I'll need to be able to tell the Spaniards when I can start.

I sat down, fished in my pocket for the cigarettes, still an indoors habit after all these years, but wait till I get downstairs, yes they'll be banning it in the streets before we know it but not just yet, and I came across the visiting card. I pulled it out. A superior quality material at least, fine-woven and fairly stiff to the touch. A nice card, it helps to pull in one or two of the more brain-damaged punters no doubt. A jellyfish trap. But it would do nothing to entice people with a certain amount of intelligence. Such as myself. No sirree.

No sir. No way. At all. But on the other hand…come to think of it—and it's a habit of mine to consider all possibilities, including way off-the-wall ones, makes me a good consultant—come to think of it, it could possibly be an amusing little event, another of life's minor anecdotes floating by on an undulating ocean wave, it would make a good bar tale and a true one as well.

And it would be fascinating to hear his ploy for getting out of the €100,000 promise. Several possible versions come to mind. So…come to think of it again, why wouldn't I call and agree to a meeting? I've got the time, life's little adventures keep you fit, and why throw away a piece of fun when fun is what life is all about? Some of the time anyway.

I took hold of my mobile and dialed.

Jeremy Parker speaking. How may I help you?

Hi Mr. Parker, it's me, we met a short while ago in Curzon Street. I'm curious, I have changed my mind, I would be happy for us to meet.

Ah, well, that's good to hear Mr. O’Donoghue, indeed it is, yes. And I am sure you will find it interesting, if nothing else. If Saturdays are not inconvenient to you, we could meet tomorrow, at my office perhaps, say after lunch, would 2 o'clock be suitable?

That will be fine, Mr. Parker. I'll be there. I look forward to meeting you again. Would you like me to bring anything with me, a résumé or whatever?

Actually, your C.V. would not be a bad idea. Thank you. Tomorrow at two o'clock then?

Indeed. See you then. Bye.

I'm looking forward to the bit of fun tomorrow. Maybe a waste of time but what the hell, it won't take long. Back down the corridor, Hey, Susi—sorry, Susanne—have a great weekend, got to rush, have an appointment, take care. Down in the elevator, out into the road, smoked a cigarette and then caught a cab in Curzon Street.

I asked the driver to take me to the Royal Strand Towers. I just wanted to check out its exact whereabouts, It's bad to arrive late for anything and knowing where the location is in advance gets rid of one of the risks. The building turned out to be just past the Aldwych turnoff. Fine. The sun was still shining away, the sky was still blue, a pleasant short walk in the Covent Garden direction, into Tavistock Street, through the peeling doorway and up the creaky stairs and into the 'En Passant'.

***

The 'En Passant' is a strange place, pretty run down, not very clean. I suppose you would have to call it a chess and bridge café, I've never seen any other type of customer there, not even a homosexual on the prowl. Open 24 hours, burgers and sandwiches, coffee and coke available. I walked past the bridge tables to the chess section at the back. A dozen tables, all laid out with a chess set and a chess clock, about half of them in use at this time in the afternoon.

You can only find an opponent here if you are prepared to play for money which, unlike prize-money tournaments, means betting cash on each game. Most of the regulars have an appearance as dilapidated as the place itself, worn-out clothes, scuffed shoes, uncombed hair, and some of them not smelling too good either. That's because most of them are out of work, adroit specialists in the serious profession of welfare state manipulation—any system created by elected birdbrains is full of holes of course—with plenty of time to play chess each and every day for the rest of their lives if they wish, financed by the poor British tax-paying creatures. And many are immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, and most of them are also receiving unemployment benefits, or at least they look as if they are.

But, make no mistake, these are all good chess players, some very good in fact, and there is a sprinkling of masters among them; national masters that is, not international masters or grandmasters, you wouldn't find them in a place like this. They scrape their living playing for teams in the major European leagues and on the international tournament circuit. So the guys that are here are here to earn additional cash, tax-free like the rest of their income. They never play among themselves, except for a bit of Blitz when bored. They are after the punters, very often businessmen who think they can play good chess but can't, weak club-level players at best who dream of one day beating an experienced opponent or two. Which they never do and never will. But they keep coming back, each time they put it down to bad luck or to an obviously weak move made at some point in their game, and it usually takes them a long time, years, before they eventually wake up to the fact that they are never going to make it.

I am also a punter, but one who earns some petty cash here from time to time. I turn up occasionally when finding myself at a loose end in London. I am not a master but I am a strong club player and I have an international Elo ranking of 2265.

Chess is the only game I know of where no luck is involved. It starts off exactly the same every time. There are 72,000 possible positions after two moves, 9 million possible positions after three moves, and 300 billion after four moves—I use the Short Scale version of the term billion, it`s a word the Americans have raped but it is indeed easier than saying one thousand million—and the number of possible positions in an average-length game of 40 moves is more than all of the quarks in the universe. Yes, quarks, those things which neutrons and protons are made up of and which, in turn, are the components of atoms, except hydrogen atoms of course which have no neutrons, and so we are talking a big number here. And if you find it difficult to believe any of these chess statistics, you can probably check them out nowadays on the Internet.

When I saw that the only person not playing was Ivanovic, I was not disheartened. On the contrary, you only really enjoy chess when playing an opponent as strong as, or stronger than, yourself. Ivanovic was a master. Not quite as good as he used to be, certainly, but you never lose your master title. Ivanovic had definitely come down heavily in life and he looked it. He was a miserable kind of guy, one of those who hate other people, who hate the world and, in many cases, also hate themselves. He virtually lived in the En Passant, and he had the pasty white skin to show for it, and he did nothing else, absolutely nothing, except play chess. For money.

Hi, I said, wanting a game?

Only playing full games today, he mumbled back in thick-accented English, two hours on the clock, £100.

For my café chess I prefer Blitz, five minutes per game for £5 a game, but full-length makes for better chess and would probably give me at least a reasonable chance against him. Mind you, £100 was a bit steep, but who cares? O.K., I said, I've got the time. Start right away?

He didn't say anything, merely nodded in a disinterested and bored manner, sat down, set both clocks, and tossed a coin. I lost and so I had the black pieces. A disadvantage but not a fatal one of course; however, as Black, you do have an initial task, which is to strive to achieve equality as soon as possible. Ivanovic started with e4 and I chose the Sicilian Defence. It suits my character, it's adventurous, it provokes the production of adrenalin. In many variations of this opening, Black can be subjected to persistent kingside pressures—which can reach hurricane proportions if not defended with great care—while at the same time obtaining plenty of tactical opportunities of his own for counterattacking on the queenside.

To cut a long story short, the game followed one of the various lines of the Scheveningen System, a common Sicilian variation, and on the nineteenth turn I made a somewhat weak knight move, allowing White to gain some positional advantage. And that was all Ivanovic needed. He kept up the pressure and after spending another hour sliding down into a losing game, and knowing it, I resigned. No point in continuing, two pawns down and absolutely no compensation of any kind.

Chess is unquestionably a good character-trainer. You can be in an inferior position for a prolonged period of time before it turns into a losing one and you can be in a losing position for another long period of time before it becomes a lost one. As my father and plenty of others used to say, losing is part of your education and it is good for the soul. Whatever a soul is, I haven't a clue, perhaps you know.

And no, we chess players have nothing to do with those ghastly characters in novels who capture one, two, or even more of their opponent's pieces and then are actually allowed to continue until they checkmate him, upon which the opponent topples his king down onto the board. I will permit myself to say that such characters and their authors produce in me a strong desire to vomit, profusely indeed.

I handed him the money, wished him a good day, accepted his grunt in return and went down the stairs and out into the fresh air.

Fresh air, but the sun was gone and the rain was here. No umbrella, I should have known better, good evening England. I ran around the corner to a steakhouse, ordered a meal, a filet steak well-done (I know, I know, but that's how I like it). The wine was good, a simple Côtes du Rhône, a wine I always order if not wanting to spend too much; it is one of those rare wine-growing areas that seldom produce a bad bottle. It was dark when I came out of the restaurant and it was still raining, but I got lucky and found a cab to take me back to the hotel. I was no longer hungry, but I was tired. I had worked a lot of hours this week and today's four hours of chessboard concentration plus the wine had not changed things much.

Into the hotel, checked the foyer for women on the way through, uninteresting, only one nice one sitting there with her husband (actually, it had to be her boyfriend, married people don't look at each other like that) and two other old ones painted up like red Indian squaws gone berserk.

I also decided to give the hotel bar a miss. An early night was called for. Up to my room, teeth, shower, and into bed with my book of the day, a collection of James M. Cain's legendary novels. I was reading one of the short ones, ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’, and managed to finish it before falling asleep.

DAY 2

The room service trolleys and other miscellaneous hotel noise pollution woke me at the fairly reasonable Saturday morning hour of 08.30. Nothing to do, no work, a piece of fun awaiting me in the early afternoon, and I would decide on the evening later. So I languished in bed for a while before getting up and commencing the shit, shave and shower routine.

I looked out of the window, still raining, either that or raining again. I decided that the brown-check jacket and casual shirt would be good for the so-called meeting, brown slip-on shoes, relatively new like all my shoes and, also like all my shoes, size 48 or size 13 depending on where you come from in Europe, and possibly some other number in the USA.

Why can't the human race standardize something as simple as that? Well, the answer is that it can't. That would not only require a certain modicum of intelligence, it would also mean they would have to actually agree on something, a rarity on this disordered planet as I am sure you agree. We can't even assent to driving our cars on the same side of the road. As you probably know, there are 72 countries in which you drive on the left and 125 countries in which you drive on the right. The only good thing is that no country has decided to drive in the middle. Tribal behavior. Amazing.

I had my favorite breakfast of poached eggs on toast, more toast with butter and Chivers orange marmalade, and a cup of coffee, great stuff at this hotel, Lavazza. I finished at around eleven o'clock and went back to my room to collect the umbrella and fish out one of the copies of my résumé, always have a couple of pre-printed copies with me when travelling, you never know. I took the elevator back down, lit up a cigarette and set off in the direction of St. James's Street.

Now that I had my umbrella, the rain had stopped. So much the better, I would walk the whole way. I turned into Pall Mall, walked along past the clubs to the end, past Trafalgar Square, Nelson's

Reviews for The 2084 Precept

[keith lee · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I couldn't get past page 28.
I skipped ahead several chapters to see if it got any better. If you are desperate for something to read, i guess this would fill that need.