The Rise of Safety-Man. Postcards from Plague Years Part 1

Postcards from Plague Years

As Louis Menand observed, in modern society the ends of our lives are no longer given at the beginning. Death thus becomes "the great taboo, an absurdity, the worst thing one can imagine." This change is reflected in the secularisation of religion inaugurated by the bourgeois revolution, in which divine authority, and with it responsibility for the destiny of man, descends from heaven and falls at man's feet. But as our mysterious stranger “Mel” suggests below, the crisis of self-mastery that emerged in the 19th century has produced a melancholy bitterness at the prospect of joining the ranks of the multitudinous dead, while also crowning the nation-state as the immortal heir to divine authority.

Taking inspiration from Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year, what follows is the first of three fictional “postcards,” dispatched from the “plague years” 2020, 1918, and 1665. 

Navigating cities of the dead and dying, our heroes haul themselves onward to an ever-darkening horizon of freedom. Will they succumb to death, despair and demonic “objective tendencies,” or will the spirit of the Enlightenment endure? 

//

2020:The Rise of Safety-Man

By Jonny Black 

It was early afternoon, and a breeze had picked up, tempering the heat from a blazing spring sun  riding high in the unbroken blue expanse. Jim's two young daughters were building sandcastles by the water's edge and paddling in the shallows, while his wife Olive dozed under a beach umbrella.

Jim walked into the water and squinted at the horizon. Out of the blinding glare of the sun's reflection on the sea, the silhouette of a kitesurfer danced, floating high above the water before gliding back down, digging his board into the choppy, windswept waves.

As Jim’s attention slowly drifted, he imagined a sudden updraft hoisting the kitesurfer up, up, up into the sky, perhaps to come crashing down somewhere in a beachside backyard or even landing on the highway to be pancaked by a semi-trailer.

On cue, the kitesurfer was swept perilously close to the shore, and Jim saw with a jolt that this solitary extreme-sportsman was wearing a COVID mask. Jim had heard that COVID was airborne, but surely it hadn't become part of the atmosphere? He strained to remember his high-school science and, for a moment, doubted himself.

Jim had, after all, recently seen a headline about a potential “doomsday strain.” Maybe some crazy Chinese scientist had invented a way to infuse this deadly disease with the very air we breathe. He chuckled and shook his head. Yet as Jim looked out over Port Phillip Bay, he remembered that in the late 1950s film On the Beach, Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner had made these beach-side suburbs famous as the hypothetical last refuge of mankind. Humanity, including what remained of world government, had sought preservation in this picturesque little vista, but could ultimately only watch as the nuclear holocaust gradually cleansed the entire earth of sentient life.  

Jim's reverie was broken as his youngest daughter, Rosa, splashed out into the water and picked up a crescent-shaped sea-snail egg, squishing it in her hands. 

Her older sister Blossom squealed in delight, and exclaimed in a scholarly voice, “you actually just crushed millions of babies.”

Laughing as she brushed the cloudy, gelatinous egg matter from her sister's hands, Blossom beamed up at Jim. He smiled back and then lifted his face to the sun, imagining its pleasantly warm rays burning away the last traces of his lingering hangover. Yes, Frankston Beach, this was the place to be; the end of the line, at the endmost extreme of civilization.

A rapidly approaching stranger caught Jim's attention, and as he turned he saw a thin, spandex clad man, adorned in bright red and orange skin-tight skivvy and shorts and a sleek bicycle helmet, marching in his direction. Jim wondered if his tightly fitted, colour-coordinated COVID mask was also made from spandex.

“Nope,” said the man loudly as he approached.

“Are you talking to me?” asked Jim. The man stopped two metres from Jim and placed his hands on his hips, surveying him and his family. His gaze passed over Olive's sleeping body, the half-eaten fish and chips, the Coke cans, and the children's spade and bucket.

“This isn't going to work,” the man said finally.

“What isn't?” asked Jim, with growing annoyance. The man removed his sunglasses and stood in silence, glaring. Jim pointedly turned his attention back to his girls and took a big gulp from his Coke can. The stranger quickly shuffled sideways in an agile semicircle, never breaking the one-metre and a half distancing rule, until he was standing directly in front of Jim.

“Firstly, none of you are wearing masks. And secondly, we are allowed one hour of outdoor exercise, and you look like you're having a family picnic.”

“Jimmy, get rid of him,” mumbled Olive as she rolled over under the umbrella. The man raised his voice so that the sparse but growing number of beach-goers near-by could hear him.

“Exercise only! It is exercise only! All of you need to leave.” He had worked himself up into hysteria, apparently on the verge of tears, and his commands were delivered in a breathy screech. Jim had the sudden impression, from his tightly fitted bright orange and red spandex and mask, that this middle-aged cyclist was a walking warning sign, a super-hero for the COVID age…a Safety-Man.

“The kids are exercising,” said Jim, gesturing to his girls playing in the shallows. Behind Safety-Man, the kitesurfer executed a twirling double backflip.

Jim realized his daughters were now watching this heated conversation closely, looking back and forth from Safety-Man to their father, wearing that heartbreaking expression of shock children assume when they are unceremoniously interrupted, deep in play suddenly deemed socially inappropriate. 

“Daddy?” whispered Blossom.

Jim sighed and stepped toward our masked hero, who took a theatrical step backward, settling into a defensive karate stance.

Jim let out a harsh scoff, then hissed through his clenched teeth, “Why don't you go fuck yourself.”

Before Safety-Man could respond, a loud mechanical buzzing began to fill the air, and Jim and Safety-Man, along with all the other beachgoers, looked up to see large drones, equipped with flashing red and blue lights, swooping down to hover directly above them. 

“Ah, ha!” exclaimed Safety-Man, “The cavalry has arrived,” and cast his arm out in an expansive gesture towards the bight of Port Phillip Bay, stretching out in a wide curve towards greater Melbourne. The scattered police drones that had come to hover over the beaches began blasting out a recorded announcement; a female voice made inhuman by the otherworldly reverb of simultaneous amplified voices broadcasting at some distance from one another.

“This is your first and final warning. Stage-4 Lockdown is now in effect.  Everyone must return to their homes. You have 15 minutes to comply.” 

Before and after the repeating message a loud siren sounded for a few seconds, reaching an ear piercing crescendo.  Blossom and Rosa looked up in terror, and began to cry, running into Jim's arms. 

“See?” gloated Safety-Man, “You see?” 

Earlier that day our crusader for caution had looked down at his wife's emaciated frame as she slept. 

When the doctor had said, ‘no longer in remission’, she had barely reacted. When the doctor said, ‘one last chance’, she only sighed. When she had been first diagnosed, nearly a decade ago, she had been inconsolable. Graham had found it exhausting, but it made sense to him. But with the relapse, after years of chemo, Carol had just sat quietly in the passenger seat and gazed out the window, as the old familiar streets glided by. And she hadn't stopped gazing out the window, watching the sea from their verandah. Watching the world, from behind her eyes.

In the months that followed she would drift around the house, sometimes patting his head or letting Graham hold her briefly in his arms, but mostly sleeping. 

She had behaved like this only once before, and that too had been after a doctor's visit. The last IVF treatment had failed and Carol had become quiet and withdrawn, but that had dissipated gradually into an embrace of travel, adventure anda deepening of their companionship, only to be suddenly derailed by her cancer diagnosis. 

This current resignation, Graham knew, could only end in death. There was but one drastic operation still to attempt, one that may accelerate Carol's decline but if successful, though she would likely require a colostomy bag, a dialysis machine, and other ongoing medical interventions, might extend her life for decades. But this operation had been delayed due to COVID. And worst of all? She didn't seem to care. 

Instead of watching Carol disappearing a little more every day, Graham rode his bike compulsively. And he would seethe as he rode, he would brim with hatred and wrath at those not following the State restrictions. They were, to his mind, killing her.

And now, this slovenly, carefree moron, this man who flaunted everything that Graham had been robbed of, stood smirking at him. The moron bent down to speak to his crying children.

“Go to Mum,” said Jim, turning back to Graham, matching his fierce gaze, and flexing his jaw slowly. The deafening public safety announcements made sure that Graham couldn't hear the rumbling summoning of something deep and wet in the moron’s throat, an impressively thick lump of saliva and mucus, destined for Safety-Man's face.

“Lock and load!” yelled a young policeman seated in the back corner of the BearCat’s troop compartment. A few murmured in acknowledgement, and the cop sitting next to him patted him on the back. Sergeant Andrews struggled to remember the kid’s name but appreciated the effort. The Sergeant had always admired the armoured riot vehicles and it was oddly gratifying to sit in the back of one as it thundered down the nearly-empty suburban streets. The riot gear was also new to him, and he tugged at the uncomfortable strap of the helmet. He was trying to enjoy the rush, the thrill of action but it just wasn’t coming to him. To the embarrassment of the five other “socially distanced” police seated in the back of the vehicle, the young constable then tried at an “Ooorah!”

“Look,” said Sergeant Andrews loudly, breaking the silence, “the main thing here is to show that we are not fucking around.” He looked at them meaningfully, gazing into the visors of their riot helmets, one by one. “But as the Superintendent told us, ‘we want headlines not lawsuits!’” 

The Sergeant tried to assume some of the bravado of the young constable but was met with only the polite assent dictated by his rank.  

That evening, seated in the office of the Superintendent, Sergeant Andrews, rubbed at a small stain on his trousers, finally looking up to meet the eye of his inquisitor. 

“I'm not sure sir, when things got out of hand. But I did notice a problem with morale, but I didn't think it was a problem.”

“A problem with morale that wasn't a problem?” the Superintendent bristled. “What are you talking about?”

“I assumed sir, that their apparent wariness with the operation would tend towards restraint, but we hadn't counted on finding a scuffle already happening.

“Tend towards restraint?” Spat the Superintendent, slapping his hand on his desk. “Two young constables in hospital. A father brutalised in front of his family. Forcing the mask on was bad enough but you could've stopped them choking him while they did it? Instead it was left to this cyclist to intervene, my God! A state employee mind you.” The Superintendent looked down at his notes, “Graham Hobbes, environmental scientist, sole carer for a terminally ill wife, and now hero to the anti-lockdown rabble. The drones followed him as far as they could but surely he is not still in the wind?” It was a rather appropriate turn of phrase, thought Sergeant Andrews. But was he “in the wind” or had he drowned? No one seemed to know. The Superintendent picked up his smartphone and waved it at the Sergeant. “The videos are going viral internationally.”

“I know sir, but wasn't that the idea-”

“The idea?” the Superintendent interrupted, in a cold, controlled voice, “The idea was for domestic headlines, with an emphasis on the peaceful compliance of the public. One of the little Zoomer vampires from public relations apparently told the Premier the video will make for a legendary meme. I am told it will likely make an appearance in every major news outlet on earth.” The Superintendent, tormented afresh at his own words, swept his hand over his stricken face, and looking down at his smartphone, replayed the video yet again.

There are always unpredictable elements when dealing with the public. But a wiry, middle-aged cyclist unleashing his martial arts expertise? That was surely a singular circumstance, the Sergeant reassured himself. But the real problem, the moment that really plagued him, was the spontaneous solidarity Graham had displayed. Why had he defended the very man the police had stopped him mercilessly assaulting? 

The Sergeant had seen the most popular clip, and he had to admit, it was well done. Someone had edited a slow-motion version to the famous sections of Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which swelled and rose in intensity as the scene on the beach descended into chaos. In time with the iconic recurring orchestral flourish, the farce unfolded, one painful potential lawsuit after another.

As the orchestra swept into a frenzy and climbed towards its booming climax, the tinny audio of the Superintendent’s smart-phone fuzzed and crackled, and Sergeant Andrews was transported back to the events of that day.

“He spat in my face! He spat in my face!” Graham yelled at the two officers who were dragging Jim clear of his frenzied assault. Jim's face was horribly swollen on one side, and blood trailed from his nose. Limping and dazed, Jim pushed exhaustedly against the hands of a young officer who seemed intent on masking him before any medical assistance would be rendered. As the police closed in on Graham, looking around in panic he said in a quiet, breathless voice, “You can't do this, we were exercising. We were only exercising.” 

His desperation seemed to give way to a steely resolve and he watched the officers circle for a moment, parrying their movements. When they finally lunged, he elegantly ducked their grasping hands and swept both pairs of police legs with a low roundhouse kick. He then darted forward and delivered a sharp, stabbing kick into the lower back of the gung-ho constable who was now busy pushing his forearm into Jim's throat while Olive and the girls watched on through horrified tears. 

Leaving this trail of writhing police bodies in his wake, Graham tore off his COVID mask and, casting it onto the sand, broke into a dead run in the direction of the two officers who were attempting to tame a confiscated kiteboard, staggering at the water's edge as the kite bucked and twisted in the wind. A well-timed shoulder charge sent the officers sprawling in the shallows, and Graham, maintaining his speed, grabbed up the board in one hand and sprang into an almighty upward jump, grasping with the other the now rapidly ascending control bar of the kite. 

The surfer, sitting detained on the sand, loudly decried the theft of his kiteboard, but the police, along with everyone else left on the beach, could only gawp in stunned silence as the kite caught the rising wind and the spandex-clad figure cut and weaved his way, at speed, through the modest surf of Port Phillip Bay, dwindling to a dot in the distance and vanishing beyond the horizon.

“Nothing but a brainless bureaucrat.” was the final piece of vitriol lobbed at Sergeant Andrews as he slouched out of the Superintendent's office, walking slowly down the hall, lost in the truth of the criticism. He had evidently forgotten the art of real policing, falling into the role of a passive spectator. But for God's sake, thought the Sergeant, everyone knew he had only been forced out from behind his desk because so many others were languishing at home. Back in his office, Sergeant Andrews sat down heavily in his chair, and held his head in his hands.

“Ah, don't despair my friend,” said a quiet voice. Sergeant Andrews looked up in surprised alarm, feeling his cheeks colour. Sitting in the chair directly in front of the Sergeant's desk, a tall thin man in early middle-age, dressed in a dark fitted suit, uncrossed his legs and then slowly and carefully folded up the newspaper he was reading and tossed it lazily onto the Sergeant’s desk. 

“Who the hell are you and how long have you been sitting in my office? If you’re press then I–” 

“Oh please allow me to introduce myself,” said the man, cutting the Sergeant short. Removing his tinted glasses, he approached the large oak desk with his hand outstretched. A savage arrogance seemed etched into the man's face, putting the Sergeant on guard.  “I’m Mel, public relations expert.” Mel’s accent was one of those strange jumbles that comes with a globetrotting profession, and with his dark features, the Sergeant had difficulty placing his nationality. 

Sergeant Andrews hesitantly stood and shook Mel’s hand, before looking directly into his eyes for the first time. Those eyes would haunt the poor Sergeant for the rest of his life. The jet-black of the pupils appeared to stretch impossibly, and they struck the Sergeant with an almost physical force. His chest throbbed, and he quickly looked down at the desk, catching his breath and feeling the colour rising in his cheeks again. It had been a long and brutally dispiriting day, he told himself, and he silently cursed this pathetic turn, yet he felt desperately reluctant to meet Mel's eyes again. 

The Sergeant managed to eventually mumble out the words, “Take a seat,” and awkwardly resettled behind his desk, feeling unaccountably dizzy. Mel, already reseated, returned his tinted glasses to his nose and smiled serenely back. That smile, or was it a smirk, thought the Sergeant, seemed to conceal some smouldering, malign amusement. Mel, apparently catching himself, rearranged his expression into a compassionate half-smile, shaking his head softly. “What a mess you’ve found yourself in.”

Sergeant Andrews could only manage a forlorn moan, keeping his eyes fixed on his desk. Just as they had on the beach, the words caught in Sergeant Andrew's throat, “I-I know, it, it’s a shhh–shitshow,” he stuttered. 

“A brainless bureaucrat huh?” said Mel, giving the Sergeant a solemn but wavering frown.

“You heard that?” asked the Sergeant in surprise, finally finding his voice approaching its normal tenor. 

“It’s my job to hear everything,” said Mel simply. “But my friend, the brainlessness of bureaucrats is a beautiful thing. Where would we be without it?”

“What?” was all the Sergeant could muster. 

“Do you think history is driven by the true believers? As an example, and just as an example mind you, consider the Holocaust. The mechanised execution of millions, and who do you think were the most efficient executioners: the babbling utopians or the bureaucrats? And don't let them tell you bureaucracy isn't dynamic. It was the ambition of the young bureaucrats that drove Stalin's purges.” 

Mel stood up and began pacing the room, launching into what appeared to Sergeant Andrews to be a well-rehearsed presentation, delivered with a kind of malicious zeal. As Mel spoke, listing examples of what he called “bureaucracy as the tip of the historical spear,” he turned to stare down at Sergeant Andrews and removed his glasses. The Sergeant panicked and attempted to avert his gaze from the glistening obsidian of those unnatural eyes, but this time he couldn’t help staring back, feeling himself transported into a tottering but pleasant euphoria.

“Remember old Pontius Pilate. What of the soul of mankind if that cowardly bureaucrat had not washed his hands of the whole affair? A millennium and a half later, the most adept ecclesiastics of the Spanish Inquisition were themselves just procedural bureaucrats, many of whom I knew to be privately atheists. Indeed, they had long recognised themselves as pimps before the Whore of Babylon was soaked in the blood of the Reformation. 

Thankfully, the Industrial Revolution simplified the problem. It stripped humanity down to its most prosaic form… And after everything, you know what that turned out to be?” asked Mel rhapsodically.

“Cattle! All of us. Even the shepherds of the great consuming masses have become perfectly average. But what else is there? Lenin should have known that a slow, gentle death is more humane than promising freedom to livestock. A promise that can only ever drive the poor creatures mad. No, my dear friend, blessed be the bureaucrat, for they have inherited the earth!”

Sergeant Andrews let his thoughts spin and twist with the historical images that danced their jaunty way through his mind, and he was soon gasping “yes…yes…yes” in delirious ecstasy.

“Andrews!” yelled the Superintendent walking rapidly over to the Sergeant and shaking him violently. Sergeant Andrews looked wildly around in confusion. 

“Sir?” 

“Are you deaf, or have you lost your fucking marbles?” 

“I was, I was… I thought I was talking to the public relations guy,” sputtered the Sergeant, his heart racing. “I must have drifted off I guess.”

“What public relations guy?” demanded the Superintendent. Sergeant Andrews, feeling confused and helpless, rubbed at his temples. “Asleep with your eyes wide open? Andrews, my God man,” said the Superintendent in mingled annoyance and concern, “get home and get some fucking sleep, you’re going to need it.” 

The Superintendent turned on his heel and marched out of the office mumbling to himself and shaking his head. Sergeant Andrews, clumsily gathering up his possessions, paused as he stumbled towards the door, and stared down at the carefully folded newspaper on his desk.