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“What did you do during the Great Reset, Grandad?” she squealed excitedly, the words tripping off her tongue in fluent Mandarin. In the centre of the cage stood an ornate, candle-lit altar. Its upper panels had been cut in triptych form and each panel bore a letter from the old western alphabet: N, H and S. Behind it hung a gilded reredos depicting a coronavirus, its central protein spike outstretched, imparting the spark of life to the reclining Sage, whose fingers could be seen reaching out, but never quite touching, the spike. Running in European style, from left-to-right across the bottom of the image, was a slightly amended excerpt from the Sage’s translation of the New PCR-Testament. Embossed in a plain, puritanical font it read: “The Lord Coronavirus, He who delivered us from The Temptations, creating the Sage (Genesis 24:6.1).”
At its foot knelt an old man, evidently in prayer. Though he faced the alter, his eyes had strayed towards the impenetrable darkness beyond their cage. Out there lay the wilderness. The crucible of The Temptations. Hazy, half-forgotten memories still lingered. They came bubbling up now from that most dangerous of personal traitors, his unconscious. The greasy, voluptuous joy of it all. Unadulterated, untrammelled, rollicking, infective, glorious, filthy human life… biological proximity, dirt, penetration, tongues, sex, risk, sweat, uncertainty, sex… laughter… sex… “Grandad!” The sound of her voice dragged him back from the volcano’s edge. Shaking, dripping with sweat, appalled at this lapse into unholy reverie, he wrenched his dilated pupils back to the reredos and set to mumbling his prayers once more, now with renewed vigour." The girl paused, a smile playing across her face as she pondered the inherent theatricality of all pieties when they start to fray at the edges. He wasn’t Grandad, of course. At least, not hers. She was nearly thirteen and a half now, and no-one could accuse her of naïveté. If he was anything at all, he was Disease Vector #213698/Z. She was #2398702/J. The two of them had been thrown together during the ‘Great Purification’ of the 2030s. |
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