INTRODUCTION
by Andy Croft
Escape to Moribundia is the last in a trilogy of verse-novels written in Pushkin sonnets (the others being Ghost Writer and Nineteen Forty-eight). The book is based partly on The Tempest and partly on Patrick Hamilton’s 1939 science-fiction satire Impromptu in Moribundia. At the end of chapter one, the main character, Cal Savage, has discovered the rocket ship abandoned at the end of Hamilton’s novel, and travelled to a strange and alien planet. Here’s an extract….
Escape to Moribundia
Chapter 2
‘This will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing.’
– The Tempest, Act III Scene 2
‘Moribundia – the land in which the ideals and ideas of our world, the striving and subconscious wishes of our time, the fictions and figments of our imagination, are calm, cold actualities.’
– Patrick Hamilton, Impromptu in Moribundia
1
Cal steps outside, and gently treading
Upon the sands with printless foot,
He looks to where this story’s heading
And pulls the door behind him shut.
The sky is bruised with rain and thunder
(Our hero cannot help but wonder
Why it must always rain on him).
As Cal surveys the landscape grim,
The empty buildings watch him blankly
Like Cybermen, or the undead
And viral things from World War Z.
(Which doesn’t really rhyme, but frankly,
I’d rather read the OED
From A to Z, not A to Z.)
2
Cal now knows what Sigourney Weaver
Felt back on LV-426,
Or Byron with malarial fever
About to cross the River Styx.
This is a bleak and lonely planet
Where nothing can survive. (Or can it?)
The shattered glass from burned-out cars
Reflects the light from dying stars;
One-part Mad Max and one-part Stalker;
The tumbleweed blows round his feet;
A dog starts howling down the street.
Here Ridley Scott meets Riddley Walker.
You get the picture. Wet and grey.
And Inland very far away…
3
I know that readers quickly weary
When writers interrupt a text
To introduce some clever theory
Instead of what should happen next;
But since these days all fiction’s meta
I think that at this point I’d better
Explain what Cal is doing here.
Unless I make this clear I fear
My younger readers may well struggle
To entertain a tale so bleak –
What some might call Hauntologique –
So please bear with me as I juggle
The ghosts of 1848
With aery ministers of Fate.
4
Hauntology’s the proposition
(See Fisher, Derrida, et al)
That time’s a ghostly apparition,
A spectre haunting those like Cal
Who used to think the way was radiant
And not the bloody uphill gradient
That it’s turned out to bloody be.
The shining city he could see
Upon the mountains of tomorrow
Is now a gated paradise
For those who have the asking price.
Meanwhile, L’Étoile du matin (Corot)
Is owned by those who’ve won the race
To buy up advertising space.
5
The pain of this nostalgic hunger
For futures that did not pan out
The way we hoped when we were younger
Gives Cal a lot to moan about;
I’ll not bore you with his opinions
Anent the rights of Palestinians,
The wrongs of NATO’s endless wars –
There’s hardly been a hopeless cause
In fifty years he’s not supported!
As though with every grim defeat,
Each failed new start, each hard retreat,
He feeds his need for feeling thwarted.
A glass half-empty kind of bloke.
In other words, it’s time he woke.
6
It may sound like a contradiction,
But Cal’s ideas are out of sync
With what most fans of modern fiction
Expect their characters to think.
He cannot know his psychodrama
Has no place in the Age of Starmer,
When no-one anywhere believes
In anything (see Rachel Reeves).
Instead, Cal’s always bellyaching
About the poisoned seas and skies,
The victory march of the AIs,
The hungry planet burning, breaking…
I’ve told him that he’s talking pants,
But will he listen? Not a chance.
7
Our man is frankly so outdated
He thinks that language follows facts,
And want might be eradicated,
If only we all paid more tax.
I’ve tried my best to teach him manners,
But he prefers the ragged banners
(The phrase itself is so passé)
Of grumpy middle-aged dismay.
The long-dead Reds that he’s supported –
Allende, Chavez, MLK,
Berlinguer, Bishop, Hani, Che –
Who never got their pronouns sorted!
Oh come on Cal, for heavens’ sake
Awake, dear heart, awake, awake!
8
But wait – this planet’s not deserted!
What’s that behind those wheelie-bins?
A thing. Four limbs. All damp and dirtied.
It sniffs the air and slowly grins;
A shallow monster of a being!
It stares at Cal with eyes unseeing
And forehead villainously low –
It’s not le bon sauvage (Rousseau),
But nasty, brutish and short-sighted.
Cal shudders as this frowning ape,
Half-honoured with a human shape,
Prehuman, primitive, benighted,
Walks straight into a breeze-block wall.
The poor thing cannot see at all…
9
Cal follows as the creature stumbles
Towards a row of shuttered shops
With grunts and groans and snarls and mumbles,
And there the thing abruptly stops.
Some serious Oedipal self-blinding
Explains the trouble it has finding
The pavement’s edge. A merry fool
Content to grin and gurn and drool.
The creature laughs, inspects its knuckles,
Then laughs until it’s out of breath,
As though to laugh itself to death;
But every time it smirks and chuckles
It’s answered by another laugh
In echolalic telegraph.
10
These things communicate by laughter!
Could this strange planet prove to be
The land of happy ever after?
No question; Cal just has to see.
He finds a crowd of happy mortals,
Exchanging giggles, hoots and chortles,
Guffaws and grins from ear to ear,
On every face a happy tear.
Nirvana or collective madness?
Perhaps if you’re completely blind
Eventually you’re going to find
That blue elusive bird of gladness
First glimpsed by Maurice Maeterlinck.
Or maybe not. Cal needs a drink.
11
This planetary exploration
Is thirsty work (I’ll second that).
The barmaid in The Coronation
Smiles like an amaurotic bat;
Her breasts are stiff as nuclear warheads,
And tattooed on her Botoxed forehead’s
A grinning bulldog with a gun
Beneath the words, ‘we gorrit done!’
Behold this maid – her name’s Miranda –
Intimidating, looming, hard,
Her bleeding orbits a facade
Suggestive of a black-eyed panda.
Our hero shakes his head and sighs,
‘Where are the pearls that were your eyes?’
12
Miranda laughs, her bosom heaving,
‘If out of sight is out of mind
Then seeing nothing is believing,
Especially when the Truth is blind;
I plucked ‘em out, coz I don’t need ‘em,
So long as I believe in freedom!’
She pulls Cal’s pint (though rather more
Than half of it goes on the floor).
The juke-box meanwhile plays a medley
Of Ragle, Niwdoog, Arev Nnyl,
Nelg Rellim, Tsloh – a stirring thrill
Of melodies both dim and deadly.
‘I say, do you serve refugees?’
She grins, ‘is that with chips and peas?’
13
Cal takes his drink and stands there musing
Beside the broken fruit-machines;
The boozers who aren’t busy boozing
Stare blindly at the TV screens –
A re-run of a royal wedding,
News footage of a live beheading,
Some violent porn, a football game –
Like moths around a burning flame.
This craze for autonucleation
(See Matthew 18) has to stop
Or this vile race is for the chop.
Cal feels a growing obligation
To intervene. But how? Ker-ching –
The fish-eyed man who would be king!
14
Should Cal help raise them from the mire
Of their own dark, unseeing state,
He’d be acclaimed as their Messiah,
And lead them all through Heaven’s Gate;
Not for the few but for the many,
Like Corbyn or like Michael Rennie
(The Day the Earth Stood Still, q.v.)
He’d share the fruits picked from the tree
Of human Knowledge, Art and Science.
Emboldened by this noble theme
He clears his throat. ‘I have a dream!’
Oh dear, the look of dull defiance
Among the faces in the bar
Suggests he may have gone too far.
15
If Cal but knew more science-fiction –
Bogdanov, Banks, Strugatsky, Roeg –
He’d know about the crucifixion
Of Higher Beings going rogue
On some grim planet, where the locals
Are weak on brains but strong on vocals.
But Cal thinks, as a Rational Man,
He ought to help them if he can,
To better their ape-like condition,
And show these sightless, brainless brutes
The benefits of Reason’s fruits.
In other words, he’s on a mission
To save these gurning nincompoops.
‘Klaatu barada nikto!’ Oops.
16
The bar-room chatter ceases suddenly.
Each creature turns its eyeless dial
In Cal’s direction. Somewhat woodenly
He tries again. A kindly smile
Might help him get through to these nutters.
‘My heart is with you –’ Someone splutters.
‘A foreigner!’ another cries,
‘Tear out his eyes! Tear out his eyes!’
Although Cal vainly tries to fight back
Against such base ingratitude,
Before too long he must conclude
They do not want to get their sight back.
Perhaps they’re deaf as well. Oh flip!
We must get Cal back to the ship.
17
Like Maenads at their mad debauches,
Or zombies bathed in blood and sweat,
The crowd’s now waving tiki-torches
Like pitch-forks from a Hammer set,
And tearing at their hair and clothing.
In every face Cal marks the loathing,
The barren hate and sour disdain
Of those who like inflicting pain.
In other words, it’s time to scarper.
He starts to run across the grass,
The plummet sound of breaking glass
Behind him getting ever sharper
(Cal never was a massive fan
Of this scene in The Wicker Man).
18
He races past a drive-thru diner,
A disused public swimming pool,
A Facial Architect-Designer,
A broken-windowed primary school,
Two food-banks and three tanning-stations,
Pursued by the reverberations
Of shrieking, howling, jingling chains.
Cal needs to stop; there’s shooting pains
In both his feet, his legs are floppy,
He’s going purple round the lips
And running out of breath; he slips
Inside a giant crocheted poppy
In time to watch the crowd pour forth
Upon the sharp wind of the north.
19
Cal takes a breath to calm his jitters,
Then steps outside – they’re coming back!
He hurls the poppy at the critters
And runs towards the ship – alack
The things are closing, getting closer –
Behind the burned-out Polish grocer –
A hundred yards – it’s tense, I know –
Now fifty, twenty, ten to go –
Then with one final Christ-almighty
Blood vessel-bursting effort more
He slams the heavy airlock door
Behind him, points the ship to Blighty,
Turns both the booster rockets on
And starts the countdown: 3-2-1…
20
A pause. A whistle. Then some banging.
The dashboard flashes red and green.
A rumble then a groan, more clanging
(By now Cal knows the whole routine)
And then the ship begins to shudder.
It shrieks. It squeaks. It starts to judder.
Cal shuts his eyes and says his prayers –
And then the noises, sounds and airs
Abruptly cease. The poor chap’s shaken.
For while Cal hopes he’s home again,
The question isn’t where, but when.
Unless I’m much mistaken,
We’ve landed in what seems to be
November 1963…
Notes
In the film The Day the Earth Stood Still, the alien (played by Michael Rennie) says ‘Klaatu barada nikto’ (‘Stop barbarism’) just before he is killed by humans. In HG Wells’ novel The Sleeper Wakes, the time-travelling hero says, ‘my heart is with you’ to the citizens of the Servile State.
