When Winter Comes
There were questions, questions without answers. Or rather, questions with answers, but with answers that wouldn't be coming. Though if and when they did come, they would be accepted without question.
We all sat by the radio, the affair had turned the nation's goggle-eyed into impromptu groups who listened together. Groups who crowded around the open window of a car going nowhere, now. The nation had been stunned, "This couldn't happen here, could it?" The statement turned cartwheels out of people's mouths, transforming itself into a question somewhere around the r and the e of here. "But this is the sort of thing that goes on in some third world country where people confuse emotion and strongly held beliefs for rational argument – isn't it?"
"No, this couldn't happen here, this is clearly – must be? an error." Everyone knows that to be true and that is why the radio had magnetised the nation. Everyone knew it was wrong and that is why sales of all manner and types of radio had gone through the roof. Electronics magnates were pleased, but shocked, they couldn't believe it either, but the sales figures didn't lie, the figures answered all the questions anyone cared to ask. Numbers are facts and facts are answers.
But still no answers came, even though the impromptu groups doubled and trebled in size, and even though whole neighbourhoods of previously unknown neighbours spent every spare minute speculating furiously or sat around in meditative silence, the answer never came.
A week came and passed, people's anxiety levels painted their faces red, sales of sun cream went up as the red-faced army collectively took this for sunburn. Lotion executives were pleased, the numbers, which are facts, didn't lie. The summer wore on, impromptu groups gave birth to impromptu street parties. The nation rediscovered cake baking with street after street competing to eat themselves into a state of satisfaction which, like the answers that everyone was also ready to consume, never came. Musicians, jugglers and fire eaters entertained vast swathes of friendly neighbours. Quartets and small orchestras appeared in city centres filling the 57.5 minute break between the hourly news and weather report: they abandoned Bach mid fugue as furious listeners span the volume dial up, up, up as the first few words seeped out of speakers big and small.
The voice spoke calmly of accidents, calamities and misfortunes suffered by man and machine, most of which, much to the relief of the nation, took place outside the country's borders. At the end the pancake voice delivered a message specially written by the government spokesperson, beseeching the nation to allow the traffic to flow freely, to end the practise of out of and in to cars, cars that were – in more normal times – stopping only on a temporary basis. In the pause that always followed this message blood pressure would rise, breath would be held (sometimes catastrophically), and small children would be silenced with cruel and unusual vigour as the nation tensed itself for the truth, or disappointment. The weather announcement that followed went unheard as the nation slammed its angry and disappointed fist down in the nearest hard, but flexible, surface.
Babies were allowed to wail (though this was largely drowned out by the wailing of adults), and small dogs found that they were no longer cute and cuddly, and more just a bloody good target for a swift and frustrated boot. Small dog sales declined but the RSPCA employed more vets and dog wardens, and Battersea Dogs Home started building mezzanine floors. And still no answers came, not to impromptu groups, or the increasingly rare solo listener, not even to the nation.
Some began to wonder what the fuss was about, some had even forgotten the question! The autumn came and the crowds began to dwindle, disappearing along with the leaves, the street parties shrank back into the houses, whole neighbourhoods were populated by nodding acquaintances: the rain washed away the bonhomie, the musicians, the jugglers and the fir eaters. The orchestras and quartets packed their delicate and expensive instruments away into the darkness of sturdy dimpled aluminium cases, abandoning Bach and the people once again.
And still no answers came: radio sales began to fall, their stock prices shortening with the days. Then winter came stamping its icy feet and emptying the streets before 1900 hours. All was quiet, inside only the fires crackled and the central heating creaked and clanked. TV sales were up, curtains were drawn and people forgot what the fuss had been all about. The question stopped being asked and the nation's blood pressure returned to more normal levels. No one was surprised that sun cream sales were down, it was winter after all.