THE WRITING GROUP (With Apologies to Shakespeare,Tolkien, & AI).

Victor Fanks leaned on the desk, put his head in his hands and groaned. As if in answer to his cry the door opened and Deena D’Lecia entered. She sashayed over to the coffee machine and stood surveying the antiquated piece of metal in classic Grecian pose, one knee bent and a hip that jutted provocatively in Victor’s direction. With a sigh she punched a button. The machine responded with a sickly cough and stuttered reluctantly into life.

‘Coffee Victor?’ A beaker of muddy grey liquid was placed beside him and he was enveloped in the musky scent of Black Velvet Paradise. Carmine lips smiled encouragement and the valley between her breasts opened invitingly.

‘Thank you Deena,’ he croaked, and with heroic masochistic effort added, ‘cancel all my engagements for the rest of the day, I don’t want to be disturbed... and Deena…’ She turned back with a small pout and whisper of silk against smooth thighs. ‘Remember, no gossip! We are in crisis!’

With a nod, and what he hoped was a look of concern in her deep azure blue eyes, Deena left the room, shutting the door with a perfunctory bang. Victor stared longingly at the space where she’d been for a few seconds more before turning his attention to the message on the screen in front of him.

Memo to Victor Franks, Director of Earth Promotions for Literacy. This is to inform you that meeting with Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Doctor Nora Parker-Smythe and Committee Members of IGLOC is brought forward. Now scheduled for tomorrow 25/06/3012. Party arriving fifteen hundred hours. Smythe requests tour of workshops prior to meeting.

Curt and to the point, but then what wasn’t nowadays. Either way it heralded the end of his career and you didn’t need flowery sentiments for that!

IGLOC – Inter Galactic Literacy Oversight Committee, now celebrating its tricentennial birthday, had become a deep and painful thorn in his side. Since his appointment as Earth’s representative for the promotion of literacy, Victor had won his spurs with a series of innovative ideas that generated a wealth of funding together with, not unreasonably, the conditional expectations of the donors. But what had appeared to be – on paper – a project worth investing in, had proved in practice to be severely flawed.

His writing group, initially designed to be an elite of literary minded individuals boasting the highest IQs, had proved not just difficult but impossible to establish. He quickly discovered that people of that calibre were hard to find in the slick, quick fix, throw away current culture, and of those approached, most refused the invitation despite its generous pay package. Victor had failed to factor into the equation that people in general had lost either the ability, or desire to work hard, and this was even more apparent amongst the privileged few who had never been expected to work hard in the first place. The initial proposals that group members should be contracted for a minimum of six months, with an undertaking to write for twelve hours a day, were laughed out of the interview room, even when he threw in the suggestion of a fifteen minute comfort break every four hours. So he compromised. He employed less intelligent writers to work the key boards at reduced hours, with as many comfort breaks as they wanted. Results were mediocre at best and Earth had never been placed higher than thirty-third in IGLOC’s literary planetary league table listings.

A travesty. Earth, once universally considered to be the cutting edge in the Arts – particularly in literature, was now a dying planet – dried up, bereft of fresh and imaginative ideas. Funding was cut throughout each passing decade until it was withdrawn altogether, despite the fact that Victor continued to plough on regardless with a succession of experimental writing groups, paid for by his own rapidly diminishing pension pot. But there had been no breakthrough and it was generally acknowledged that Victor Franks had created a rapacious and extremely expensive monster. There was no doubt that the decision to terminate would be taken tomorrow. Earth would be ignominiously deleted from the league tables and he would be put out to grass.

A knock on the door interrupted these maudlin thoughts. He looked up hoping for some light relief with Deena, but it was one of the assistants employed to look after the writing work shops: a frail, sallow skinned young man whose appearance proclaimed a certain deficiency in outdoor activities and sunshine. Nevertheless earnestness and endeavour were written all over his face and Victor regarded him expectantly.

‘Er Francis isn’t it – what can I do for you?’

The youth laid a piece of paper on the desk. ‘It’s Frankie sir and I’m hoping that it’s more what I can do for you. I found this amongst yesterday’s backlog. What do you think?’

Victor snatched up the paper with trembling hands, read the brief inscription and with sinking heart slowly laid it back down.

 

‘It has a certain quality I agree,’ he tried to sound kind. ‘You did well to show me but we have to accept that it’s too little too late. Thanks anyway.’ He motioned for the youth to leave, but the lad stood his ground.

‘I have a number of other transcripts sir, I thought I might have a go at putting some of them together.’ He regarded Victor’s impassive expression. ‘Some of my predecessors recorded certain interesting sentences and phrases – nothing that would stand alone you understand, but together – well who knows.’ Frankie Baconi shrugged and gave a wry smile.

‘As you will,’ Victor said, not wishing to discourage any positive attitude or effort on the part of this eager assistant. ‘Oversight Committee arrive tomorrow afternoon. If you can cobble together something presentable by then I would consider you a genius.’ Victor’s smile vanished as the boy left the room. He closed his eyes wearily and sighed. How in all the Universe had Earth got itself in this mess!

 

Progress. In their haste for advancement they had clutched at the seductive petticoats of ‘Progress’. Earth had invested its hopes for the future in Science, and the god of technology was duly elevated above all other considerations. At first the benefits had been huge. Space travel became accessible to all, not just the rich and influential. Leisure time expanded as machines took over basic, mundane work, and later even the most complex duties were handled competently by independent calculating computers. Technology – with its beguiling promise to be cheaper, cleaner, greener, captured a world desperate to conserve its rapidly diminishing resources. And Science created a comfortable world, with a lifestyle bordering on the indolent. Surprisingly the birth rate went down, but this was viewed with no great alarm as new drugs and medical techniques had more than doubled man’s life expectancy, and the distant memory of three score years and ten was all but lost in the midst of time.

So what had been sacrificed for these benefits? Victor shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had come to believe that much had been lost. Who could have foreseen the consequences of wholesale computerisation in literature for example? Undoubtedly computerised books were easily and instantly accessed, but contemporary computerised books now only offered a reduced selection of genres with unvaried, condensed narratives. It had become clear that widespread stimulation of multimedia audio visual ‘razzle-dazzle them’ entertainment, had resulted in a generation predisposed to a limited concentration span. Lengthy, substantial books written centuries ago were initially computerised, but were rarely read today and had been archived. Hard copy books were destroyed, with a few of what was considered to be the best, displayed in museums. But these buildings were no longer visited and had become nothing more than dusty mausoleums. Victor had to admit that the technological society they had so proudly created had all but alienated its people from the written word, and qualitative writing was a dying art. He sighed – yes, for their chick lit, comic strip, instant gratification culture – they had sacrificed quality.

Morning dawned under grey skies and with leaden heart the condemned man ate a meagre breakfast. The hope that young Frankie Baconi may have come up trumps was slim, but nevertheless Victor decided to pay a visit to the workshop writing rooms if only to pass the time in the company of others. He sought activity and noise in an attempt to crowd out his negative thoughts.

The writing rooms were located in the basement where the faulty and outdated air conditioning units, for some incongruous reason, worked better. There were three rooms, all much of the same size, each filled with two hundred writers already hard at work, and the noise of clicking typewriter keys was tumultuous. Victor prided himself on his ingenuity in acquiring a job lot of these old fashioned writing machines. They had proved to have a longer shelf life than the original fragile lap top computers that had ended their days, systematically and prematurely in re-cycling bins. The typewriters had cut costs, as did his idea of having the writers work eight hourly shifts. And it worked well. The writers he watched now – heads down, backs hunched, fingers flying, had just replaced the night shift group. Victor’s light bulb epiphany three years ago had radically changed the whole way the project was run, and in lucky consequence he had been able to quadruple the number of writers employed.

Frankie Baconi’s small office was unoccupied, but there was a folder on the desk addressed to, ‘Earth’s Director for Promotion of Literacy’. It contained one piece of paper and Victor read the five verses on it, with dry mouth and sweating palms.

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of the world.

The stars are veiled in mist and shadow.

 

The world is but a stage

And all its beings merely players.

When we are born we cry that we are come

Upon this stage, this Kingdom of the Damned.

 

I see in your eyes

The same fear that would take the heart of me.

The day may come when the courage of men fails

When we forsake all ties

And break all bonds of fellowship.

 

But it is not this day!

 

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, if taken at the flood

Leads on to fortune.

So – Blow winds and crack your cheeks

Rage! Blow! Spit fire! Spout rain!

 

This day we fight for all that we hold dear

On this good Earth

That all might say

Oh Brave New World

That has such creatures in it.

Some of the phrasing struck a chord of familiarity with him. A distant memory of words and sentiments recorded in the past; books seen in his childhood, lined up on dusty museum shelves. Books that he had once held, and felt their satisfying weight; pages offering new ideas and concepts that fed his imagination; their comforting smell, and the touch of silky paper pleasurable against his skin. All promising cerebral delights to come.

Victor felt a stirring of excitement. Oh it was not perfect by any means, but Baconi had done a good job of cobbling together a piece of writing worthy of IGLOC’s scrutiny. He hoped – no – believed it was the sort of thing Dr Parker-Smythe, who talked in terms of, ‘romance’ with a capital R, might approve of. At the very least he believed it would earn him a stay of execution. He allowed himself to relax and smile. If the project was granted an extension he would play the philanthropist and reward Baconi with a pay rise. He dared to hope he could afford it now.

On his return Victor stopped to look through the window of one of the writing rooms and regarded the feverish activity inside. It had never ceased to amaze him how enthusiastically and compliantly these little animals pounded the keyboards hour after hour. In the three years that the project had used these anthropoid apes from the Barbary Coast, there had been no hint of anarchy or rebellion. He gave a mental salute to that ancient Greek mathematician, Aristotle. The old boy’s hypothetical theorem on randomness and infinity had naturally been adapted over time, but the original concept still held. The current adaptation that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time, would almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare, seemed miraculously to be coming true! Victor could not believe his luck. It suited everyone. He chuckled to himself, the monkeys appeared to be happy, and as far as costs were concerned – well – the pay was peanuts!

Back in his office Victor noted that they had three hours before IGLOC’s arrival; plenty of time. He leaned across the desk and buzzed the intercom. ‘Deena would you come in – I think we have something to celebrate.’