[The Game] A Paine That I'm Used To

Chapter 18

'Remember you are just an extra in everyone else's play.'
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Press play.

Islington, London. January 1791

A wide street, swept with wind and a thick snow. Three figures appear in the darkness, coats flapping in the breeze. Two huddle closer, shivering and pulling their coats closed. The third lurches to the side, looking like he's about to vomit. His chest heaves up and down, pushing air into his lungs. The other two hunch over a pocketwatch, trying to discern the features on the glass through the blizzard.
'You got anything?' Michael asked, righting himself and beginning to shiver.
'I don't believe this' Victoria said.
'What? You've got a signal?'
'I've got a faint one, but that's not the problem. We've gone backwards. Fucking backwards'
'How the hell is that possible?' Michael asked.
'I thought we were getting closer' Gabriel said.
'So did I' Victoria answered. 'And that's not all. We're in a totally different part of the city as well. We're in Islington'
'What? How the... what the...?'
'Jesus wept, it's bitter' Michael said, his teeth starting to bang together. 'Can we get out of this? I'm fecking freezing. And I'm starving'
'Yeah, I'm hungry' Victoria agreed.
They looked around the street, their eyes squinting at the swirling snow and howling wind.
'There' Gabriel said, his hand pointing towards a distant light. 'Let's go'.
Five ice-box minutes later, they staggered up to the door of a building in a courtyard. Stepping over the broken glass and horseshit, they peered through the white swirl to see a sign mounted on the wall of the courtyard, above the door. It showed a crudely painted angel, it's eyes raised in supplicant prayer. They looked at each other, shrugging.
'Good enough for me' Michael said.
Gabriel started banging on the door. After a time, they heard a bolt being slid across a plank of wood. A crack opened, light spillling out and an eye peering around the door. Michael thought to himself what a pathetic trio they must have looked - half-frozen and shaking so much they much have looked like they were dancing.
'Yes?' said a gruff voice.
'Forgive the hour' Gabriel began, 'we were waylaid on the road to London and need somewhere to sleep. We can pay' he finished hopefully. The owner of the eye said nothing for a moment and then barked a question.
'How much?'
Gabriel rummaged in his coat pocket and dug something out which Michael couldn't see, but which clearly impressed the innkeep, as the door suddenly swung wide open to reveal a portly middle-aged man who wore a beaming smile.
'Come in!' he yelled, his arms wide open.

Twenty minutes later Michael sat in front of an empty plate and a half-full tankard of ale. He wasn't entirely sure what that was that he'd eaten. There was something in there that tasted like beef but he couldn't have been sure. He decided it was best not to ask. He sat in a large wood-panelled room on the second floor of the inn, alone save for a crackling log fire and one solitary figure that sat on the other side of the room. The innkeeper occasionally wandered in and idly cleaned a surface. Michael suspected he was keeping an eye on him. Gabriel and Victoria had crashed out as soon as they'd finished eating. Michael had declined to join them just yet, saying that he fancied a drink first. He regarded the figure on the other side of the room. He was a man in his late thirties, clean-shaven, dark-haired with a kind but intense face. His head was down, engrossed in writing something. A bottle and glass sat on a table in front of him, but neither had been touched in a while. Every so often he would sigh and shift through the large sheaf of sheets beneath his hands, his face screwed up in the most powerful concentration. The innkeeper appeared again.
'Right young sir' he said with a sleepy smile. 'I trust I can leave you to find your own way to bed?'
'Yes I can thankyou. Very kind'
The innkeeper smiled. 'And don't let our mutual friend here' he said, nodding towards the solitary writer across the room, 'try to make a revolutionary out of you.'
Michael laughed. 'I shan't. And thankyou again' he said, raising his glass. He looked across the room to see the man smiling at him.
'Irish yes?' he said, in a soft British accent.
'That I am' Michael replied. 'You?'
'From Norfolk, although I have moved about a bit. Dublin, yes?' he asked.
'Spot on. North of the city. What you working on there? The great novel?'
The man laughed. 'Not exactly. Something rather less fun I'm afraid. I just returned from political business in France and was writing, well, I don't know actually. Something inflammatory hopefully'
'I like it already. Listen, does the innkeeper keep anything better than this behind the bar?' he asked, raising his tankard.
The man fixed Michael with a penetrating gaze for a moment, sizing him up.
'Well, now that you mention it...' he said, rising from the table and making his way to the other side of the room. He opened a press and produced a leather satchel. From within it he pulled a fat green bottle with a cloudy looking liquid. He held the bottle up, turning it round in his hand.
'A specimen I brought back from Paris. Rumour has it, it was from the stock of the late royal family themselves. Probably complete lies of course, but I couldn't resist it.'
'Is that what I think it is?' Michael asked, sitting up in his chair.
'Well, that depends. If you think it's absinthe, then you would be correct.'
'Beautiful' said Michael, extending a hand to the man. 'My name is Michael.'
'Thomas' said the man, taking his hand with a mischevious smile, 'Thomas Paine.'

One hour later

'So hang on now and let me ensure that I have this correct' Thomas said, his left eye closing slightly as he tried to focus on a now slightly blurry Michael. 'You're telling me that you know for a fact, that in two hundred years or so, the son of a white woman and negro man will be elected President of the United States? Is that what you're telling me?'
Michael wobbled slightly in his chair, lifting the glass of green liquid to his lips. 'Yep, that's what I'm saying'
'Balls'
'I'm telling you. It's going to happen'
'I mean don't get me wrong,' Thomas exclaimed excitedly, his glass tilting to one side, absinthe slopping over the brim and on to the sheaf of papers below, 'I applaud the sentiment. It's a noble one. But the problem is that in the New World of now, we have slave owners flogging their slaves like cattle, raping them like madmen and killing with impunity. I just don't see how that changes. I'm all for it. I believe negroes have the right to lop the heads off royalty as much as the average white man. I just don't see how a situation can arise that where that same white man would allow it'
'Well, okay, listen up. You see, there's this family called the Bush family...'

One hour after that

A scream of laughter rent the air as Thomas' hand slapped off the table. Michael gasped for air, his chest heaving up and down, tears streaming down his face. Suddenly he stopped moving and froze, his face held in a paroxysm of some kind. Just as it seemed that he might die from the simple act of forgetting to breathe, he took a great whooshing breath of air in through his mouth and then exploded into another fit of whooping and screaming, his fists pummeling into the table.
'And then he says...' he managed, his whole body shaking in convulsions, 'The Aristocrats!'
Two mouths opened, frozen in space, faces like volcanoes, tears flowing down their cheeks, their heads gently bobbing in screaming, agonising, head-shatterring laughter.

One hour after that

'I mean it man, you should see her. I mean seriously like. She's...' Michael trailed off, his eyes swimming in his head, his hand making small circles in the air.
Thomas stared at him blankly, his mouth pursing up like a frog. 'She's what?' he said through a small burp.
'She's fucking gorgeous' Michael slurred, his hand reaching for the bottle. 'Beautiful. Graceful. Funny too.'
'Nothing better than a funny woman' Tom said sagely.
'She's got dark hair. Beautiful skin, pale like. Red mouth. Big lips...'
'Ya ha, ya ha'
'And her eyes, oh my God you should see her eyes. Blue. But not blue. Not blue really. Like a colour so far into blue that it's out the other side of blue and into something else? You know what I mean?'
'I do. I do.'
'And her legs. Sweet Jesus. The legs on her. She could kill a man with those legs...'
'Oh yeah?'
'Oh yeah'
'A strong woman then?'
'Oh yes. She looks small and weak but she's actually put together like an ox'
'Hmmm...'
'And her eyes. Dear God her eyes'
'You said'
'Oh yeah. I did'
'So,' Tom said shifting in his chair, 'have you told her. Have you said it to her? Told her how you feel?'
'I did. Well, not really. I mean I sort of did. But not quite, if you know what I mean'
'Not really no. What did she say?'
'She told me to fuck off'
'Hmm. Shame that. You think she meant it?'
'No idea really. Well, yes I suppose she did. I mean, she threw me off a building'
'That would seem pretty definitive.'
'Hmmm. It does, doesn't it?'
'So why do you keep thinking about it? Why not let it go?'
'Hard to say Tom. I mean,' here Michael paused again, his blood-shot eyes sweeping around the room, 'have you ever met someone and just had the strongest sense that you were supposed to be with each other?'
'Yes. Yes, I have' said Tom, looking into the distance.
'Like the two of you were actually made for each other? Someone who just makes sense? Someone who...'
'Someone who understands you' Tom said mournfully, a tear welling up in his left eye.
'Yes. Someone who meshes with you to make something better, bigger'
'Right. Someone who understands where you are broken and doesn't care'
'Someone whose teeth fit your bite marks'
'Precisely. A pain that you're used to'
'Exactly'
'Spot on'
'Tom?'
'Michael?'
'I think we might be drunk'
'What makes you say that?'
'Cos there's something buzzing in my pocket and I know I don't have a phone with me'
'A what?' Tom said, slightly dribbling.
Michael rummaged in his coat, slowly, methodically, with what looked like a superhuman effort, producing a small, leather notebook. The one which Claudia had left for him at Cardenio. It was vibrating.
'What the fu...?' Michael began, flipping it open on to the first blank page. A few moments later, through a green haze Michael saw a word appear on the page. Then another. And another. Each one appearing in a simple handwriting, as though they were being written by an invisible pen.
"Hello Michael" it said. "What ya doing?"
'Tom. You're not gonna fucking believe this,' Michael began, turning himself round to show him the notebook, only to see Tom's head smash into the table, sheets of paper flying across the room. A moment later a loud snoring could be heard.
'Oh shit' said Michael, looking back to the notebook. He pulled out the small pen attached by a hoop at the side and slowly, carefully began to write.
"Hello" he managed, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. "Who's that?"
"Who the fuck do you think it is, you twat?"
"I think I might be about to pass ou..."

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Ontological Arguments by Dr. Joanne

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