Far Far Beyond Berlin

Chapter 1

Genesis

IN the beginning, there was darkness. God said Let there be light and there was light.

And it helped Him find that thing He’d been feeling about for in the darkness.

Now He could see what He was doing, God set about creating the small blue planet, He moulded the core, shaped the crust, laid down the rocks and the soil. He created the grass and the hills; He made the lakes, the plants, the trees, the oceans and the seas.

Standing back and looking upon His creation, He frowned with His massive face. He saw that it was good, but ‘good’ is not ‘perfect’. He made the oceans and lakes a more brilliant blue. He made the grass greener, then, wanting to increase the greenness even further, He realised that as God he could just make ‘Green’ more green. After all, it was He who defined what ‘green’ was in the first place, having invented it earlier that morning.

He positioned two suns in such a way that the warm light would hit the surface evenly at all times.

Like all creative projects, there was a period of pointless tweaking. Leaves were reshaped, the grass blades thickened then thinned again, the consistency of sand went through about nineteen iterations and because He couldn’t decide which was best, He deployed all of them to different parts of the planet. Eventually, He felt comfortable to declare it finished.

When all was right with the new world He carefully, lovingly fashioned the tiny creatures and granted them life.

It was to be a faultless world without sadness, violence or disease. It was perfection. Eternal sunshine would light his idyll forever.

He called it Joy World.

Needless to say, it was a fucking disaster.

********************

A long way away and 5 billion years later, on my thirty-second birthday I was killed. I understand that, as a piece of story-telling, that is like saying I went to the shops yesterday and then in 1958 a dog fell over in Berlin, but I do hope to explain how those two events are related items.

We will start on Earth one week before my birthday. I was still breathing and about to have an odd morning…

Glasgow – 7:30 a.m.

It was a Monday morning, and I was alive.

Checking if I was dead was not part of my morning routine at that stage, so I didn’t note that fact at the time, but it’s probably an important distinction to make now. Unknowingly, I ventured outside to what was going to be my last ever day at the office.

It was 8 a.m., frost was clinging to every surface, the park was extremely cold; I buttoned up my overcoat and tried to find the motivation for my walk to work. Unfortunately, I work in a local council office as an administrator, so occasionally my motivation buggers off without warning. Thankfully the job I do is utterly pointless and circular to the extent that if anyone thought about it for five seconds, I could be replaced by a filing cabinet and an answering machine, so I don’t have to expend too much effort on it.

My walk to work is a time for contemplation. I wasted it entirely by fantasising about winning the lottery and what I would do with the money. As my head cycled through all the possibilities, my feet pounded the ground in front of me. I was absolutely immersed in the fantasy to the extent that I actually reached out to rev a jet ski that wasn’t there and in doing so cracked my hand off a lamppost. All this excitement sadly meant that by the time I reached the office I was spent; slightly physically, partly mentally and completely imaginarily financially.

The office was a large open plan affair with many desks separated with wobbly baffle board dividers that had pictures of football teams, children and George Clooneys for decoration. On the wall, some motivational artwork was framed. There was something or other about teamwork with a black border around a picture of some synchronised swimmers. As I arrived, I said hello to a few people and switched on my computer. Whilst it was starting up, I had the usual small talk with the people sitting nearby. John said Cold outside isn’t it? as he does every morning, regardless of the temperature. As usual, I replied, Yes, I’m glad I didn’t put my shorts on today! and we both laughed. This is office banter. As anyone who works in an office will know, it’s like regular banter, but at roughly 0.1% of the quality.

Little tiny, old Margaret said I think you’re getting taller every day! Have you grown? I haven’t. I wanted to say that I’ve been exactly the same height since 2002, which is one of the very few things I have in common with the Town Hall. Instead, I trotted out an old standard, Yes, I’ve been standing in the miracle grow again!

People often say when working in an office Oh I could write a sitcom about the stuff that goes on in here! and they probably could, but it would be the same tame episode week after week.

Not that being in a tame sitcom is anything to complain about. I know that many people have it a lot worse, but I was stuck in a rut big time. Every day was of the same average quality, but it was the repetition that got me down. It was akin to being told a decent joke, it’s nice, but imagine then being told it a further 15,000 times. Life had somewhat lost its punch.

The computer finally logged itself in, so I sat down at my desk and started going through my inbox.

After an hour or so, I gathered up some random documents and walked across to the tiny photocopier room. (By that, of course, I mean a tiny room in which a normal size photocopier sits rather than a normal size room where we kept a load of tiny photocopiers).

I closed the door behind me and started feeding paper into the tray. I set the machine to make fifty copies. I had always found it relaxing to get some quiet solitude, feel the warmth of the hot confined space, listen to the sound of the machine and risk closing my eyes for a few brief seconds.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

Sometimes I’d come in and make unnecessary copies just to get away from it all.

On that day, whilst I was standing there, a familiar thought entered my head and waved its arms about trying to get my attention.

Although never having tried it, making a copy of my face had been something of a lifetime ambition. Now I’m aware that in terms of ambition, making a photocopy of your own face is up there with doing 31mph on a 30 road or sending a piece of second-class post, but when your life is as dull as mine, you have to lower the bar for excitement somewhat.

I stared at the copier. I wanted to do it, but I could also faintly remember someone telling me that looking into the light from a photocopier can blind you. As a result, I had always managed to talk myself out of it, but on this day, I was feeling a little devil-may-care.

Thirty seconds later with my nose pressed up against the glass and my finger on the button, an odd thought came to me; not ‘This could blind me’ or ‘What if someone comes through the door right now?’ No, the thought was ‘Wouldn’t it be great just to be somewhere else right now?’

I was feeling extremely indifferent about life. My job could be done by office furniture; I had no love-life, no family, and no real friends. In short, I had nothing. And so, I surmised, nothing to lose.

I pressed ‘Copy’.

I opened my eyes.

Chapter 2

Somewhere Else

Everything was white, my knees buckled and then everything was dark, with purple bits.

It had been foolish and extremely painful to copy my face, but I was still hopeful that it would at least provide me with a funny picture of my squashed features. After a few seconds, my eyes started to feel a bit better again, but I still couldn’t make anything out. I groped in the darkness trying to feel my way around; the world was extremely sluggish about coming back into focus.

I couldn’t even feel where the copier was anymore. I reasoned that I must have blindly stumbled backwards. I felt in front of me with my hands, like a mummy, as I continued to wait for my vision to return. What I didn’t know was, that it already had.

It was when I actually looked down at where my hands were, I realised that I could see them faintly. My vision had returned almost immediately, but the lights in the photocopier room were out. I fumbled around looking for a switch and silently prayed that I hadn’t shorted out the whole floor by copying my face. I was now extremely glad that it wasn’t my arse I’d been copying.

About thirty or forty seconds of groping the air passed, and a slow realisation dawned. I’d been walking continuously in the same direction for half a minute without collision in a room I knew to only be 8x8 feet in size. I sighed, now aware that I must have wandered out into the office and that I had indeed shorted the fuse everywhere. Shite.

I crept about like a bloody idiot for a minute before realising that the reason I was creeping about was that there was absolute silence in the office, no talking, no whirring, no breathing, nothing and this was very odd for a power out. Normally there would be commotion and jokes and footsteps and breathing and rummaging, but there wasn’t. There was nothing.

Hello? I called out, like a twat in a horror film.

I waited.

Hello? I said again, just in case it wasn’t stupid enough the first time.

I waited, and I listened, trying to ascertain a clue to what could have happened. It was then I remembered with a chill that it was 9:30 a.m. and the office had floor-to-ceiling windows. Regardless of a power-out, I should have been able to see everything.

At this point I started to get properly worried. I didn’t know where I was or what was going on, so I thought the best response was simply to wait. I’m sure I had read a quote about that somewhere.

I think it was Kevin Costner who said – Just hang about and wait – someone else will hopefully appear and fix the problem without you having to actually do anything – I may have misremembered that though.

I eased myself down onto the floor which felt unusually cold and smooth – for carpet. I commenced Operation: Hope For the Best.

Ten minutes passed, and as they did so, I became increasingly nervous. I got up and started pacing gently back and forth. It was then that I heard a low whooshing sound, like an aeroplane idling on the runway. This did not help with my feeling of nervousness. Worryingly it then became louder and louder, thundering, roaring, shaking, vibrating and growing until eventually it could be felt as much as heard. As it reached a crescendo, it cut out, and the lights clicked on.

When I looked around, I gaped, I stared and I stumbled back in horror. I didn’t even have time to shit myself, as I was far too busy having a heart attack. I was not in the office any longer. Shiny white hard floor stretched out in front of me for miles.

Humans often have trouble with scale, especially when it dwarfs them. I fear the open sea for this very reason.

The white floor hit the horizon and curved upwards; I followed it and immediately fell to the floor trying to grip on to the smooth surface in vain as vertigo paralysed me. It was so high. I mean really high, sickeningly, painfully high. Think of the highest thing you can think of, then add the second highest thing you can think of to that and whatever you’re imagining is still not quite as high as this wall. It continued all the way up for miles on miles until I could see that it formed the side of an enormous sphere in which I was a tiny, insignificant speck of absolutely nothing.

The view I currently had inside this massive globe was akin to the view given to a solitary brain cell at the bottom of a vacant moron’s hollowed-out head. I was minute, miniscule, minor, miniature, immaterial, irrelevant, tiny, trivial, small, wee, and scared shitless.

I lay on the ground, curled up and prayed I was insane.

********************

Meanwhile, there was chaos in a control room. Almost exactly 3,743 Kilometres above the white floor, a red indicator light began to flash on a wall mounted control panel.

The light was really pleased about this, as it had never had the opportunity to light up before. In fact, it had been poised and ready to glow for a few million years.

The creature looking at the flashing light was not pleased and mashed the keypad with its face in distress.

The Intruder Light had never flashed before and nor was it supposed to. Some of his colleagues firmly believed it was installed as a joke by security, but the creature, whose name is unpronounceable in our language, knew that the scaly race of beings that were hired as security had no capacity for humour.

He had hoped never to have to push the big red button that summoned them.

They were not friendly or forgiving.

He pushed the big red button and prayed that it didn’t cost him his job. Or his life.

Or some money; generally, he was just hoping it had no negative consequences whatsoever.

********************

I had gathered my stomach together enough to try and find a way out. I tried to make my way towards a wall as my human brain told me that’s where the exit would be housed. However, looking ahead at the terrifying incline on the wall was giving me major heebie-jeebies. Instead, I stared at the floor and this made me notice a hatch and a button set into the white floor that I might have walked past otherwise.

I crouched, pressed the button, and the hatch slid back to reveal a ladder leading down to a small, dark room. I climbed down and noticed that the tiny space had seats carved into the wall. It looked like an escape pod in every sci-fi film I’d ever seen. Suddenly above me, the hatch closed and there was a heavy clunk suggesting a lock had been engaged. I panicked and scrambled at the hatch lid, but it was sealed, with no opening from my side.

A dark, deep, pulsing sound began to reverberate through everything in the tiny pod. My eyes were painfully vibrating in their sockets. I could hear my bones. It made the walls ripple and the floor look like a shimmering liquid; I felt it in my soul. The air was like soup and it felt like being deep underwater during a tsunami. Grabbed by this pulsing, crushing force, I was lifted off my feet six inches into the air where I was suspended by the pounding sonic waves. My head was spinning, my chest was compressing and I felt like I was being crushed in the hand of an invisible giant.

In my state of extreme distress, I was surprised to notice a ghostly apparition developing in front of me. This further cemented my instinct that I was about to die. I was confused about what I was seeing though. I had heard of people’s life flashing before their eyes before they died; however, this phenomenon was not one I had previously heard of. What I was experiencing was a goose flashing before my eyes, not my life – a photorealistic goose. He was floating in the air in front of me. I supposed that this was my brain trying to show me something calming before death, so I just looked at it, focussed on his soft eyes and waited to die.

He seemed to regard me with a benign smile and then began to speak.

Good day! I am Graham the Gravity-Goose. If you have never experienced a sudden transition between two very strong gravitational areas before you may be experiencing some discomfort.

My eyes began to bulge, and I was struggling to breathe. The Goose continued:

I am here to talk you through the process and ensure that you have a good transition. You are being transported from the natural gravity of the Infinite Hollow to the artificial gravity of the command and engineering decks. At present you are halfway between these two zones and the two gravitational forces are pulling you in opposite directions. Unfortunately, this can cause severe physical trauma, cellular damage, brain tissue degradation, and these elements can occasionally make the journey less enjoyable. Also, there is a chance that depending on what kind of life-form you are that the blood no longer knows which direction to flow around your body and this may feel unpleasant.

My legs and arms felt like they were being crushed in a vice. With all of the effort I could muster I managed to suck some paltry morsels of air into my burning lungs. I could not talk. I was now suspended in the flickering, wavering, breathless, vortex being condescended by a goose.

Graham went on, The process will be complete in a few moments and at that time you should feel as good as new. However, if you feel that any of your limbs have significantly changed in size then please inform a member of our staff who will put you in touch with our tailor. Thank you for your patience.

He waved a wing and then faded from view. The noise began to shudder to a halt, and I felt the death grip on my limbs loosening. I was lowered slowly back to the floor and collapsed into a heap. Breathing greedily and rubbing my aching limbs, I began to laugh uncontrollably. The sheer euphoria of being alive and feeling the blood rush back to my oxygen starved cells was giving me a crazy, euphoric high and I laughed and laughed and laughed until I cried from the exhaustion of laughing. Eventually wiping the tears from my eyes, I climbed to my feet, reinvigorated and ready for whatever else this crazy day could throw at me.

Above me, I noticed that the hatch was now open again and I climbed the ladder to get back out.

However, far from being in the infinite whiteness, I was now in a dark, hot, extremely claustrophobic corridor filled with steam and pipes, like the inside of a submarine. A sign in front of me said ‘Engineering Deck 12’.

Looking down the corridor, I began to get the unsettling feeling of being watched. I slowly turned, and in the mess of steam, pipes, wires, and grating, there were six of the ugliest creatures I had ever seen. They had short legs, stocky, scaly, grey, glistening bodies and chubby arms. But it was their faces that were the real worry; faces that looked as though they had been sculpted by a psychopath who was attempting to use tar and walruses to recreate a Picasso.

All I managed to whisper in my shock was, Hello.

Mrdermurmur, they said and hit me with a very, very hard blue shiny thing.

Chapter 3

Man in the Moon

When I woke up, my head was pulsating, my eyes were sore, and I couldn’t think. The room was bright, white and there were lots of shapes. Beyond that, my eyes were either unwilling or unable to give me any further details.

I was bound to a chair, and I could hear murmuring and shuffling all about me. My head hung heavily as I tried to lift my eyes for a look around. This was far too painful, so I continued to look down at the floor. The background noise stopped abruptly when a door whirred open. Someone important had arrived. I saw large sandalled feet approaching, human-looking feet, with normal skin and toes, but of an inhuman size, they were enormous, far too big for a person to have. The owner of the feet parked them in front of me and spoke.

Welcome to the Master Observatory and Orbit Navigator, or as you may know it, the Moon. The soft, but authoritative baritone was a pleasant sound; however, I hadn’t really understood the sentence.

Who are you? I tried to look up, but my head was heavy and my eyes still reluctant to fully open.

I am the controller of the universe as you understand it.

What’s your name? I asked, struggling to regain some normality.

I’m afraid my real name is not within your pronunciation capability.

Ha! I said. Why? Because my tiny human brain can’t cope with your complex alien language?

No. Because you are British and therefore even if I had a Belgian name it would probably be outside of your pronunciation capability. You’re just rubbish at it.

Oh.

If you wish to assign me a human name, you may call me ‘Terry – Master of the Universe’.

Terry?

Master of the Universe, he reminded me.

Terry – Master of the Universe?

Yes

I blinked slowly and tried to ward off a smile. The room was slowly coming into focus. The cloaked man in front of me was about seven feet tall; he had extra-large facial features, big bright eyes, and long grey hair. Enormous hands and feet were accompanied by an endearingly wide smile. On first glance, you might have said he looked like a part-time wizard or like a bank manager on a hippy team-building retreat. The ugly violent creatures from the hallway continued to mill around in the background, but there was a definite lack of menace about the situation.

Ok. So let me get this straight – I’m on the Moon?

No, you’re inside the MOON. He smiled.

Be honest. Are you just saying the first thing that comes into your head?

It’s a hollow structure, an enormous cavity, surrounded by a layer of corridors, control rooms, and offices. Above that is the dusty surface of the station which we use to disguise it as a satellite of your planet. The whole world, as you know it, is carefully monitored by us.

That’s ridiculous, I said smiling. We can’t get a phone signal near tall buildings, and you’re saying you’re monitoring everything from the Moon? Is this a cult? It’s a cult, right? You’ve kidnapped me for a cult, yes? I don’t want to do a suicide pact to get to level five or something. Just let me go. I promise I’ll read your leaflet carefully.

Ah. I understand the reference; you think I am a madman. I assure you I am not deluded. He did his widest smile. It did not help his case.

I looked around at the clean white room, there were several pieces of technology which I did not recognise. It did reek of the future somewhat, but I’m a sceptical man and wasn’t up for being taken in by some hippy cult-leader and his Moon story without a little bit more pressing. Ok for the sake of argument let’s say this is the Moon. How did I get here?

I do not know, that is what we wish to ask you. What were you doing precisely before you left the Earth?

Making photocopies.

There was a murmur of appreciative noise around the room. Terry smiled, and everyone seemed more at ease.

Well that explains a lot. He said brightly.

How does that explain a lot? I said, looking around – everyone just ignored me.

However, a few seconds later I was released from my bindings and took a deep breath for the first time in a while.

As I massaged my wrists, a disgusting cup of thick brown liquid marked ‘coffee’ was brought to me and Terry – Master of the Universe – began to explain.

You see, he said, we have been observing Earth for a very long time. And while we’ve been doing that, we’ve tried many different techniques of gathering data on humans. One such technique was called ‘Photocopying’. He made air quotes.

Yes, I know what photocopying is, I said irritably.

No. You only know what we told you it was. You think photocopying is making identical sheets of paper. We planted the technology on your planet and told you that’s what it did. Photocopiers actually use a special concentrated light to copy what is on the glass and send it back here for storage and analysis. We’ve built a pretty good knowledge of your business world, literature and arses through this method alone.

So how does that explain how I got here? Am I a copy?

No. We did test this as a method of transport, but never really got it to a level where it was reliable. You see the soul cannot be copied; it’s far too vast an amount of data, so the light transports the original back here for analysis. Like a teleport system, as you would understand from your science fiction. However, most of our test subjects were dead on arrival or mangled beyond recognition – I tell you if I never see another inside-out intern I’ll be a happy man. You’re very fortunate to be alive. Why did you look into the light?

I was confused. How do you know I looked into the light?

Because that is how the system identified your soul so clearly. The eyes truly are windows to the soul, because they directly connected to the brain and our light had direct access when you looked into it. So, again, why did you look into the light?

I tried to answer as honestly as possible whilst retaining my dignity. I was trying to make a funny picture.

Weren’t you worried about it blinding you? I’m pretty sure we got that rumour round as fact a long time ago. He looked around at his team who nodded in confirmation.

I was past caring really.

Well, that’s quite sad, if uninteresting. Would you like a tour of the place?

I set my cup down and stood up, nodding. I would like that very much.

You don’t like your coffee? Terry asked pointing at the cup.

This isn’t coffee, I said.

Oh.

It’s just mush.

Oh.

********************

Like everything inside it, the universe is controlled by a group of old, out of touch men.

God has assembled a group of specialists, and high above the universe, they decide how to mess with your life. The line-up is impressive, God is there obviously. Every boardroom has a chairman.

Fate, the fuck face, is also there, a walking talking philosophical concept – sometimes with his wife Destiny. She’s not a concept though, she’s just a stripper.

Irony is there with his fashionable clothes and sushi. He’s wearing a t-shirt that says ‘The Universe is Infinite’ because he’s cleverer than you. However, he is outdone completely by the Devil who strolls in smoking a cigarette wearing a ‘What would Jesus do?’ t-shirt that is at least ten-times as ironic as Irony’s shirt. This also pisses God off, because He has to be polite when He really wants to say:

"What would Jesus do? I’ll tell you what…He’d smack you upside ya head!"

But that would be childish, and He is not a child. He is God; maker of children.

And anyway, Jesus isn’t here to defend himself; he’s not allowed to sit on the committee until he has tidied his room.

Chapter 4

Revelations

I was still getting used to the idea of being inside the Moon whilst getting a tour from Terry. Life had just become interesting for the first time in twenty years.

Despite my initial cynicism, I was shown clear proof that the entire Moon was an enormous space station dedicated to the observation and protection of Earth. A mile-thick crust all the way round was, in fact, the twenty huge decks of the space station. The hollow sphere in the centre was used for storage, but also necessary for a piece of technology they possessed. Frustratingly, Terry was very cagey about this. Anything that needed a planet size space to operate in was obviously very, very powerful.

We walked around the station, and I got the full breakdown. He showed me the security and monitoring departments. They had created an efficient IT system whereby the computers were powered by the frustration of the beings attempting to use them. They had so much extra power left over from this that it ran their gravitational field as well as an absolutely cracking hot chocolate machine.

The station was partially staffed by a mute race called the Sentos. They were friendly slug-like creatures with three-fingered hands on the end of short arms. They were able to plant images in your mind to communicate, but could not read your thoughts. They had a wonderful way with visual metaphors, which instantly made them seem like a noble race of liberal poets until you remembered that they were staffing a covert space station, which controlled the universe in its entirety.

The security creatures were called the Haag. They did not have a wonderful way with visual metaphors. They had a wonderful way with blunt instruments. Their culture had no humour and was entirely literal, so they hated the Sentos with a passion. Terry said they ended up working here together as they were the last surviving members of their respective races and the station had taken them in.

He showed me the command centre which genuinely looked space age, the first such example I’d seen. It was all white; clean with big screens, swivel chairs, touch screen controls and people talking to ‘computer’. No frustration in here, no-one trying to run Windows Universe Edition on an out of date set-up, no wires, no smoke, no alarms, no banging, just a sense of control that was actually calming. Terry explained to me that here the technology was powered in a different way. It was charged by the smug satisfaction of the beings using them. This powered their IT, life support, propulsion, a gym and an absolutely irritating organic coffee machine. It was staffed by beings who looked just like Terry, but slightly younger and slightly smaller.

He saw me looking at them and must have sensed the question coming. Yes. We too are the last of our people.

I’m sorry Terry. What happened?

A great disaster befell us, but that is another story for another time. He looked wistfully