Alasdair Gray
presents a short
story, taken from
Ten Tales Tall
And True, to be
published on
Thursday by
Bloomsbury
COME in, come in, Mrs Chigwell. Sit down. My partner is sorry he
cannot attend to you, as arranged, but there will be no complications.
His wife was unexpectedly struck down by something this morning and
though (thank goodness) she is not exactly at death's door he would find
it hard to concentrate on your (thank goodness) smaller problem. His
mind might wander, his hand tremble, so you are safer with me. His
X-rays indicate two fillings, one of them a wee toaty tiddler of a job,
and I am so sure of my skill that I promise you will feel no pain if I
work without anaesthetic. But maybe you are nervous and want it, even
so? No? Splendid. I am starting the motor -- which lowers and tilts the
chair -- so easily and smoothly that your heart and semi-circular canals
have suffered no shock or disturbance. The Trendelenburg Position --
that is what we call the position you are in, Mrs Chigwell. This chair
gets you into it, and out of it, in a manner which ensures you cannot
possibly faint. I wonder who Trendelenburg is.
Or was. Rinse your mouth. Let me -- keek -- inside. Oho! And if you
want to sneeze, gargle, hiccup or blow your nose just raise a finger of
your left hand and I will stop what I am doing almost at once, but here
goes. Chigwell. Chigwell. An English name. Yes, there are a lot of your
kind in Scotland nowadays, but you'll never hear me complain. Do I
bother you, talking away like this? No? Good. You probably realise I do
it to stop your imagination wandering, as it would tend to do if I
worked in perfect silence. There is, let us face it, something
inherently sinister in lying absolutely passive while a stranger in a
white coat -- no matter how highly qualified -- does things you cannot
see to this hole in your head -- between your jaw and your brain; inside
this wee toaty cavity -- I am opening -- in a bone of your skull. Even
the presence of Miss Mackenzie, my assistant here, might not stop your
subconscious mind cooking up weird fantasies if we dentists, like
barbers, had not a professional tendency to gossip. Which reminds me of
a cartoon I saw in a bound volume of old Punch magazines: a barber says,
''How would you like your hair cut sir?'' to a bored looking
aristocratic type slumped in his chair who says, ''In a silence broken
only by the busy snipsnap of the scissors.'' Sometimes I hear myself
saying ridiculous things, utterly absurd things, just to avoid that
deathly silence, but if you prefer silence just raise two fingers of
your right hand and silent I will be.
No, my worst enemy could never accuse me of being a Scottish
Nationalist. I don't approve of Scotland or Ireland, both Irelands, or
England, Argentina, Pakistan, Bosnia et cetera. In my opinion nations,
like religions and polical institutions, have been rendered obsolete by
modern technology. As Margaret Thatcher once so wisely said, ''There is
no such thing as society,'' and what is a nation but a great big example
of our non-existent society? Margaret had the right idea --
DENATIONALISE! PRIVATISE! When all our national institutions are
privatised the British Isles will no longer be a political entity, and
good riddance say I. The USSR has vanished. I hope the USA and the UK
follow its example. Last week (a little wider please) a man said to me,
''If you refuse to call yourself a Scot -- or a Briton -- or a Tory --
or a socialist -- or a Christian what DO you call yourself? What do you
believe in?''
''I am a Partick Thistle supporter,'' I told him, ''and I believe in
Virtual Reality.''
Do you know about Partick Thistle? It is a non-sectarian Glasgow
football club. Rangers FC is overwhelmingly managed and supported by
Protestant zealots, Celtic FC by Catholics, but the Partick Thistle
supporters anthem goes like this:
We hate Roman Catholics,
We hate Protestants too,
We hate Jews and Muslims,
Partick Thistle we love
you . . .
My friend Miss Mackenzie is looking distinctly disapproving. I suspect
that Miss Mackenzie dislikes my singing voice. Or maybe she's religious.
Fine, rinse your mouth. Second filling coming up and I insist on
giving you a wee jag, but you won't feel it. Did you feel it? Of course
not.
My wife disagrees with me. She's a Scottish Nationalist and a
socialist. Can you imagine a more ridiculous combination? She's a
worrier that woman. She's worried about over-population, industrial
pollution, nuclear waste, rising unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse,
crime, the sea level, the hole in the ozone layer.
''Only a democratic government responsible to the will of the majority
can tackle these problems,'' she says.
''How will it do that?'' say I.
''By seizing the big companies who are polluting and impoverishing and
unemploying us,'' says shem ''and using the profits on public work,
education and health care.''
''You'll never get that,'' I tell her, ''because prosperous people
don't want it and poor people can't imagine it. Only a few in-betweeners
like you believe in such nonsense.'' (You have probably guessed she is a
local school teacher.) ''By the year 2000,'' I tell her, ''these
problems will have been solved by the right kind of headgear. Even a
modern hat of the broad-brimmed sort worn by Australians and Texans and
Mexicans will protect you from skin cancer. Hatters should advertise
them on television. TO HELL WITH THE OZONE LAYER -- WEAR A HAT!''
Hats, Mrs Chigwell, hats. At the start of this century everybody wore
them: toppers for upper-class and professional men, bowlers for the
middling people, cloth caps for the workers. Bare-headed folk were
almost thought as shocking as nudists because their place in the social
scale was not immediately obvious. I suspect that hats became
unfashionable because we passed through a liberty, equality, and
fraternity phase or imagined we were in one. But we're coming out of it
again, and by the end of the century everybody will have headgear. Their
sanity will depend on it. Am I boring you? Shall I change the subject?
Would you like to suggest another topic of conversation? No? Rinse your
mouth out all the same.
The hat of the future -- in my opinion -- will be a broad-brimmed
safety helmet with hinged ear-flaps and a mouthpiece which can be folded
down to work as a mobile telephone. It will also have a visor like old
suits of armour or modern welders have, but when pulled down over your
face the inside works as a telly screen. The energy needed to drive
these sets could be tapped straight from the action of the viewer's
heart -- it would use up less energy than walking down a flight of
stairs. The difference between one hat and another will be the number of
channels you can afford. The wealthy will have no limit to them, but the
homeless and unemployed will benefit too. I am not one of these
heartless people who despise the unemployed for watching television all
day. Without some entertainment they would turn to drugs, crime and
suicide even more than we get nowadays from these old-fashioned box TVs
which to my eyes already look prehistoric -- relics of the wood and
glass age -- BVR -- Before Virtual Reality.
YOU'VE HEARD about virtual reality? Yes? No? It's a helmet of the sort
I've just described. You wear it with a kind of overall suit equipped
with electronic pressure pads so that you not only see and hear, but
feel you're inside the television world you are watching. Miss Mackenzie
is pulling faces at me because she knows what I am going to say and
thinks it may shock you since it refers to sex. But I promise that not
one bad word will pass my lips. These helmet suits not only give
sensations of life and movement in beautiful exciting surroundings. They
also, if you desire it, give the visual and sensual experience of an
amorous encounter with the partner of your choice. Perhaps Clint
Eastwood in your case, Mrs Chigwell. Anna Magnani in mine, although it
shows how old I am. Any professional person who remembers Anna Magnani
in Bitter Rice is obviously on the verge of retirement. Or senility. And
so, I am afraid, is she. Not that I ever saw her in Bitter Rice -- a
film for Adults Only. I only encountered the first love of my life
through her posters and publicity photos. I wonder what Anna Magnani
looks like nowadays?
Excuse me while I wash my hands. We are on the verge of completion.
You're still quite comfortable? Good. Here we go again and remember I am
talking nonsense, nothing but nonsense.
The hat of tomorrow -- an audio visual helmet with or without the suit
-- will not only release you into an exciting world of your own choice;
it will shut out the dirty, unpleasant future my wife keeps worrying
about. It will give marijuana or heavy drug sensations without damaging
the health. Of course intelligent people like you and I, Mrs Chigwell,
will use it for more than escapist entertainment. We will use it to talk
to friends, and educate ourselves. Children of four will be fitted with
helmets giving them the experience of a spacious, friendly classroom
where beautiful, wise, playful adults teach them everything their
parents want them to know. Schools will become things of the past, and
teachers too, since a few hundred well-scripted actors will be able to
educate the entire planet. And think of the saving in transport! When
the lesson stopped they could take the helmet off and bingo -- they're
home again. Unless the parents switch them on to a babysitter channel.
''All right!'' says my wife after hearing me thus far, ''What about
homelessness? Your helmets can't shut out foul weather and poisoned
air.''
''They can if combined with the right overalls,'' I tell her. ''In
tropical countries, like India, homeless people live and sleep quite
comfortably in the streets. Now, it is a widely known fact that our
armed forces have warehouses stacked with suits and respirators designed
to help them survive on planet Earth after the last great nuclear war
has made everybody homeless. But the last great nuclear war has been
indefinitely postponed. Why not add Virtual Reality visors and pressure
pads to these suits and give them to our paupers? Tune them into a
channel of warm Samoan beach under the stars with the partner of their
choice and they'll happily pass a rainy night among the rubble of a
burnt-out housing scheme and please rinse your mouth out. Don't chew
anything hard for another couple of hours. The chair -- is now restoring
you -- to a less prone position.
Bye-bye, Mrs Chigwell. The receptionist will give you the bill, and it
might be wise to arrange an appointment in -- perhaps six months from
now.
Whatever the future of the human race it is not likely to dispense
with dentists.
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