Millie and Me
Two girls bounce a ball as I watch through the two panes. A bicycle lies beside a circle of tarmac where a playground roundabout once spun. A boy climbs a steel frame and a woman carries a plastic bag across the courtyard. Above them, an old man in a sleeveless vest leans over the high-hallway balcony. I dig my hands down into my pockets and feel the pull of the jeans low on the small of my back. I rest my forehead against the cool glass. Behind me, I hear bare feet press on the lino floor.
‘None of my ancestors died a virgin,’ I tell the double glaze. ‘Isn’t that fierce impressive? None. Not a single fucking one of them going all the way back to the beginning of the species. And when was that exactly? Seriously, isn’t that mad when you think about it? Every single one of my ancestors fucked, or got fucked. Or is there a difference? All the boys and all the girls, every single one of them.’
‘And your point is?’ Millie asks.
‘And none of them died in childhood. None. And none of them died before parenthood. None.’
Below me two hooded teenagers saunter from the stairwell and make a slow exit towards town. They drag reluctant feet, their reticent toes never leave the security of touched ground. I turn into the room.
‘They all had enough to make it through; they found shelter and nourishment to survive to the age where they could reproduce. And they reproduced. All of them. Every single one. It’s fierce impressive.’
I turn again to the window. The old man on the high balcony straightens as he draws a last pull on his cigarette and then flicks the butt into the air. I watch the silent thin arc fade to nothing as the sleeveless vest retreats to dark.
‘And we are the same,’ I continue. ‘Each who exists is the product of long survival against the odds. Immeasurable odds. Isn’t that something? We have that construct. We have that instinct. We have a ruthless cunning bastard inside us. All of us. Every single one. It’s fierce fucking mad altogether.’
‘Are you giving me that cells are us speech?’ Millie asks as she fills the kettle.
‘Genes, baby. Not cells. And purpose.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘Function, Millie. And our function is to survive and reproduce. What we are is a self-catering assembly of cells, trillions of cells; so many cells that you couldn’t possibly get a shape on it in your head. And what is a cell but a self-catering assembly whose function is to survive and reproduce? It is but a get-together of chromosomes and what is a chromosome but a carrier for the how to build me guide book? And at the core of it, with this guide book in his hand, is the little master. That’s what we are, Millie, a survival suit for the little master and his guide book. What do we do in life but seek shelter, nourishment, and insemination.’
‘Insemination?’ she shoots.
‘That’s right, sugary sweet. That’s the name of the game. And why? So the little master can survive. Just like the chromosome and the cell, we are just a vessel to nourish and pass that bastard on to a fresh host.’
‘That doesn’t explain things,’ Millie says. ‘Humanity. Spirit. God. And what about simple decency? Or love? Or kindness? And, anyway, what is gathered is not passed to another but to all.’
‘God, Millie? I mean, but Jesus fucking Christ.’
I wait, but she doesn’t give more. She knows I’ll go on.
‘And, yes it fucking does,’ I go on. ‘It answers it completely. Everything we do has some profit for the little master. Every act of goodness has some return, some personal or social advantage that has survival or reproductive benefits. Some fucking feel-good and aren’t I a right goody-goody come love me.’
‘What about the selfless vocation of the celibate?’ she asks. ‘How does that fit?’
‘Charity is a delusion,’ I tell her, turning to face her. ‘Nobody does anything for nothing.’
‘There is much to prove the nonsense of that, lover-boy.’
‘No, Millie. There isn’t. What we are is a vessel with a putter-in here and a putter-out there and two grabbers up top and two movers and placers down below. Our core design is a feed me, fuck me.’
‘Big talk, is it?’ she throws. ‘We are not what we think we are. Nothing is. In fact, lover-boy, the here and now is not here and it is not now.’
‘God stuff, is it?’ I return.
‘God isn’t what we think it is,’ she tells me.
‘There is no God, Millie. There is no other anything. We are just a conveyance.’
‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,’ she says, ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’
‘Very good, Millie. Very nice.’
‘Do you know who we meet when we die?’ she asks.
‘No one, Millie. We disassemble to ground minerals and are absorbed again by our only maker, the Earth. And the little master continues elsewhere.’
‘Who we meet when we die,’ she continues, ‘is us: the who, the what, and the why of everything.’
‘More wacky God stuff, babes. How do you know?’
‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘Who does? I only know what God isn’t.’
‘And what’s that, Millie?’
‘Everything else.’
I turn again and look out across the courtyard. The concrete is bright under a blue sky and I gaze beyond to where the sky meets ground and the blue fades through a buffer of soft translucent white.