In the bar at the end of the world

‘Uuuh! My head hurts’ 

‘Welcome back to the land of the living Alfie’ said the Nick Cave lookalike barman with a smile. ‘Just in time for breakfast’. 

‘Wha- … what’s going on here? Why am I here?’ groaned Alfie. 

‘The eternal question my foppish friend, why indeed are we all here? Is there an ultimate meaning to our existence?’ 

‘Knock it off mate, not that.’ Alfie sits up and perches on the edge of the pool table, feet dangling, he winces as he rubs the back of his neck. ‘I’m sure your beer is getting stronger.’ 

Alfie screws his bleary eyes and peers through the dusty window.

‘Bejeepers!’ He opens his eyes wide. His mouth forms an ‘O’. ‘What’s happened out there?’ 

‘You’ve been out for three days Alfie. Sit in that comfortable chair near the bar, eat this breakfast and we can talk’ said Nick Cave. ‘You have a bit of catching up to do.’ 

Alfie climbs down off the pool table and shuffles across the bar room. The pub looks similar to normal for the most part; dark, cobwebs, paper peeling from the walls, immaculately polished bar surface, but the usual background music is absent. Strange cooking smells assault his nose. There is a small pile of plaster and masonry in the corner under a new hole in the ceiling. The fire in the grate roars, a couple he recognises as Lemuel Cullen and Persephone Skink are huddled in blankets despite the warmth. 

‘Hi Purse, Lemmy’ Alfie gestures over. They respond with sullen nods. 

‘What’s up with those two? Have they been arguing again?’ he asked Nick Cave. 

Reclining in the comfortable chair, Nick Cave passes him a plate with cuts of roasted meat. Alfie stuffs a piece into his mouth. 

‘Mmm, tastes a bit gamey this chicken. Can I have a pint to wash this down?’ 

Nick Cave pulls a glass of Arkwright’s Old Scrattler, Alfie’s favourite ale and slides it over the bar. 

Alfie fishes out his card and taps it on the terminal. Double-bleep. He tries again and looks shocked. ‘I’ve surely got money left. I’m not a hobo!’ He tries a third time, no joy. 

‘Don’t worry about it my friend, it isn’t working any more, not that it matters.’ said Nick Cave. 

‘Woo Hoo! Free beer! And food!’ exclaimed Alfie. 

‘OK Alfie, what was the last you remember?’ asks Nick Cave. 

‘Not sure, it’s all different now, umm … we were watching the American war on TV over there’, he pointed in the general direction. ‘Then, umm, I dunno, I don’t remember much, I woke up on the pool table. Hang on, three days? You said three days.’ 

‘You had a knock on the head Alfie. We laid you on the pool table. I was a bit worried for a while but Persephone said it was just your head so wouldn’t affect any of your critical faculties. She knows what she is talking about, she dresses as a nurse sometimes.’ 

‘But three days? And what about outside, looks like a bomb has hit it, are they building more student flats or something? I can’t hear the workmen. I can’t hear much out there come to think of it.’ 

‘Let’s take it slowly Alfie, what do you remember about the war in America?’ 

‘Can I have some more chicken? I’m starving.’   

Nick Cave replenishes his plate and refills his glass. ‘You will be hungry after three days.’ 

‘Not bad this chicken, oh yeah, three days?’ 

‘What do you remember?’ 

‘I remember...’ began Alfie rubbing his temple with greasy fingers. ‘I remember that President Crankshaft had formed his Republican Guard to ensure that their election went ahead properly without any interference from Commies and Agitators and those of that persuasion generally.’ ‘And that’s a good thing, we don’t need any input from those Commies and Agitators and whatnot.’ 

‘That’s good.’ said Nick Cave, ‘anymore?’ 

‘Oh yes, a few more of those chicken pieces please.’ 

‘Here, now what else do you recall about the American war?’ 

‘Yes, the Republican Guard was just a bunch of gun-toting yahoos driving around in their trucks, shooting in the air. Like those in Egypt and Libya and places of that nature … erm ... generally.’ 

‘Carry on.’ said Nick Cave. 

‘Well I thought all that shooting and yelling in North Africa was because of the heat. And the sand. The sand gets everywhere you know. It’s a right bugger. Must be pretty unpleasant in all that heat. Sand inside your budgie smugglers?  Yeuck!’ 

‘No, no Alfie, the American war.’ 

‘Oh right, of course. I remember now, those states on the east and west coast got a bit upset with all of these single men driving around a-shootin' and a-hollerin'.’ 

‘So,’ Alfie explained between mouthfulls, ‘the leader of the other side, Hopeful-President Dipstick called on his supporters to form the Democratic Alliance.’ 

‘That’s right,’ said Nick Cave, ‘so then we had two groups of obese divorced men driving around in trucks, shouting, shooting and generally raising Arizona.’ 

‘That’s modern democracy I suppose, what’s this got to do with me being out cold for three days?’  

‘We will come to that in the fullness of time Alfie, now what else do you remember?’ 

‘That’s about it really. Do you have any of those pies behind the bar? I like the pork and apple ones. I hope I haven’t got ambrosia’ 

‘Amnesia, and no sorry, we ate those first, as you know we don’t really do food in this establishment’ said Nick Cave. 

‘Let me continue’, he continued. ‘Let me fill you in, as the bishop said to the actress.’ 

‘I’ve never understood that turn of phrase’ said Alfie, ‘Do bishops and actresses have a lot of social intercourse?’ 

‘I think it is where there has been a double entendre, and that is your actual French you know’ grinned Nick Cave. ‘Or a single entendre at least.’ 

‘As the U.S. election approached, the Republican Guard and Democratic Alliance started to get a bit angsty towards each other, you probably remember that bit. Well of course the factions escalated into all areas of government, the judiciary and ultimately the military.’ 

‘I remember that bit now’ said Alfie. And he did. He really did. And he munched on delicious cuts of meat as Nick Cave related recent events. 

‘It moved pretty quickly after that. It got all political’ 

‘Political’ Alfie muttered, ‘that sounds like a bad to-do and no mistake. I don’t remember this bit but everybody knows that nothing improves when a politician gets involved and when a politician promises to improve things.’ 

‘The Democratic states on the coast were unhappy with those Republican states in the middle, they didn’t want to secede from the Union so they got together and kicked the middle states out.’ 

‘Can they do that?’ asked Alfie. 

‘No, of course not and so the middle states got together and threw out those on the coasts.’ 

‘That’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed Alfie. ‘Absurd! Absurdly ridiculous!’ 

‘That’s politics’ continued Nick Cave. ’First of all, the New England states petitioned Canada for membership, they’d had enough of this nonsense.’ 

‘Sounds like a good plan’ said Alfie as indeed, it was a good plan. It was a genius plan. 

‘But the Canadians couldn’t agree so nothing happened. The English-speaking states were all for it but the French ones were having nothing of these shenanigans unless they could also bring in Louisiana at least.’ 

‘But Louisiana was Republican?’ said Alfie. 

‘Precisely’, said Nick Cave. ‘So, the east and west coast united around Democratic Hopeful-President Dipstick and the central states coalesced around President Crankshaft. And there you go, boom! the Second Civil War.’ 

‘Did it go boom?’ 

‘We will come to that presently’ said Nick Cave. ‘There might be a video game out about it one day, one day in the distant future, CWII or something. But I digress. The fighting was just skirmishes to begin with, local disputes, limited combat.’   

‘Sounds like the divorced, gun-toting brigade didn’t really like warfare in the end,’ 

‘Usually the case Alfie, all mouth and trousers.’ 

‘So what happened next’ asked Alfie, ‘for I have forgotten all of this.’ And he had. He had truly forgotten all of this. 

‘I’m not surprised you forgot,’ said Nick Cave, ‘for it was a mighty blow you took to your temple.’ Indeed, it was a mighty blow and it still troubled Alfie mightily. 

‘Well, the central Republican states were still digging up Kentucky for coal as they are wont to do and Texas was still drilling for oil.’ 

‘Yes’ Alfie was rapt. 

‘In the confusion somebody cut the Internet cables between the West Coast and New York.’ 

‘Oooh! Sounds like trouble.’ 

‘Big trouble in Little Rock Alfie. Trouble with a capital ‘T’. And a capital ‘Rubble’.’ 

‘Of course, without Internet, California was cut off completely. At first they assumed that no orders from New York meant everything had calmed down so they released the Republicans they had interned and went off surfing. It is after all what they do best. They do say that if everybody had an ocean...’ 

‘And the Republicans?’ 

‘Yes, they caused mayhem. As one might expect.’ 

‘I still don’t get how … well all this.’ Alfie looked around. 

‘I am coming to it, have patience my friend’ said Nick Cave. 

‘In the aforementioned pandemonium with no command and control there was, how can I say? There was a nuclear error.’ 

‘An error! Not a tiny mistake then?’ Alfie parped. He really parped. ‘As ‘errors’ go this is a pretty monumental one, a total clusterf...’ 

‘Alfie!’ interrupted Nick Cave. ‘Bad language will not resolve anything right now.’ 

‘So what was this error then?’ 

Nick Cave continued, ‘there was an explosion in South Dakota, in itself it wasn’t an issue, the only victims were a group of prairie dogs and a few longhorned sheep, no humans actually live there, face it, who in their right mind would?’ 

‘Still, the Republicans won’t take kindly to this kind of thing.’ Alfie interjected. 

‘Quite so, they launched a nuclear retaliation against Arizona.’ 

‘And how did the Democrats respond to that?’ asked Alfie. 

‘Nobody really noticed to be honest,’ answered Nick Cave, ‘Apart from the average temperature dropping a couple of degrees the effects were negligible. New Mexico quickly erected a wall around itself and went to rejoin Old Mexico.  Here, have some more meat’ Nick Cave placed more on Alfie’s plate. 

‘The real trouble happened when Seattle ran out of coffee.’ 

‘Really?’ 

‘Yes, you know how irate my wife is until her third cup? Well imagine a city full of them.’ 

‘Nuclear again?’ inquired Aflie resignedly. 

‘Nuclear indeed, they fired off their missiles everywhere. I’m sure they’d be sorry after a cup or two but you know how it is?’ ‘Well the Texans aren’t going to be left outside of this party, no sirree! They fired off theirs all over the place. That’s how Russia and China got involved.’ 

‘So that explains outside’ said Alfie. 

‘Kind of’ replied Nick Cave. ‘To begin with Britain didn’t get involved at all, it is in accordance with the new ‘splendid isolation’ policy. Then a stray nuke hit Liverpool.’ 

‘So that brought us into the war?’ 

‘No, that was considered the very definition of friendly fire.’ 

‘I see’ said Alfie, ‘so how come we got involved?’ 

‘We didn’t, we are a small island, five more stray nukes and we were knocked out before we got in the ring.’ 

‘Oh jolly bad luck!’ 

‘Well it was for you, it was the first attack that made the extra ventilation in the ceiling, that rubble in the corner was what landed on your head.’ 

‘Mmh, it’s kinda coming back to me now.’ 

‘I’m sure it is Alfie, now would you like some more rat?’