Shiva and Bobby climbed the giant stone stairs at the base of Nelson’s Column. They walked past people waving Irish flags and circled the stone tube that epitomised Britain’s patriarchal history. They looked back and thousands upon thousands were pouring into the square as speakers fired up a public address system at the base of the column and demonstrators delivered ardent speeches about their personal experiences in the strike.
Shiva and Bobby noticed Annie Arsenic in the crowd. Her hair was pink and she was wearing grey and black tartan bondage trousers. She waved at them and they took her photograph. Shiva and Bobby then walked around to the front of the National Gallery where a mobile sound system had set up. It was banging out pumping hard core rave tunes and thousands were dancing around it. Folk scaled the front of the Gallery and started dancing on the stone base of this bastion of conventional culture.
Most of the art inside was that depicting warfare or religious idolatry so it seemed fitting that the free and unchained should be having a party at its very gates. This party itself looked like some massive art installation that challenged the very core of government and monarchy. Shiva and Bobby started dancing and two fire-eaters, a boy and a girl, started blowing plumes of flame from the ramparts of the National Gallery. Graffiti started appearing along the front of the gallery.
“ART FOR ALL OR ART FOR NONE.”
There was also a timely and understandable “FUCK THE ELECTION.”
Hundreds were now dancing on the ramparts of the gallery and thousands more danced in front of it. Shiva and Bobby noticed a massive purple banner with the words:
“IF I CAN’T DANCE IT’S NOT MY REVOLUTION.”
People were painting huge colourful motifs and slogans on the pavements and in the roads. A few folk were peddling around in environmentally sound vehicles. Stalls were set up distributing pamphlets, artwork and all kinds of literature. The Green Man strode about holding a staff with vine leaves wrapped around it and the space around the fountains gradually became a massive chill-out area.
Someone dropped a huge black banner that must have been at least 50ft. by 50ft. down the side of one of the giant ministerial buildings that circled the square. It had “RECLAIM THE FUTURE” written on it in red letters. A long green and black banner was hoisted up in front of the Gallery that had become the stage for what had now evolved into one of the most subversive raves Shiva and Bobby had ever been to. On the banner in white letters were the historic and timely words:
“NEVER MIND THE BALLOTS RECLAIM THE STREETS”.
Green, red and black flags were everywhere and people were going mental. Two fellows scaled the big stone base of Nelson’s Column and hung another 50ft. by 50ft. banner with a psychedelic painting of a giant warrior woman on it with multicoloured dreadlocks. Her giant naked breasts seemed to symbolise irreverence towards patriarchal sexual repression. She held a Yin Yang mandala in front of her crutch and she looked furious as her multicoloured tongue poked fun at the fading grey ghoul of British imperial stagnation.
Someone got into the Treasury Building through a side window and emptied clouds of paper work out of a window and into the air. A banner was hung from a wall next to the entrance to the National Gallery with “A FAIR DEAL FOR TRAVELLERS” written on it. The two warrior women Shiva and Bobby had seen with the samba band stood on the roof of the truck that contained the sound system and danced and danced. One of them noticed a line of riot cops who were watching in shock from a distance and she pointed to her skin tight T-shirt that had “EVIL” written on it. She then lifted it up and bared her breasts at the cops and laughed hysterically.
Bobby shared a hash pipe with Shiva. He then said he would be back in a minute and took the camera for a few shots from different vantage points. He walked back and took one of the whole panoramic splendour of the occupied front of the National Gallery. He walked back a little further and gasped at the larger scene he discovered. He took another shot. He then walked back a little further and was blown away by the even bigger scene that greeted him. He took another shot. He then walked back further still until he was on the lip of the drop into the area around Nelson’s Column. The overview he now had of the party outside of the National Gallery made him cry with tears of happiness. His final shot was taken with extreme concentration as he experienced waves of emotion that jolted him like strong electric currents.
These people had turned the centre of Babylon into a Garden of Eden for a day. You could hear birdsong in this part of the capital on a sunny afternoon for the only time anybody could remember. The birdsong complemented the sound system and confirmed that a party was not the same as the noise pollution that hundreds of cars had proved to be. He rushed back and urged Shiva to go back and see the full size of what was developing. She did and moments later came back and they hugged and hugged. This was truly a life affirming experience and no mistake. If any single moment could ever justify their cultural and political stance in the twilight of the twentieth century just before the dawn of the twenty-first then this was it.
In Eden shoots were beginning to poke through the cracks in the spectre’s motorway. Vegetation started to grow around the disused husks that were all that was left of the engines of destruction. No trace was left of any of the creatures of genocide that had tried to destroy The Forest of Abel. The Woodland seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. For this moment, at least, it seemed that the trees were out of harm’s way.
Life hangs from a thread.
The point is to twang it
and make a tune.