Man had never had greater access to information, and yet the professor felt certain that it had never been harder to pin down the truth. There were mechanisms for whittling away at the lies, for cutting through the narratives and sifting through the shit to reach something close to the truth. Sometimes, one had to trust his gut. Other times, as on this day, the weavers of deceit might overplay their hand so that the questioning mind might spot the lie.
Professor Arthur Anvil was a large man of powerful build with thick strands of black hair about his knuckles and which rose up his arms. He had hands like pit shovels (though they were immaculate in their keeping), and a strong, handsome face with pondering deep blue eyes resting behind fine wire framed spectacles, eyes which were more strained than usual because on this day, while taking his morning coffee, the professor had discovered that the earth was, with all likelihood, flat as a pancake.
Of the professor’s office all was wood, hard and dark, accompanied by a pallet of beige and ox-blood red. On the wall hung sketches he’d taken of Breker’s works in Düsseldorf and Nörvenich, and entomological displays he’d made as a boy. Upon his desk a humidor with a pipe stand by it, and by the Tiffany lamp the mounted imperial helmet of a British officer bought in South Africa and still blessed with the dust of the Transvaal where it had been found.
Shelves lined the walls with glass vivariums of various size and occupant upon them. Some were heavily planted and semi-aquatic, the dwellings of poison dart frogs or fire bellied newts. Others were arid and bare, home to thorned dragons which hissed and skinks with blue tongues. Some resembled the forest floor where snakes did dwell while other, smaller tanks, saw branches veiled in fine silk curtains set down by arboreal tarantulas of bright colour like the versicolour pink toe tarantulas of the Antilles islands which moved slowly like living jewels fresh from slumber, or the gooty sapphire ornamentals of India which stuck prey like a flash of blue lightning.
Like the man, the space was an anachronism, a place out of time with the rest of the world. There was no plastic within the room, nor colours of bright offense or unnatural nature, and besides the printer and the outdated laptop, one would have been forgiven for placing the office a century before this day which came in November, 2024.
Between the tanks were rows of books, and more stacked upon the floor. Some were fiction, and others not. Some were classics, one hundred years old and rapped in decaying leather, and others new paper backs of obscure author and origin. There were heirlooms such as the family bible and his great grandmother’s collection of Dickens’ works. There were rare books not to be spoken of, too; a first edition of Raspail’s most notable work and Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Our 200 Years Together’ unreadable in the original Russian but with inscription from the man himself.
It was for this reason why Arthur Anvil, professor of history at the university of Oakenshire, favoured the office tucked safely away in the loft of his country home with it’s view of his greenhouse and sizable grounds below, over that of his office at the university. In that place all was cheap conformity, and such a bore as to be poisonous to the soul of man.
Much of Anvil’s literature and the décor would have invited ceaseless scrutiny from his peers and students, scrutiny which would eventually have to result in shameful capitulation or dismissal. Besides, here he could enjoy those pleasurable vices prohibited in the public space by the authorities which smothered joy and the autonomy of man wherever they found it. Here, he could take his tobacco to facilitate conversation, relaxation, or deep contemplation. He could drink too, to set his mind wild, or to numb it as needed, whereas at the university nothing but rigid sobriety of body and mind was permitted.
Universities were supposed to be fertile ground for critical thought, places where ideas could be explored and expanded upon. Yet in England, as in that frozen land which the Soviets had presided over, men’s minds were hammered into rigid conformity, students and teachers policing one another alike.
Take the officer’s helmet for example. It’s inclusion in his collection was a reminder of where he stood in time, a momento mori as to the fate of empires. And besides this, as a personal curiosity. Anvil’s own forebear, a direct ancestor of his paternal line, had served in the Anglo-Zulu war which was what had attracted Anvil to South Africa in the first place.
You’d have thought that fair enough, and deserving of no further explanation, and yet in his office at the university the helmet would never have been tolerated. It would have signified to all that Anvil was not wholly disgraced by the past of his people, and indeed his own family, and such a thing would never have been allowed to rest. The same went for Solzhenitsyn’s book, and many others upon the shelves and stacked about the floor.
It had been Anvil’s dream to be a professor at the university, and yet here he found himself at the twilight of his career not caring for the place at all. Though, it had certainly ceased to care for him first. There had been a soft takeover, a losers revolution which had occurred under everyone’s nose. He was one of the last white men left now, a relic of the old world just waiting to retire and put it all behind him.
The captain’s chair groaned beneath Anvil’s weight as he leaned about, first retrieving his billiard pipe and then his jar of tobacco which was grown and cured by his own hands, the same hands which pinched at the flake and pressed in gently into the bowl. Striking a match he tamped down the tobacco with the handle of his letter opener and then struck another and puffed heavily at the pipe. When it was going he swung in his chair and from the cabinet retrieved the single malt from the Isle of Skye. He poured a good bit and then, removing the pipe from his mouth, took a warming drink and then poured some more.
He’d become used to lying, acting, biting his tongue until he thought he might have to bite it off. Sane men had to when the nuts took over the asylum. It was hard on ones sense of self respect, but what alternative was there? Have a drink and let the sheep bleat, and bleat along with them if you knew what was good for you. That was what it took. ‘Yes, the numbers are correct’, ‘of course it’s our greatest strength! We’re a nation of immigrants, after all’, ‘yes, she’s a woman’, etc, etc.
Anvil had seen men argue, stand up for the truth. Honourable, but stupid, like confessing your Catholicism to Cromwell. The truth wasn’t welcome in this time any more than it was then. No one man could change that. Better to bleat, bleat but keep the truth deep within, hidden like an inmates dormouse, fed in private and kept from the eye of the guards.
This latest discovery was no mere dormouse, however. It was a bloody great tiger, inconceivable and terrifying in it’s implications. Anvil had always been careful not to get carried away. He prided himself on that. He’d thought flat earthers mad, and a barrier to serious dialogue. He’d mocked and scorned them. And yet here it was, plain as day, proof that they were right all along, or near enough proof, anyway. They had overplayed their hand, like they did sometimes, so there could be little doubt.
But how could such a thing be covered up, and to what end? What was Galileo hiding, that fiendish wop? And what else could be true besides the flat earth? The ice walls and hidden continents? The Illuminati? Was the king a lizard? Suddenly everything could be called into question, and the most outlandish conspiracies became conceivable.
Like all thinking men professor Anvil ignored the news as he ignored the weather forecast, but on this morning, as he had opened the browser on his phone, a story had popped up. It had stolen his attention like a brick to the skull and now he sat dazed and shaken by it.
Anvil drew upon his pipe, tapped the stem against his broad chin and then downed his whisky. Two down and it wasn’t even lunch yet. Picking up his phone he studied the evidence again. The BBC headline read as follows:
Flat Earthers Investigated by the Met’,
while the caption read:
‘Following updates to the online harms bill those who claim the earth to be flat leave themselves open to persecution following increased pressure from the government to crack down on dangerous misinformation, the BBC can reveal’.
Professor Anvil’s troubled eyes rested beneath a furrowed brow as he read and re-read the words. Finally he placed the phone down and sat back, shrouded in the tobacco smoke from the pipe which rested in his mouth as he puffed gently at it, his mind searching for all possible refutations before finally succumbing to the numbing acceptance.
‘It’s flat,’ he said, forcing up a sickening scoff. ‘The bloody earth is flat.’
He shook his head and laughed desperately, reaching for the scotch and poring another large measure.
The End.
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