I’m lying supine in the great grass field and beside me stands Julio. Well, I say beside but
he’s also somewhat on top of me. There’s a lot of others like me and good old Julio.
Hundreds I think, maybe thousands, I’m not sure how many in the next field over. They’re all
doing pretty much the same thing as well I expect, and all getting paid about the same. So
as I was saying, I’m on the floor and I’m wearing white, sort of billowey robes as I’m meant
to, and Julio is standing above me (awfully good posture he has!) and he’s wearing all this
leathery black stuff. Not my preference clothing-wise but he didn’t have much of a choice.
Importantly, he’s got one big boot on and his job is to bring this big bloody boot down on my
face, over and over again. I’ve given up noticing it mostly (I was blessed with a very flat
nose, the people with the big brooding honkers tend to be picked for stomping duty… poor
sods). Julio’s a good sort as well, he keeps the rhythm up is what I mean, hands me a
cigarette every once in a while. Each second you get the raising of the feet and all the
standing-up boys do it at once, their uniform rustling simultaneously, then every other
second they bring the boots down and you get this sound like a million… well, a million
people stomping on something hard. Is it a million? Maybe more. I really ought to ask how
many are in the next field over. “Hey Julio!” I shout (my words are a bit muffled by all the
noise), “you know how many people are in the next field over?” He looks down at me
perplexed from between the thick framed glasses that perch lightly upon his massive nose.
“Haven’t the foggiest old chum” he says before stepping on my forehead a little painfully and
apologising. Good old Julio, always trust him to tell it as it is.
I move my hands from their cross position (as we’re taught in basic training) down to my
pocket and retrieve a cigarette. Everyone gets a couple cigarettes before each shift and
they’re bloody nice cigs as well, gold foil and plating and all. I’ve got no clue where they
come from though, I think I read somewhere that they’re mined out of deposits. I click the
little button on the paper side and the cigarette springs to life, lighting itself. Satisfied, I put it
between my lips and take a puff. Julio’s boot goes at a bit of an odd angle and squashes it
somewhat but I don’t mind. Forgive and forget I always say. I turn to my right to protect the
little paper smoker and see another fellow looking back at me. I wave a little and he gestures
back. “What’s your name old chum?” Old chum is of course the mandatory way of
expressing friendship. The way you express being enemies with someone is so long and
convoluted (and, I hate to say it, Germanic) that everyone you find winds up being an old
chum one way or another. Booted or Bootee alike. “My name’s Jonday,” he says and he
grins back before getting stomped on again, “You a big reader old chum?” he asks. I remove
the cigarette and think it over. “No, no, I’m sorry, I don’t think so,” I say, frowning a little. It’s
just awful to disappoint someone new, but Jonday brightens up at this. “That’s grand, you’re
just the audience I want! I’m working on something.”
“Oh yes, I’ve worked on a few things.” I have, most recently I tried bringing a ping pong ball
to the field and chucking it around but it got lost and I couldn’t retrieve it. “Well, I’m working
on a book you see, a book for the people,” Jonday speaks with this sort of breathless
enthusiasm that I can’t quite understand. He seems one of those boring sorts who’ll
endlessly explain how a bed with sheets is better than one without, or how a cigarette
smoked backwards is better than one smoked forwards and so on. He continues, “It’s a book
about a world where everyone’s got boots and we all stomp on each other forever till we die,
I plan to read it out to everyone in a couple of days.”
“Oh are you just?” I say lackadaisically dropping the cigarette from beneath my two fingers
onto the floor where it zaps and sizzles out, “I’d hate to be a booter you know, seems awfully
exerting”. “Oh yes, yes, me too! and after that I’m thinking of writing a book where we’re all
the ones being booted except there’s no one to boot so we just lie on the floor and stare up
at the sky all day!”
“Mmm, yes, that would be quite dreadful wouldn’t it? ”
“Oh yes indeed! I think it’s really quite meaningful, you know, I think I’ll get a lot out of it.”
“But you know…” I’m trying to think this through quite hard, Julio’s booting a bit more
emphatically than usual, “well, what’s the point old chum? What do you think it’ll do?”
Jonday stops here and he looks at me sadly for a moment, “I’m not sure. I’m not sure at all.”
“No, you’re not. I hate to say it but it’s a rather bad idea Jonday. Neither is ever going to
happen.”
“No… No, I suppose it won’t…” the poor boy looks put out, but I don’t feel very sympathetic
to him. “Rather I think, you should write a book where there’s no boot, and no fellow on the
floor, just a field. Just a field stretching to the end of time.”
“But don’t you think…?”
“No, Jonday, I don’t