Remembering Sandsville

There had been a tragic earthquake in Sandsville, a hundred miles away, and several thousand people had died (the exact number was still not known). The television showed pictures of collapsed buildings and distraught people. Experts were interviewed and they explained how the earthquake had occurred.

Pastor Tim prayed for those suffering and went about his day: preparing a sermon, visiting St Cuthbert’s Hospital, attending a church council meeting. The earthquake was mentioned by everybody. Then home to dinner with his wife Tilly and their two small children. “It’s all so terribly sad,” she said. They ate sausages and mashed potatoes, and afterwards the children, Molly and Matt, were allowed to spend ten minutes watching clowns falling over on television.

The earthquake continued to feature in everyone’s awareness over the next few weeks. The television had a death toll counter in the corner of the screen, as more victims were discovered. The government announced a day of mourning where everyone was requested to wear a black armband. At the end of the day, the Prime Minister, moved to tears, suggested that the population all wear black armbands whenever they left home, as a gesture of respect. This idea was taken up enthusiastically. Pastor Tim became used to wearing one, even in the pulpit.

There was much discussion in the newspapers and television about whether the earthquake could have been predicted, and lives saved. The consensus of the experts was that indeed it could. After a series of consultations, the government reached a decision: some brand-new technology would be used across the nation to prevent any future disasters.

The idea was simple: everyone knew that earth tremors could be detected by seismographs. The new technology consisted in a small seismometer, available in a range of colours, which could be worn on the wrist. The gadget could sense tremors deep in the earth, beneath the position of the wearer. If there was sufficient motion to cause concern, the gadget would sound an alarm, and the wearer would be required to go to a specially constructed earthquake shelter for safety.

Fortunately all the expert knowledge and required materials for this project were available. There was a technology company immediately able to produce the Safelet, as the seismometer was called, in very large quantities. Admittedly it was an expensive investment but everyone on the television felt that the expense was justified to save lives. The church council was in complete agreement and discussed raising funds to send Safelets to the developing world.

Pastor Tim went home and found that Tilly was also in favour of the idea. Keeping the population safe, she felt, had to be the priority. A number of smaller earthquakes in other parts of the country had made her quite anxious and she kept the children close.

The town of Sandsville was being completely rebuilt, at great expense, and a large construction company, Rocksolid, was ready for the challenge. The same company was also contracted by the government to rebuild other damaged towns. The Safelets were issued to everybody and they had to be worn at all times. Pastor Tim and the church council started work on a new campaign to bring more people into the church, and decided on coloured leaflets to be distributed locally. He prayed earnestly for the success of this venture.

The government had a campaign of their own and called it Steady Together. It required the armbands, the Safelets, shelters, and a series of inspections of all public buildings. It also required a levy to be paid by each citizen towards the cost of rebuilding Sandsville. You could, of course, give voluntary donations and those who gave most were rewarded with a yellow-coloured Safelet which allowed for privileged treatment in a series of venues. Tilly gave rather more than Tim felt the family could afford, but her excitement about the yellow (sand-coloured) Safelet was so great that he said nothing.

A minor journalist started talking about the large number of shares in Safelet which members of the government owned. When had these shares been purchased? But then video emerged of the journalist kicking a dog, a setter with brown and white patches on its ears, and the subject was not mentioned again.

Tim and Tilly’s tenth anniversary was coming up and Tim made a reservation at a restaurant so they could celebrate. Molly and Matt would be looked after by their usual babysitter, Constance, a young woman of twenty that the family knew well.

The church council had some stormy meetings. Marvin the music minister suggested that the best seats be reserved for those with yellow Safelets, and some other members of the council liked the idea. Tim had to argue strongly, on the grounds of several explicit New Testament verses, that such an idea was not compatible with Christianity. Marvin said that the situation was clearly not that described by the epistle of James where the wealthy received favourable treatment: rather those who had given the most, in other words, those who had been most loving, would be acknowledged. Pastor Tim ruled out the idea, but the atmosphere of the meeting was strained. 

He went home to prepare for his anniversary dinner to find that Constance had arrived without her Safelet and been sent home to fetch it so that Tilly could feel that the children were secure. The two of them arrived at the restaurant, Tilly beautiful in a yellow dress matching her Safelet, to discover that they would not be permitted to sit in the same area of the dining-room. Tim found himself, to his horror, giving the waiter a cash bribe to upgrade his inferior blue Safelet to Tilly’s table. Tilly’s complimentary glass of champagne was shared by them both.

The local Steady Together authority issued a rule that supermarkets, cinemas, restaurants and churches must make sure everyone was checked at the door to ensure they wore a black armband and a Safelet. They also mentioned scrutinising people as they arrived to ensure that they were steady on their feet.

Church life continued much as usual. They kept a stack of armbands at the door in case anyone forgot one. Occasionally they had to suspend a service and all troop down to the earthquake shelter when somebody’s Safelet went off. Marvin started to suspect he had a gift for writing hymns. Tim opened an email to find that the local government were offering to pay the cost of the coloured leaflets on the small condition that they carried a prominent “Steady Together” message. He found this a little disturbing, but on consulting the members of the church council he was enthusiastically encouraged to proceed.

Pastor Tim was struggling with his prayers and his own sense of God’s leading. He had gone into ministry with a true desire to help people, and specifically to help them build their lives on the message of the Gospel. But now his life seemed an endless whirl of armbands, of video of collapsing buildings, of a kind of shapeless anxiety. He found himself looking at his children with a sense of apprehension for their future.

Unfortunately, and the necessity for this moved the Prime Minister to tears during his announcement, the levy for the rebuilding of Sandsville had to be increased. Tim and Tilly personally would need to pay a few hundred extra dollars, and the church itself was not exempt. However, all the fund-raising was in such a good cause, and people started saying “Remembering Sandsville” at important moments.

Experts on the television started showing modelling of people collapsing for various reasons and dragging others down with them. Tim and Tilly watched one in which a person on a balcony was knocked off balance, leaned on the rusty railing which gave way, and fell screaming to his death. Another one showed an old man who had a moment’s dizziness, grasped a supermarket display, and sent it toppling. Other customers tripped on rolling cans, and concussions and fractures resulted. There seemed to be a great many such possible scenarios.

Tilly felt very afraid of Matt or Molly falling. Tim remembered frequent falls in his childhood but somehow they had not been accompanied by the rolling disasters shared by the modellers on television. Marvin wrote a new hymn that emphasised the stability and security of the true believer. Tilly asked Constance, when she babysat, to try to just keep the children seated as much as possible.

A team from church distributed the new coloured leaflets. The “Steady Together” message seemed even more prominent than Pastor Tim had expected. Penny from the church council explained how the printer had offered an extra discount if they put “Steady Together” at the very top of the leaflets. But they still had all the important stuff in there as well, as she eagerly pointed out, and the money saved could go towards more Safelets for the underprivileged.

There was a minor fuss about the company Rocksolid which was doing much of the national reconstruction, when it was discovered that it was owned by the Prime Minister’s brother. The Prime Minister and his brother, together with a few randomly selected members of the public, wept on television as they expressed their utter disgust at those contemptibles who laid more stress on money than on the suffering of real people. It’s truly appalling the way some people’s minds work. All the most important journalists sympathised with the Prime Minister: weren’t the challenges of government tough enough without this sort of baseless accusation? Tilly wondered if one of the random members of the public looked a little like the actor from that soap opera, what was his name, but Matt was looking a little unsteady on top of two stacked chairs and she was instantly distracted.

With that unpleasantness behind them, the government announced a new technological breakthrough. Yes, we had our natural human sense of balance, but unfortunately for so many people over the years it had proved unreliable. How many patients had been treated for falls and concussions in our overstretched hospitals? The Safelets had been a stunning breakthrough, but scientists working overtime had perfected a way for the Safelet to be transformed into an internal monitor which gave complete oversight over the balancing system located in the human ear. Amongst its other advantages it also gave location information about its wearer, meaning that you need never be concerned again about where your loved ones might be. The Steady Together authority emphasised how this feature laid all parental anxiety to rest. Naturally, adopting the Securelet would be completely voluntary.

Pastor Tim and Tilly lay in bed discussing this development. Although a little troubled by the ways in which the technology might be abused, Tilly felt that on balance it would be an asset to know that their children would never fall over and could be located at any time. Tim could see the advantages, and was grateful to live in a society where the government expended so much effort and expense in the cause of public safety. But wasn’t the body designed to balance by itself? Hadn’t we been walking steadily for thousands of years? He lay staring into the darkness long after Tilly had fallen asleep, remembering his joy at his children’s first steps, remembering even his own unselfconscious exhilaration at running and ice-skating as a youth. How complicated everything seemed now.

He woke to the news that there had been another earthquake in a neighbouring town, and a few sinkholes had opened up under various individuals, all of whom had lost their lives. Again, a prayer for the suffering, a kiss for Tilly and Molly and Matt, and then to St Cuthbert’s, where his armband was checked and he was asked to walk ten steps along a yellow line to ensure his stability. All the people he normally visited were being equipped, it appeared, with a Securelet inside the brain. Several were in a post-operative fog and could barely converse. He was able to say hello to old Mrs Rockwell before she went in for her operation, and she was as cheerful as ever. “I’m quite excited to tell you the truth,” she said, and they prayed together before she was wheeled away, his last sight of her a pair of incongruous little white socks on the trolley.

As he walked through reception on the way out, the television was complaining bitterly about those who disagreed with Steady Together. It had given those critics the name “Destabilisers”. “Can’t stand these people who just endlessly undermine the community,” said the presenter with dangly earrings. “We’re only steady if we all work together,” said the earnest and handsome young man by her side. Apparently Destabilisers were spreading rumours about prior subterranean excavation and even underground explosions at some of the earthquake sites. “Absolutely disgusting and shameless,” said the presenter, her earrings rocking as she shook her head. Underground explosions? A terrible thought, but unlikely, surely? Tim listened to Dave’s Drivetime on the radio as he drove home—something about the Prime Minister’s family being heavily invested in digging and mining equipment, but it was only mentioned once, and he was eager to hear the new hymn Marvin had written.

Tilly was crying as he walked in, because she’d been forced to sack Constance as babysitter, after Constance unreasonably declined the offer of a Securelet. “They’re available for free to all young people now and I just can’t believe she’d be that selfish,” sobbed Tilly. “It’s not just about her, her stability means security for the children and for everyone who comes into contact with her. I love Constance, but does she think she’s a seismologist? And you’re booked in for next Tuesday at 3 p.m., darling, the Health Department rang half an hour ago.”

Tim bent to pick up the children, who had both run to him. “I’m not completely sure I want it,” he said.

“But Tim, they’re offering all Supersteadies a bonus $2000 mortgage payment. We can’t afford for you not to have it! And then when I get mine we can pay off the car.”

His phone was ringing—Marvin the music minister. “Here’s the new hymn,” he said. “What do you think:

With our Securelets we strongly stand

Steady together, with Jesus too.

God wants a stable, solid land—

We’re Supersteadies, me and you!

The Lord is in my heart,

The Securelet in my brain,

As strong as solid rock

I know I will remain.”

There were five other verses along the same lines. “The tune is great,” said Pastor Tim, “but I’m a bit worried about whether the Gospel message is quite clear. Sorry Marvin, let me just take this other call …”

It was St Cuthbert’s to say that Mrs Rockwell had died on the operating table.

The next afternoon Tim drove to his local ministers’ fellowship meeting (what had happened to Dave on the radio? Suddenly it had become Dolores’s Drivetime). He stopped at the supermarket to buy biscuits for the fellowship and got stuck in the long line for non-Supersteadies. Supersteadies were also getting 10 per cent off their groceries. Despite their name, there seemed to be a certain tremulousness to their movements.

The ministers’ meeting was discussing the news that all churches must be closed for several weeks for their safety inspections. Some felt this was a perfectly reasonable step; others were uneasy about it. They all agreed they had no choice but to comply, partly on the grounds of submission to lawful authority as described in Romans 13, partly because otherwise they would need to pay punitive fines and also because, as the one who ate the largest number of biscuits loudly proclaimed, “It’s the most loving thing to do. Our people need to feel reassured about their safety. And what the government’s asking isn’t a big deal in the scheme of things. Hey Tim, have you forgotten your armband? Remembering Sandsville!”

Dolores was still on the radio as he drove home, explaining that station management still supported Dave after his shock arrest on drug charges last night, but that he’d benefit from time away from the microphone. And now on to the newest incentive for Securelets: free laptops from Screenz’R’us for teenagers! Then the news bulletin, headed by the sad death of a leading Destabiliser who had vanished into a sinkhole which opened, in the most extraordinary way, right under his house.

Pastor Tim sat in the car, thinking and praying, before going inside. The steering wheel was a surprisingly comfortable place to rest his head. Then, because it was Tuesday night and his turn, he went in and made spaghetti for his family, and they all laughed around the table, almost like before. He tucked the children into their bunk beds, and then he and Tilly drank tea and talked, for a very long time, and together went to bed.

The next day he went to the church office for a council meeting, and to deal with emails and phone calls. Steady Together wanted the church to stay closed for another month while further inspections were made. St Cuthbert’s planned to exclude any visitors who did not have a Securelet. Marvin had written what he called a “reprise” of an old hymn and called it “Sit Down, Christian Soldiers”. Penny was thinking ahead to Christmas and thought the nativity scene outside the church should make clear that the Holy Family had all received Securelets. An email from the denominational headquarters said that henceforth children without Securelets or (at the minimum) yellow Safelets must be excluded from Sunday School and Youth programs as church insurance could not cover their propensity to fall over.

Tim sat at the table, looking at the eager faces of the church council, seeing the messages with their new restrictions blinking on his phone. He closed his eyes for a second and suddenly felt his body in contact with the chair, the magic link of his feet with the ground and a general sense of being securely held. He stood up, looked at them all and said one word.

“No.”

Corry Macleod lives in Brisbane. Some of her poetry has appeared in Quadrant over recent years