First day mining the fat-bergs.
(Day? Night? Can’t tell down here.)
The ghost of Jack the Ripper watches me, says nothing.
His dagger goes up, down, up, down,
like he’s miming to a Bernard Herrmann soundtrack.
At least he’s bright – I can save my batteries.
The rats don’t seem to like him though.
My digger goes up, down, up, down,
carving blubber that’s been a century or two piling up here,
blocking and cracking the old Victorian tunnels.
Not that the Waste Authority gives a damn.
Matter of fact, there isn’t a Waste Authority any more.
Nah, my thumb’s stamped by the pharmaceuticals.
You don’t need to know which one – they all do it.
They’re supposed to grow the stuff themselves,
in lab conditions, sterile, human cell tissue growth base.
But lab conditions cost and the compensation payouts
after the fat-eating nano-bots got out of hand
chewed holes in their spreadsheets
bigger than the ones in Mrs Glom’s once-flabby butt.
So we go the budget route for the reconstruction material.
Up, down. Up, down. Dagger, digger, digger, dagger.
I was told I’d be paired – this berg’s on disputed turf.
Red says sometimes they send cyber-rat assassins
or post energy-field guards, whatever the hell those are.
But hey, I’ve got Saucy Jack for company,
and he’s scared off any rats. Up, down, yeah!
Ten years since the last big All-London Holo-festival.
Pity they were too cheap to warehouse them properly after.
All the ghosts of Olde Englande
drifting round down here like steam from its shit.
I guess they won’t be coming back for them now.
Saw Queen Victoria on the way in,
sparkly rats jumping in and out of her.
Rule Britannia. Up, down.
Guess the rats got used to them.
Red says it’s a new kind of parasitism – rats on holo-energy.
So now the rats glow too. Nice.
So why don’t they like Jack?
He sure as hell seems to like me. Up, down.
Looks like he wants to cosy up now. Up, down.
Up, down, up, down.
— Simon MacCulloch lives in London and contributes poetry to a variety of publications, such as Spectral Realms, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, Yellow Mama and others.