The first time I visited Sarcasm the guy at the gate checking ID cards told me I wasn’t weak enough to be seeking refuge. Knowing my own poverty, I assured him he had it all wrong. ‘I don’t care. Fuck off,’ he replied. And so I did. I turned, ambled back over the bridge. Two minutes later, the same guy tapped me on the shoulder, squinted, said, ‘You gullible bastard! We need people like you!’
The second time I visited Sarcasm a huge parade was passing through spectator-lined
streets. I stood on the side of the road feeling tall (in Sarcasm most are vertically challenged), right
next to a young couple holding a doll (eyelids batted when moved), and before you knew it some
guy (t-shirt: I am the future) told me he loved me more than life itself.
The third and last time I visited sarcasm it was so hot I thought my head would melt. I sat
down on a curb and was soon approached by a small, important-looking man, throng in tow. A
crown on his head said, Sarcasus sarcmus behishd, and in brackets, Mayor. He took off his crown,
wiping sweat from his crinkly forehead. ‘This is most extraordinary,’ he said. ‘They either leave or
stay, normally. But you are here thrice, and this is important.’
And I shrugged my shoulders, unselfconscious grin on my face like it was the punchline to
life.
But the mayor was not smiling.
‘This is my little brother, Irony,’ he said, introducing the bespectacled, extraordinarily short
young man to his left; ‘and that (pointing a few metres behind me to a lightly bearded woman
glaring in my direction) is my mother-in-law, Cynisism.’
I nodded – no idea what else to do. The mayor said, ‘Now we go.’ I asked where. He looked
at me like I’d forgotten my own name. ‘To the museum. We have to go the museum.’
How long we walked I couldn’t say, but it was a good piece of the day. A sea of onlookers
parted to give us passage through the streets (cobblestone, winding) of Sarcasm until I thought I
could walk no more. Then we arrived at a lighthouse (smeared grey like a coaltown skyline)
protruding from an empty suburban street and climbed stairs forever. Me dizzy from spiral. The
mayor said nothing; his entourage, twenty-strong, likewise silent.
We got to the top, puffing.
I saw nothing, waited instead. The room empty but for desk. No one had spoken a word
since we started to walk. I cracked first, asking, ‘Is this it?’ The mayor said nothing, walking to the desk
instead. From its top drawer he took a snowdome. He held it up and shook it softly. Snow
started to fall. He put it in my hand.
I waited a few seconds then shrugged my shoulders, nervous smirking.
‘This,’ he said (the whole room solemn), ‘is your entire culture. The whole lot. It’s all right
here, all of it.’
I knew where I was so I grinned, because not so easily am I the fool.
But I grinned alone.
The mayor sat down at his desk as his mother-in-law steamed back down the stairs yelling, ‘I
told you so, didn’t I? Didn’t I tell you he wasn’t the one? Didn’t I jolly-well tell you?’
At that point the others in the room started mumbling to each other. The mayor turned his
back to me. Remembering where I was I tried laughing (testing: one, two) but it seemed to only
provoke them. So I walked out onto the lighthouse balcony (floorboards painted chessboard but
diagonal) to get away from it all. The air felt cold, very cold. I thrust my arms over the safety rail,
past the protection of the roof into falling snow.