We glide down an alley and straight into a trap. Nureyev is hit by a grenade and our link is severed. Dancers fall to gunfire all around me. One of them, Katya Illinova, teeters on pointed toes as bullets rip into her. She doesn’t falter as she performs a last bow which initiates a kamikaze run by her Killbot. The explosion lights up the town like an orange sunset.

  I pirouette into a house to avoid any surviving snipers. Straight into the arms of the Dictator. I recognise him from intelligence photos; a handsome man with a long moustache, dressed in military uniform. We lock eyes. I hold out my hand and he takes it. We tango slow and sure. He smells faintly of explosives, sweat and vanilla, his hand on the small of my back, his breath on my neck.

  He dips me and I bring my leg up to his shoulder. The military network satellite responds to my muscle command and dispatches several Tomahawk missiles to our location. We’re still dancing as everything is obliterated.

  * * *

  Charlie Human is a novelist and screenwriter from Cape Town, South Africa. His novels Apocalypse Now Now and Kill Baxter have been published in several countries including Japan, the USA, Italy, and Turkey. Apocalypse Now Now has recently been optioned for a movie, with District 9 co-writer Terri Tatchell attached to adapt it for the screen.

  “Dance Dance Revolution” was previously published by Chew Magazine (2010).

  OMG GTFO

  by S.L. Grey

  Note: The following extracts were gathered during the lead-up to the Final Event. No names have been changed.

  Twitter feed between Newshound and TVWhore:

  Newshound @TVWhore No ways! US President just gone mental. Turn on CNN. Fcking HILARIOUS

  TVWhore @Newshound OMG, what you doing watching the news? American Idol Final on now

  Newshound @TVWhore Just trust me on this and check it out

  TVWhore @Newshound WTF? What happened? Just anchors on now looking seriously confused

  Newshound @TVWhore Pres started talking crap

  TVWhore @Newshound What about??

  Newshound @TVWhore He was speaking in a funny voice. With a strange accent. Wait – they’re repeating it

  TVWhore @Newshound OMG. Did he just say what I thought he said?

  Newshound @TVWhore Yup. Told you it was worth it

  TVWhore @Newshound What language is he speaking in now? Oh wait, screen gone black WTF?

  Newshound @TVWhore See if it’s on YouTube

  TVWhore @Newshound Looked can’t find it

  Newshound @TVWhore Is he shit-faced again?

  TVWhore @Newshound GOD, must be.

  ***

  Extract from Transcript of Emergency Press Conference chaired by White House Press Secretary Lillian O’ Keefe.

  O’Keefe: Before we open for questions, I would like to read a short statement. The President regrets this morning’s unfortunate incident and would like to assure citizens that he is not suffering from any form of mental illness, nor, as has been postulated by certain members of the online community, was he under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident. He has undergone a full psychological and physiological examination and we are delighted to report that he is in excellent health. The President will be spending the next few days with his family at Camp David and trusts that members of the press will respect his privacy during this time. Thank you. We will now open for questions from the floor.

  Elizabeth Stephens, BBC: What of the allegations that the President was plied with a hallucinogen of some type shortly before his speech?

  O’Keefe: I can categorically state that no traces of any drugs of any kind were found in the President’s blood stream.

  Callie Lawrence, CNN: The language he was speaking in has been confirmed as German. Is the President fluent in this language?

  O’Keefe: No comment.

  Stephen Jones, News Corp International: The President said, and I quote, ‘Hell exists and I can prove it.’ Can you explain what he means by this?

  O’Keefe: I have no comment on this at this time.

  Callie Lawrence, CNN: What of the allegation that this was merely a strategy by the President to garner support from the Christian demographic in the upcoming primaries?

  O’Keefe: That allegation is frankly ridiculous and is strongly denied.

  Lisa Kent, Reuters: Can you comment on reports that the German voice in which the president was speaking has been identified as that of a former Nazi soldier who died in 1976?

  O’ Keefe: Regrettably those are all the questions we have time for.

  ***

  Extract from ‘What in the hell is going on?’ by Simon Wells. Article originally published in Time Magazine.

  When United States President Jonathan Blake stood up in front of hundreds of dignitaries to give his annual State of the Union address, few of the millions of people watching the broadcast live at home could have predicted what his first words would be. Far from discussing the economy and the current controversial US foreign policy, he proclaimed that he knew ‘without a doubt that hell existed and he could prove it.’ What stunned the world was not that he appeared to be experiencing some sort of psychotic episode, but that he seemed to be talking in a voice that bore no relation to his own. One television pundit commented that ‘it was as if he was channelling that kid from The Exorcist.’

  As the audience fell into shocked silence, the President then spoke several sentences in German, before being whisked off the stage by security staff. News of the President’s impromptu speech spread throughout the world, but within minutes of this clip going viral, it was pulled from YouTube. Despite attempts at a media blackout, German speakers swiftly responded with various translations of the President’s words, which were confirmed to be: ‘It hurts, it burns, don’t die, you don’t want to be here. Far worse than you can imagine and endless, endless.’ After a short pause, the President then said: ‘Tell Ger that the Mercedes was never the same after the accident.’

  According to White House sources, there is no indication that the President has ever studied German, or that he is fluent in any language other than English.

  Hours after the broadcast, a journalist from the German tabloid Bild was contacted by Gerhard Lutz, a paediatrician working in Dusseldorf, who claims that the voice in which the President was speaking was uncannily similar to that of his father, Lucien, a former Nazi stoomtrooper who died in 1976 after a battle with prostate cancer. Furthermore, Lutz states: ‘The thing he said about the car. He was right about that. Just before my father died he had a minor accident on the autobahn, and the Mercedes’ suspension has never been the same.’

  Naturally, conspiracy theories abound, ranging from the out-there assertion that aliens have taken over the President’s body, to the more prosaic explanation that he suffered a stroke. Understandably, by far the most common is that the spirit of Lucien Lutz spoke through the President’s voice box to warn people that hell actually does exist, using the banal detail about the car to validate his authenticity.

  If this had been an isolated incident, perhaps it would have gone down in the annals of history as another example of the current president’s long list of eccentricities. But reports have come in from around the world of similar occurrences, although most have been similarly suppressed and cannot be verified. Among them are rumours that the Speaker of the House of Commons interrupted question time to harangue his colleagues in the voice of a Serbian national; the head of the United Nations, former South African Defence Minister Kobe Nkathi, befuddled his translators by suddenly speaking in Urdu during a budget meeting; and high-profile Australian trial lawyer and environmental activist, Lennie Ogilvy, allegedly addressed a packed political rally with an invective in Korean.

  But cynics believe that the majority of the Western world only started to sit up and take notice when this phenomenon started to affect high-profile celebrities.

  ***

  Transcript of interview between Jodi Fox, winner of Channel 5’s ‘You’re the Tops’ talent competition and an unnamed Hello! magazine journalist.

  ... So like I was saying, I was nominated in the Brit Award’s New Artist category, and, look, I don’t want to sound, like, all presentatious or whatever, but I knew that I’d win it, I mean, who else was there? Just that stupid cow who everyone knows uses that auto-tune software, and that guy with that dire eighties wedge haircut who thinks he knows how to rap.

  I was sitting with my publicist and my boyfriend, Jed – yeah, that’s right, the guy who won Big Brother 15 – and I’d barely managed to finish my glass of champers when they called out my name to say that I’d won. Anyway, I got up from the table and walked up to the podium thingy, and when I stood there, waiting for all the, you know, applause to die down, I suddenly started feeling dodgy. I was really dizzy, and like, I started to sweat which was weird cos I’d had Botox injected into my pores to stop that. I mean, you don’t want sweat circles, do you? Remember when that happened to Peaches Geldof? So minging. Oh hang on, can you not mention I said that?

  So like I was saying, I walked up to the podium, and next thing I knew, something just took over my body. God, it’s so hard to explain. Like I was, I dunno, possessed or something. And all these visions flashed into my head. It was like I was floating above a giant city, a bit like New York, only, like, the buildings were all twisted, almost like they were melted, and the sky was black, the clouds looked ... solid and red, as if they were about to start dripping blood. I could hear screaming and I looked down and saw millions of people just wandering around, some of them were on fire, and others just looked really fucked up. Yeah, course I knew what it was. It looked like those pictures they used to show us in Sunday school of hell and shit, but there weren’t like, devils and things or anything like that. Just people packed really closely together. Shoved almost on top of each other. Some of them were being, like squashed under boulders and stuff, others were being smooshed against the walls or were falling into these deep holes that looked like they went on forever. What really freaked me out was that they were all naked. I’m not saying I’m a prude or anything but most of them obviously hadn’t been to a gym for like, ever, so they looked really vile.

  Anyway, then my head just cleared instantly, and next thing I know, I’m being led from the stage and I didn’t even have the chance to make my thank-you speech or anything, which sucked as I’d spent hours writing it.

  Everyone was looking at me like I’d just gone mental, and Stewart Honey, who was the host, made some sort of joke and then everyone was laughing. When I got back to the table Jed was like, ‘what the fuck was that about?’ And like, people were asking me if I was on special K or whatever, but of course I wasn’t – I never take drugs; they wreck your voice, don’t they?

  Jed had filmed the whole thing on his iPhone and we went into the green room so he could show me what had happened. I was gutted, I mean, I looked terrible, really spaced out. I couldn’t believe it. I was talking in this deep man’s voice with some sort of American accent. I was going on and on about hell and shit and then I said that there was a body the cops didn’t know about and that they’d find it, I dunno, in some place in Florida or whatever. You’ve seen it on YouTube, right? It’s had like, 155 million hits! Don’t get me wrong, it sucked that it happened, but my publicist is always going on and on about how you can’t pay for this kind of publicity so it’s cool in a way. It was only later that they figured out who was ‘speaking through me’. Some dead dude called Ted Bundy. Yeah, I know. I’ve never heard of him before, either.

  ***

  Transcript of BBC World Service ‘World in Focus’ programme: Discussion between Elisha Davids (host), Iman Ahmed Raza, Rabbi Elizabeth Freeman, Archbishop Malcolm Fairfax and Stella Gordon, head of AtheistsUnite!

  Elisha Davids: As listeners will be aware, there have been countless reported incidences of well known and less well known so-called evil people ‘speaking through’ celebrities and public figures recently. The voices have been identified as those of high profile serial killers, war criminals, perpetrators of some of the world’s worst atrocities, as well as iconic figures such as Napoleon, Cleopatra and Stalin. The celebrities and few public officials willing to speak about this … phenomenon, say that they are also visited by visions of a city consumed by fire, as well as scenes of torture and suffering. In short, a stereotypical depiction of hell as evinced by Dante Alighieri, John Martin and other artists and writers throughout history. Is this proof that hell actually exists? And, if so, are we talking about the Christian concept of hell? Imam Raza, considering that the descriptions of Jahannam, the Islamic version of hell found in the Qur’an, if you will, closely correlate with some of the reported visions, how would you respond to this?

  Iman Raza: Thank you, Elisha. Above all, we implore people not to panic and reiterate that if they live their lives according to the will of Allah they have nothing to fear. That is all I wish to say at this time.

  Elisha Davids: Now, not all of the people who have ‘come through’ for want of a better phrase have been identified as Christian, in fact, some have been identified as belonging to the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist faiths as well as famous non-believers. Let me turn to you, Stella. You’ve said publicly that you believe this is some kind of global conspiracy to ‘put the fear of God into people?’

  Stella Gordon: Of course it’s just some conspiracy that religious bodies have perpetrated! How could anyone believe that historical figures and arbitrary dead people are coming back from the dead? Either that or it has to be a shared delusion of some type.

  Elisha Davids: But if this is so, you have to admit that it is not all bad. Surely the drop in the crime rate is a good thing? Stella Gordon: People are just hedging their bets. Of course a drop in crime is positive, but it is all built upon a lie. If people want to believe in the giant fairy in the sky— Archbishop Fairfax: I object to this phrase. It is extremely prejudicial and—

  Stella Gordon: So tell me this. Why now? Why is this happening now?

  Iman Raza: May I answer this? I am speaking hypothetically of course, but I would say that presently the world has reached its tipping point, its capacity for evil. I am talking of course of widespread violence and poverty, neglect for our environment, depravity in the inner cities, wars that are being fought purely for financial gain—

  Stella Gordon: And don’t forget the wars and terrorism perpetuated by religious fundamentalists—

  Elisha Davids: Please let the Imam finish—

  Stella Gordon: But how is this different from, say, the Crusades, the Holocaust and other atrocities that have happened throughout history?

  Elisha Davids: Rabbi Freeman, would you like to comment?

  Rabbi Freeman: Again, I would also like to put on record that I mean this hypothetically, but it could have something to do with our current obsession with social media. If we are being warned to change our ways, that our actions have consequences, the reach of Twitter, Facebook, smart phones and the internet means that now is the perfect time to spread the word and reach a global audience.

  ***

  Extract from ‘Staggering drop in South African Crime Statistics’ from the Mail and Guardian online. Author unknown

  With a reported murder rate of 50 deaths per day, and one in three South African women expected to be raped in their lifetime, for over a decade South Africa has been characterised as one of the most violent countries in the world. However, this looks set to change. In the last week, less than twenty homicides countrywide have been reported. Beatrice Molefe, spokesperson for the South African Police Service states: ‘This is a triumph for the SAPS and their ongoing fight against murder, domestic violence, rape and gang and drug-related crime. It just goes to show that our zero tolerance approach to corruption and violence is paying dividends.’

  South Africa is not alone in this. Indeed, countries throughout the world, especially those with a large Christian, Catholic and Islamic population have reported a massive drop in crime rates, which some sociologists and psychologists believe is due to the ‘Hell Exists’ trend sweeping the globe. Professor Benji Philiso, head of sociology at the University of Cape Town is currently compiling a study on what he calls ‘The Phenomenon of Consequence’. He says: ‘Whether these accounts can be verified or not, whether hell as a concept can be proved or not, isn’t the point. People are fuelled by fear and the possibility that they will eventually pay for their actions. This is having the sort of deterrent affect on our criminal element that supporters of the death penalty could only have dreamed of.’

  ***

  To: Lewisking@gmail.com From: Suki@Helpinghandinternational.org HelpingHand.Org. Helping those less fortunate help themselves est. 1985

  Dear Lewis,

  Thank you for you interest in joining our organisation. We appreciate your donation, but we must inform you that we have no openings for any more aid workers at this time. May we suggest that your efforts would be more suited to helping in your own community.

  Sincerely,

  Suki Leboleng (Ms)

  This is an automatically generated email. Do not respond to it

  ***

  Extract from ‘Memoir Mayhem’ article first published in Publishing Trends trade magazine.

  ... The ‘buy one get one free’ bargain tables at Waterstones will soon be heaving with political memoirs as politicians of every ilk queue up to come clean about their past indiscretions. Overworked ghost writers are frantically churning out political confessions detailing war atrocities, salacious sex scandals and corruption disgraces. Readers can expect tell-all tomes from Bosnian War criminals to West African rebel leaders, as well as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s much-anticipated ‘corrective’ to his first best-selling memoir. Those politicos desperate to unload and who cannot depend on old school tie connections to secure them a publisher are clogging up the internet with tell-all revelations, as the global desire to confess and wipe the slate clean spawns a publishing phenomenon ...