‘… represents the renewing vitality of the barbarian horde as it storms the walls of Rome –’

‘Sure, it’s the reinvigoration of society – destruction before rebirth –’

‘A reaction to Anglo-Saxon dominant philosophy – the failure of neo-imperialism –’

‘… but is it crime or an act of war?’

‘Depends on who’s telling the story –’ laughter, a waitress carrying glasses of beer to a table, name tag different to the conventioneers, Hi, I’m June.

‘Thank you, um, June,’ two men with beards and hunting vests, clinking glasses – the waitress shrugged, put down their glasses on the table, departed for the bar.

Shadows in the corners of the room, shifting. Voices:

‘They say he lives in an airplane hangar and has food delivered to him, the whole place is empty but for a desk and a typewriter right in the middle of all that space –’

‘Writes like Hemingway, standing up –’

‘I heard from Carl – do you remember Carl – that he was in Oregon at a bookshop and he found some of the Vigilante paperbacks and they were signed –’

‘Bullshit.’

 ‘Signed, and he spoke to the man in the bookshop and he told him, he told him there was a man who came in once a month, never bought anything, but after he left all the Osama books were signed. He was dressed like a hunter and drove a pickup truck and he had a cabin in the woods, and –’

‘I heard –’ a new voice, a tall thin man with a stoop leaning into the conversation, mug of coffee unsteady in one hand – ‘I heard he was living in the Far East, in Siam somewhere, in an old Buddhist temple in the jungle, all alone but for an old monk who taught him kung-fu, and when he isn’t writing he meditates –’

A man at a nearby table, twisting his torso, putting thick arms on the table, saying: ‘I heard he lives on a yacht that never comes to land, and he has an army of girls on board who follow his every command –’

‘That’s ridiculous –’ from the thin man stooping –

‘One girl follows him around with an ashtray and every time he ashes his cigarette she catches it before it can touch the floor –’

‘Did you read what Bolan wrote in the Osama Gazette last month?’

The four men laughing. ‘A woman!’

‘Well, Mike Longshott is obviously a pseudonym –’

‘It can’t be a woman! The writing is clearly masculine –’

A red-faced man at the other end of the room, standing up abruptly. ‘Hey! For your information –’

‘Oh, hi, Bolan, didn’t see you there –’

‘I said Longshott is a woman, and I stand by that,‘ the red-faced man said.

‘It’s a long shot, Bolan…‘

More laughter. Joe, thinking: The Osama Gazette?

He pushed his chair back, stood up. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. Four male faces turned towards him – reluctantly, it seemed to Joe. ‘What’s this Osama Gazette?’

The men exchanged glances. Clearly, their looks said, this was a stranger, an outsider in their midst. ‘It’s a fanzine,’ one of the men in the hunting vests said.

‘A what?’

‘It’s a small publication dedicated to a scholarly discourse of the Osamaverse.’

‘The w–?’ he decided not to ask.

The man sighed. ‘You can find copies in the dealers’ room,’ he said. ‘It’s already open.’

‘Where’s the dealers’ room?’

‘Out of here, go down the corridor past the elevator and it’s the second door on your left.’ He squinted myopically at Joe’s name badge. ‘Joe. Not seen you around before.’

Joe stared at him, and the bearded man stared back.

‘Oh, I’m just a fan,’ Joe said.

I heart Osama

——

He walked down the corridor and the floor echoed underneath his feet. He tried to ignore the silent figures that stood against the walls, watching him with empty eyes. They were just light falling on dust, conjured by tiredness and caffeine, phantoms that should have been laid to rest in the light of day.

A notice on the door said, in large, spiky, hand-written letters, Dealers’ Room. He opened the door and stepped in.

Tables were arranged with their sides touching each other. There were two rows. The room had the half-festive, half-consecrated feel of a Sunday jumble sale. Joe passed a row of dangling T-shirts. One showed two towers and a flying plane; another had the by-now-familiar face of Osama Bin Laden, staring out of 100% cotton. One said I, was followed by a heart, then Osama. I heart Osama. ‘They’re available in black, blue, red and white,’ a woman told him as he passed. ‘Medium, large and extra-large.’

Then next table had buttons. They repeated the same motifs. The next one had dolls. Numerous Bin Ladens stared at Joe with black button eyes, their soft plush-toy hands limpid at their sides. The next one, books: Medusa Press titles. He picked up one of Countess Szu Szu’s books, leafed through it idly, put it down.

On the next table, Osama pillows. A sign said, Go to bed with the man from your dreams. But Joe never dreamed any more.

He found what he was looking for at the end of the row. A solitary man with the same unkempt look as the others he’d seen at the bar was sitting behind a nearly-empty table, making a meal of his nails. He looked up when Joe approached. His name-tag said Hi! I’m Theo.

‘Hi,’ he said. Then he went back to what remained of his nails.

Joe picked up a publication.

The Osama Poems.

By Theodore Moon.

When he leafed to the title page he noticed it was signed, the blue ink smudged across the page. He said, ‘You?’

The man nodded without looking up, named a price. Joe looked at the first page.

People fall down like leaves in autumn

The sky is a haze of smoke, burning red.

I see you, on the far shore of sleep

In a place I cannot follow you to

And can never now reach.

He put the book down. There were some cheaply-printed, staple-bound booklets on the table, mimeographed runny blue on dirty white. He picked one up. A sense of futility flooded him. There would be no answers here.

The Osama Gazette, Volume One, Issue 3. A man with a magnifying glass on the cover, through the glass, a miniature city, engulfed in smoke. He looked at the table of contents. Oil and ideology in the Osamaverse. Fictional Wars #2:Afghanistan. Terrorist, Freedom Fighter or Soldier? Osama Bin Laden as a Liminal Figure. He didn’t even know what that meant. The Twentieth Hijacker Hypothesis.

Put it down. Yet another publication. Osamaverse Stories. On the cover a man with a portable grenade launcher hiding behind rocks, high in the mountains, a helicopter flying overhead. The Fifth Plane, by Theodore Moon. Love in the Desert, by Vivian Johnson. A Cause Worth Dying For, by L.L. Norton.

‘You’re going to buy, or you’re just going to read them here?’

Joe put down the slim book. ‘Just browsing,’ he said, and wiped his hand, surreptitiously, against his side. He turned to leave. There were no answers there. He opened the door and stepped into the corridor outside, and as he walked down it he could no longer ignore them, could no longer pretend they were not there.

The answers were there, had always been there, only waiting for him to finally face them.

The refugees lined the silent corridor. There were men there, and women, and children, and they were the colours of shadows and dusk. They stared at him and their lips moved, though no sound escaped. He felt his heart shudder like an ill bird, straining against the bars of his body. He walked down the corridor and they parted before him, like leaves in the fall. They were many. Too many. He turned his head, left, right, and they looked back at him with empty faces.

Only one was familiar. He stopped, stared. Black suit, black tie, grey hair – ‘Oh, shit.’ He turned to run, but there was nowhere left to run. A hand on his shoulder – solid, real. ‘Joe.’