Theinds blew in through the cracked windows of The Irish Times newsroom, and the news editor, poised at a rickety desk balanced on old editions of the newspaper, shuddered. He gazed bleakly over his newsroom staff. Of today's entire shift of journalists, one was trying to steal cheese from the company mousetrap, and the other had popped over to Benburb Street to see if she couldn't earn a bit of extra cash.
It's getting very dark, he thought. Company accountants - before they had left for someone who would actually pay them in real money, rather than with free subscriptions to The Irish Times well into the next century - had warned against a profligate use of energy, but to hell with it: no-one was watching! With a trembling hand he lit the official Irish Times candle.
Rome conquered
The tarpaulin roof flapped, and a large draught entered the newsroom, carelessly inspecting bits of paper on ancient wooden desks before turning over a newspaper with cinematic aplomb: November 9th, 2002. Taliban troops had taken Rome, an armoured division of Mexican Muslims had captured much of Texas and had sited their capital in a place called Al Amo. Chicago had fallen to Iroquois Jihad, and Los Angeles had been occupied by Muslim Plains Indians, Al Apache.
The news editor cracked his knuckles, one by one, and shuddered in the cold. Soon his shift as news editor would be over and he would begin his shift as lavatory cleaner. He cast his eye over the corner of the newsroom, where a single hessian sheet hanging from a length of baling twine partially obscured the chamber pot which served as the unisex waterless closet. It had not been used that day at all. May it stay that way, he prayed.
Later, he would do the company's books, which he had to hand; the back of a brown envelope. Income for The Irish Times over the previous year had amounted to €25, three old pounds, two Jamaican pieces of eight, a subscription to Women's Way, which the editor had won in a crossword competition, a medical truss, a couple of gobstoppers, and some aspirin covered in pocket fur.
Debts stood at 27 billion old euro, which of course no-one was accepting any more. Nor were they accepting trusses or gobstoppers, though Myrtle Sidebottom in Kingstown had expressed an interest in a few issues of Women's Way, nowadays just about the only negotiable currency which the newspaper could lay its hands on.
Break-up of EU
For currency markets in Europe had gone berserk after the break-up of the EU, following the collapse of the euro and the secession of Finland, which had declared itself the first Arctic Muslim state. It had abandoned the markka and embraced the rial instead, as indeed had many other countries - but not plucky little Israel. Plucky little Israel, however, was no longer where it used to be. Instead it was now located at Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin 1,in one of the top flats.
Of course, nothing was as it had used to be. Hamas ruled large parts of the Middle East. Turkey had been taken over by cult of worshippers of chickpea and sesame seed oil, Hummus.
Meath had been captured by Muslims who revered the soil, Humus. Most amazingly a deviant Islamic sect which regarded pigs' bottoms as sacred was ruling Cavan. And nothing compared the ferocity of a Ham-ass mullah in Belturbet, pronouncing death sentences on infidels from Clones: the news editor trembled at the thought.
No, no: he must not let his mind wander to matters over which he was powerless. The area in which The Irish Times was sold was now largely confined to the few government-controlled streets in the centre of Dublin. But a rowing boat took some copies to Kingstown every second weekend, where they were collected at the pier by Reggie Sidebottom.
Reggie was both the Kingstown correspondent and the Kingstown newsagent for The Irish Times, and stories about his newsagency tended to feature rather conspicuously in his copy.
But of course, that was understandable. He wasn't as sharp on his pins as he once had been - the shell-fragment he collected in his bottom at Dunkirk could be a real pest when the wind came from the east, and it wasn't easy, dashing out from the sandbags in front of the house to find a bit of local colour, while his sisters, Muriel and Myrtle, gave covering fire with a bren gun and a pair of knitting needles.
Glory years
The Irish Times news editor, toilet cleaner, company secretary, political correspondent, chief electrician and master-printer suppressed a sob. Where had all those glorious yesteryears of the newspaper gone? What happened to the prosperity and certainty of the world which had existed barely more than a year before? How could it all have vanished so totally?
With these melancholy reflections filling his mind, suddenly he saw a strange figure totter into the newsroom. Though not completely dishevelled, the newcomer could not exactly be called shevelled either. His fly was haphazardly open, his shirt undone, and he reeked of old alcohol.
He made a lunge at a passing female colleague, and she fled screaming, trailing items of clothing. Her assailant leered around him, and seeing no other women to molest, staggered to avail himself of the facilities behind the hessian cloth.
Ah yes, thought his observer; creeds explode from the desert borne on the scimitar's glinting edge, empires topple and fall, and ancient dynasties turn to dust - but the scribe of An Irishman's Diary, he changeth not.