The Carpet (Jackpot January #23)

The Commander-In-Chief stood up and said, “We are going to put carpets everywhere. Carpets in the streets, carpets in the hospitals, carpets in the parks. These carpets will do more than just improve our flailing infrastructure; they will be a symbol for our commitment to comfort, convenience, and efficiency. The future is frictionless.”

The journalists sprang forth, wielding pens. Under fire from camera flashes, the Commander pointed at a raised hand and nodded.

“Sir, will you address the recent death of 31-year-old mother Jo Wills?”

The Commanded stood firm. “We have an army of professional upholsterers who will work with the undertaker to achieve seamless burials. Alternatively, her ashes may be scattered on darker areas of the carpet.”

“The coroner’s report suggests starvation and breathing problems due to freezing conditions may have led to her passing. She lived in one of the most deprived areas in the country. What will the government do to address this?”

“This carpet will be a great carpet, the best carpet. We will use cutting-edge technology to ensure it is heated year-round across the country.”

The Commander turned away but: “What will happen to her two young children?”

“They can enjoy playing outside. They can go out in socks or bare-feet, in pyjamas even. I’m sure they’ll find it very cool.”

“Sir, the public are desperate for more afforda-”

The Commander raised his palm and patted the air. “Let’s let somebody else ask a question now, shall we?”

****

‘Project Rugger’, as the Commander called it, pleased the market. Lines went up and the Cabinet saw that this was good. Most people, however, didn’t care much about the billionaires’ latest pet project. Screens across the country leaked out the same phrases - “perpetual growth”, “job creation”, “frictionless futures” – and the working public just nodded and carried on walking to work. They bristled at the transport delays, local fires, all those nasty fibres in the air, but they kept on making the best of it, as always.

Once the project neared completion, nobody minded the Carpet so much. It was what it was. At night, people would sit by the window until the streetlamps blinked on and lit up the grey, cratered surface of the world. They woke up to the sound of council upholsterers, who’d roam the streets with hoses and big tanks of rug cleaner on their backs. They looked more like exterminators.

****

Eventually the Carpet stained and frayed. Pedestrian trod in dropped ice creams and burger sauce, staining the foundations. It grew matted and tufty where toddlers began to pull up hairs and threads. Activist groups, street artists, and conspiracy theorists carved ‘crop circles’ and sculptures into the surface. Soon good graduates from good families migrated to these newly hip areas and joined in with the mosaic.

Cars wouldn’t start. Their engines kept choking on carpet cleaner and hairy sludge. Packages arrived covered in synthetic fur, the contents clogged. So councils hired more cleaners, piles and piles of wages fed into the jaws of the recruitment drive.

****

One day a woman woke up, put on her best shoes, and walked down her tatty brown road to a restaurant. She kicked carpet threads with each step, stopping only to shake the debris out of her feet. She’d picked up a call earlier that morning from a man with soft fuzzy skin who, when she sat down across from him, smelled like fresh linen. It was a local trend, he explained. In his neighbourhood, everyone wanted to smell like carpet shampoo: lemon, bitter chemicals, or clean and airy.

Although I’m kind of a rebel, he added. I smell a bit more like clothes.

But only a bit, she said and he laughed.

He took her to his place. She stood at the front door and turned around to face the street. Her mouth hung open, turned up at the corners.

The pure white carpet almost shone. It spread to the horizon. The trees and buildings that lined the wide streets were all wrapped up in the same soft fabric. Here and there were splashes of colour – not damp stains or darkened patches, but actual patterns. Blues, reds, yellows, and greens arranged in grid-like patterns in front of a school. Splashes of purple and orange were vying for dominance over the side of a fashion designer’s workshop.

When they reached his flat, she found she could no longer speak. In her mind, she was still standing on the street with her breath stuck in her throat.

****

There were critics from the start. Before the first rollout pundits complained about the expense, the impracticality, and the pointlessness of the renovations. And the symbolism? Lazy.

Columns overflowed with the same jabs at the oligarchs’ ignorance of carpet burn. Have they never seen a yowling kid slide across a rug? wondered the opinion class. Forget the ‘Frictionless Future.’ We’re in the Carpet Burn Century!

But, to his credit, the Commander did his best. His research teams developed new ultrasofteners to make the floors as smooth as possible. He poured billions into waterproofing research, and not just for damp prevention. Other industries borrowed the findings and soon all clothes, hairsprays and face creams became totally resistant to liquid. The umbrella industry soon collapsed and the Country was known for having the driest population in the world.

Then they found microfibres in the food. It thickened soups. Bread baked and food grew with stray synthetic hairs. People darted around, lost and unfocused, with brains poisoned by cleaning solution.

Then a body turned up. A nine-year-old kid in the thick downy overgrowth, belly swollen and throat stuffed with fabric.

Then the Commander’s ties to Big Rug were revealed. He held shares in several furniture and cleaning companies. He’d pushed his Cabinet to overpay on cheap, threadbare materials and he’d pocketed the profits.

A year before his death, he renounced the carpet idea entirely. He always knew it was terrible, it had never come from him, not really, not like this, he was just joking. No-one forgave him.

****

Soon after, the insects arrived.

The puddles of sweet rot turned into lakes. The creatures it drew fed on it and began to change. They filled the streets: huge beetles that reached waist-height, pug-sized ants that walked on their hind legs, and don’t get me started on the mantids. At night, families across the nation looked out at strange bugs prowling the surface of the moon.

The Cabinet declared a ‘War on Bugs’; they stopped ripping up the carpet and instead trained conscripts to fight. Humans closed ranks. After many deaths the humans and the bugs signed a robust peace treaty. Both sides walked away from the table and took with them all they learned.

****

They passed down those lessons to their children, who passed them to their children, who passed them to their children.

Future generations came to see Operation Rugger as an international embarrassment. A big joke, but one all were grateful for. The peaceful world that grew from it, the smarter, healthier, kinder population, the rebirth of community; none of it was worth all that death, but it happened the way it happened and they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kids learned it all: the microfibre scandal, how bodies littered that fluffy jungle, the Commander-in-Chief’s corruption. But they also learned the right lessons in school: what it sounds like to be tricked; how one human can distract another, and what they can do about it; how love and acceptance was the true source of stability with the bugs; how any people who have power over others ignore their subordinates, and force them to chew on carpets.

Then one day a woman found a chunk of doormat in her soup. All the scraps were destroyed decades ago, how could this be? Surely it was no accident. She spoke at the Community Council about the trauma she suffered, about how an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us, and cautioned against trusting anyone, human or bug.

Some beliefs are just excuses we tell ourselves. The idea of bug treachery spread before she even finished her speech; by the time it was over, war had been declared after a century of peace. All over the land, the new exterminators rode up, with metal tanks and eyes as red as open wounds.