Free love after the apocalypse, the world according to Utopos
Not only does Utopos provide a colourful diversion during presidential elections, he has also designed the perfect world
When I asked a friend about some of the odd things I had heard about the inhabitants of Polis and its surroundings, he shrugged. “It’s probably the water,” he said. The ‘odd things’ in question perhaps weren’t much. A villager who collected apes. Rumors of an exotic hound with a predilection for fox hunting films and a private canine theater wherein he indulged his fancies. Sightings of bearded philosophers who roamed the streets like ghosts from some ancient Platonic academy.
In any case, for the price of a tank of gas and willing exposure to lunacy, I wanted only the most outr?. “Then,” he said, “you must go to Makounta”. When I pressed him for more details, he shrugged again and said, “Talk to Utopos. If you can’t find his house, ask the gypsies.”
The little I knew of the man was enough to send me on my way. A poor farmer living in the hills of Paphos, Utopos was the only presidential candidate I knew of whose political vision hinged on the Apocalypse.
Stopping to ask for directions at a roadside kiosk outside Skouli, I felt I was heading in the right direction when a swarthy man with a luxuriant pompadour toupee left his table and entered a bright pink house next door to the kiosk. From the rearview mirror of a BMW parked in front of this house hung an Egyptian mummy the size of a small monkey.
Following the empty road to Makounta with the sea at my back, I turned onto an even more deserted road. The only sign of life here was smoke rising from a grill set up in front of a small village of aluminum huts. The lunching gypsies gestured further down the road to a spot where thick foliage had almost swallowed a small house.
Next to the house was a personal colosseum of sorts, made from straw-reinforced clay. In front of this, the shell of a Fiat. Beyond a valley teeming with orange, olive and almond trees, the sea swelled in the winter sun. I was jarred out of this reverie by a tall man in army fatigues and a black bandana, who had stepped out of a clearing. He smiled and waved.
Utopos was a vigorous-looking man with the chest of an Olympic swimmer. It was difficult to guess his age. He was still smiling, whether secretively or in welcome, I was also at a loss for something to say. His hands were, for some reason, dripping with olive oil. We entered the tiny house, whose living room was dominated by a mysterious mountain of unopened cardboard boxes.
A paper was thrust into my hands. Plan for the Ruling of the New Earth, the Utopia (the Holy Jerusalem or the City-State). Other than the stray reference to the Apocalypse, it was mostly mathematical figures.
A second paper appeared. This one outlined Utopos’ intention to ‘claim the seat of the General Secretary of the United Nations’. I paused briefly at a list of Utopos’ campaign promises, the first of which was ‘to revive the dead people’.
“Are you a religious man then?” I asked.
“I am trying to build a new religion,” Utopos said wistfully, “an erotic religion.”
“I see.”
Suddenly very serious, he added, “In the last presidential election, the people gave me 73 per cent of the votes. 70 to 83 per cent, actually. I was a threat to the politicians, so they stole my votes. And remember, the human race has waited thousands of years for a man like me to come. You probably want to see my work.”
We moved into a cramped utility room. Leaning against a wall, stacked one against another, were at least twenty 3-by-3-foot wooden boards. Utopos selected one and we went back outside.
“The plan God has given for the new earth.”
Laid out on top of a barrel before us was a model of a perfectly symmetrical city arranged in a grid. But for the profusion of stadiums and factories, it could have been a Monopoly board. Reluctant to approach the subject directly, I commented on Utopos’ physical fitness.
“I have discovered the secrets of the human body,” he said. “It took me 20 years to do this. I am writing a book… Wait one minute.”
He disappeared inside and emerged a minute later with an armful of notepads.
“Man is made from a mathematical design,” he said, flipping through one of his diaries. “Just like he is designed to live in this city.”
Depending upon one’s perspective, such a city was the fruit of the most visionary or deranged divinely-inspired civic planning known to ancient or modern man, and represented Utopos’ life’s work.
“Everything is according to prophecy. There will be four city-states in Cyprus and 240,000 in the world.”
The residences appeared to have five floors. According to Utopos, 100 citizens would live in each. There would be 1,440 such buildings, making a population of 144,000, which accords neatly with the Apocalypse of John. Surrounding the residences were factories, each with a stadium of its own, and then more housing. The grid was connected by a network of canals and footpaths.
A second paper model was withdrawn from a battered suitcase and unrolled. The countryside. “The people will work in the factories and then they will rest. Or they will move to the fields for a few days and work until the body is filled with farming, then rest again. They will move from city to city.”
I didn’t see any shops and perhaps too many stadiums.
“No shops! Of course not. There will be no money. It will be paradise. And no families either, no marriage.”
Utopos seemed very pleased with this aspect of his city-state.
“Like Sparta,” I suggested, gloomily.
“Yes, but more modern. It will be a matriarchy. Women will be free, and yet obliged to have sex with many men, but they will choose only the most beautiful and able to have children with.”
I suppose it was a not a bad way to rid the earth of politicians. Utopos picked up a factory and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “I have a destiny to realise,” he said. “I have decided to be the divine designer. I want to do all the things that are considered impossible.”
“But utopia,” I said, “is it not a dream?”
Utopos’ eyes grew as wide as saucers.
“But I am Utopos! I want to make it real and I have the design. And I was given the executive power by the people!”
Steering the conversation away from voting fraud, I asked about utopian cars.
“No!… Only swimming!”
Deprived of so many entertainments and doomed to spend my evenings in a cube in the company of 99 other factory workers, I hoped at least the pleasures of inebriation would not be denied my utopian existence.
“And alcohol?” I asked.
“No! No!”
In any case, I thought, the Cypriots, if not the rest of mankind, were surely not prepared for such an event. Utopos disagreed.
“Of course they are ready! It is implanted in their hearts. It is what they need! Most of all the city… It is not only the free sex.”
“And how will you destroy Nicosia?”
“Ah,” Utopos said, pulling reflectively at his chin. “Yes. Originally, I had planned to level it myself. But this is not environmentally sound. I will wait for the Apocalypse. Or maybe I will leave it for the tourists.”
With the New Jerusalem looming before me, I couldn’t help thinking of Winston Smith sipping Victory gin in the Chestnut Tree Caf?. Of Thomas More’s head rolling off the chopping block and Plato’s flight from Sicily. Pythagoras had burned and so had David Koresh. It seemed mankind was not ready for paradise.
Heading back down the road an hour later, I was moved by the prospect of the sea stretched out so peacefully before me. I tho
ught of St. Augustine. “Give me chastity and continence, but just not now.” And I felt blessed to be mired in the inadequacies and fears of mortal life, and hoped that God in his infinite wisdom and charity might postpone the Apocalypse for a while more.
