The Testimony. James Smythe

      When I heard The Broadcast properly for the second time, I was in a cab on my way to my offices. The driver had put Radio 2 on, because he wanted to listen to the news, about the bombs in America, and he kept asking me what I thought about hearing God speak to us. I was telling him that I didn’t necessarily believe that it was God – like some mad empiricist, I needed evidence, not guesswork and hearsay – and he was exasperated, almost argumentative, and then the static came back in. I wondered for a second if it was just the radio, then remembered that we were entirely digital. It tuned in faster than it did before, the words coming in then slipping away again. The driver stopped the car, pulled over at the side of the road, got out and stood by the door. I’m sorry, he said, I need to stop. He stood there crying, and I listened to the newsreaders react, terrified, elated.

      Do Not Be Afraid, the voice said.

       My Children; Do Not Be Afraid.

       Dafni Haza, political speechwriter, Tel Aviv

      The voice was somehow more tangible the second time, but still, there’s no way to put a finger on it, or to say what it even sounded like. The closest thing I can describe it as is that voice in your head that you hear when you tell yourselves to do something, or to not, that moral niggle. It was that, but different. I don’t know.

      Anyway, when we heard it the second time, I knew the public reaction would be worse still, or at least harder to deal with; especially in Jerusalem, because of the pilgrimages. We had a difficult time anyway, managing the people who came to us for their religious outlet, journeying from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, then driving to Nazareth; we knew that they would cause us more problems, and we had already put out statements urging them to return to their hotels and stay there until we knew what The Broadcast was. As soon as it told everybody Do Not Be Afraid we knew we would have more problems. It’s like a mother telling her children that they can’t have a treat: it’s only ever going to cause tantrums. And the American situation was tenuous at best: everybody knew that they were looking at Iran as responsible for the bombings, which meant they were looking at them for answers about The Broadcast as well. Wasn’t it conceivable, the Prime Minister asked me when she called after it happened, that they somehow engineered The Broadcast to give them an excuse for everything else that happened? When I got off the phone from her, I saw that Lev had called again, and then we started hearing about violence on our side of the West Bank, worse than it had been; they said that there were bomb threats being called in, that the PLO had taken that chance to make their move. Ever since we agreed on terms about how to divide the land it had been a threat, that their more extremist side would show its face. And we were so close to reaching peace – or something that resembled peace, after so many decades of it being hellish – that any sort of extremism was likely to ruin it all. As soon as we saw that on the news, I had another call from the Prime Minister, and we wrote a statement that tried to distance our government from any potential retaliation. I said to the Prime Minister, why are you talking to me directly? I’m just a speechwriter, and she said, the Head of Communications has just quit, so you’re what I’ve got.

      I’ll take the job, I said. Of course I’ll take the job.

       Dominick Volker, drug dealer, Johannesburg

      Ag, that fucking place was a nightmare. I was out working, trying to collect from some of my dealers. I would sell to students, and they would sell it on for me, but I needed people to work the rough districts. I mean, nobody was going to fuck with me, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to be there. And then, just as I was getting nervous, the second Broadcast happened, and I thought, for a second, it was speaking to me, you get me? Do Not Be Afraid, like a heads-up that I would be alright.

       Phil Gossard, sales executive, London

      It happened again when we were back in the office. Three days after it first came into our lives, and we had stuff to catch up on; or, more realistically, prepare for, because the US branch wouldn’t open again for days, so we had to cover them. Jess’ school was still closed, though we still weren’t sure why. Karen had joked that the nuns were planning terrorist counter-attacks. They’re too busy building false habits from Semtex, she said. We weren’t even close to being as locked down as the US, though. Everything there that couldn’t be vigilantly defended, it seemed, was just closed, hang the consequences. There was something different about their government’s reaction, though, to whenever this happened before. I remember when I was a teenager, when 9/11 happened, and they were so aggressive, so bull-headed. And that’s not a criticism; it’s what they needed. Here, they just seemed resigned, like they were almost disappointed that it was so small, that there wasn’t more in the way of noise and fury. There were no planes crashing into buildings; this was grass-roots stuff at its finest.

      The sandwich man came, because these things repeat themselves, foreshadow themselves, the universe giving you constant hints of what’s to come if you know what to look for; I had a ploughman’s. I was sitting down about to eat – it was only just gone eleven, but I hadn’t eaten any breakfast because of having to sort out sending Jess to a friend’s house – and then it – He, It – spoke again through the static. It felt like a goodbye, to me. Most people didn’t agree, but I thought that it definitely felt like a goodbye, or the first stages of one. It felt like one of those conversations you have with a girlfriend, when they sit you down and say that you need to talk. It felt like that, and everybody knows what that actually means, when you have that conversation.