Adenoid Death Fantasy

[J K Van Nort]

The end of the section provides the second death fantasy of the Elect. A member of the Elect, Lord Blatheral Osmo has become obsessed with a fantasy that his removed adenoid has come to life and grows, seeking to subsume all of London into its lymphatic body. The adenoid/blob represents the all-consuming war, a death that at first obliterates all in its path but eventually becomes selective. This selectivity, hinted at in the first section where men behind bullet-proof glass drive past the Preterites heading into the bomb shelters, represents how a war becomes fought by the Preterites but negotiated and directed by the Elect. It is no accident that the adenoid belongs to Lord Blatherall Osmo, clearly a member of the Elite. The Elect believes the blob death can be contained, mollified, sedated and appeased. The war that this adenoid represents is all part of the “Great Game” and the fevered dreams of old men, “giddy in their beds with its grandeur”. The Elect see the world and death as transactional, making deals to prevent or at least postpone the inevitable. Osmo, as a member of the Elect, cannot waste time on a fantasy, he has a role to play in the “Great Game”. So the Firm finds Pirate to act as surrogate of his fantasy, keeping the blob of Osmo’s dreams at bay. Pirate is just the Elect’s tool and only has the opportunity to sit. The adenoid reflects Osmo’s and the Elect’s guilt and fear. Pirate, acting as surrogate to the elect, stabilizes a fantasy death until Osmo’s utility to the “Great Game” has become obsolete, at which point Osmo’s fantasy gets acted out in a tub of tapioca.