The End Of The World

The End Of The World

Isabel A-L

I

1

The Storm It was a summer storm and the rain splashed.

Sharp slaps and frozen clumps from the clouds for half an hour.

A great flash of lightning came before a roar that vexed the whole atmosphere.

Somebody screamed / Pip laughed.

He had caught it on camera.

The flashes continued

zips pulling down fast catching on the horizon.

Red flames bruised the sky purple crawling into the clouds before smoke followed

turning them grey again.

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD / Pip yelled

the others laughed. overSitting the hang from the dustbin stand

under to watch the storm descend onto Siston.

Their view from the old hospital was better

the surgeons had cut back the trees and they watched the town’s largest building burning sparks flying up and slowly drifting out of sight.

Pip was the merriest.

Shouting about the End Of The World while K squeaked and winced whenever

the lightning hit.

Maybe because it seemed to hit the same place several times, maybe because the thought of being

struck by lightning made her legs itch.

She didn’t want to think how many were just

hit by the life force that fed her favourite inanimate objects.

2

Escape Pip never knew what happened to K after he ran inside to the joint machine.

The one they’d pooled their money together to buy when they wanted to travel to the Dam. Pip had been working on a new algorithm in the time it took him to run from the front of the house to the back room.

He entered it into the machine.

Trying really hard to find a new place to be.

The old hospital was bringing him down.

Pip wanted to see the city.

Everyone said it was bad

but this was worse than his imagination could go.

What he just saw burned a hole in his brain.

Pip turned up on a raft

in the middle of a

great oil slick the same shimmering colour and width

as the beasts whose image made it.

He came to,

in charge of a floating dustbin,

a skip, and his camera.

Everything was still.

Looking out onto the banks of the slick

it wasn’t what he’d been expecting

but he could work with this.

3

Pip Speaks “His weapon of choice is a slug straight on the brain.

Kruger style, he knows what’s in there.

He knows how to turn the wheels and tie up the knots.

If you let down your guard he will taunt you with all you’ve seen, all you’ve done.

A friend pulling the wings off that baby bird.

All the times your mouth betrayed your mind.

See, we’re all connected by a code.

Other strands are intertwined with the rest sometimes and that can define us as separate entities. If we decide to enter it.

I left the main coding system a little while ago.

People don’t usually go looking for excitement because it’s all scrolling right there in front of their eyes.

I sort of made up my own code so I could leave the old hospital.

Cos of the storm.

And I just needed more space to think for myself.

The code I made created this place, where I’ve been living for the past three months or so in Real Time.

I wanted to give myself the power of eternal youth.

How much longer am I gonna be able to dress in that silver tin man jacket, the rest of me wrapped up in midnight?

My pink hair in tight curls defies the unspoken rules out there.

At least there’s no time here.”

4

Waken up the beasts Currents transmit through water, waking up the River Fossils.

Great dormant beasts who came to the lake before the river was filled in and changed course.

The beasts had been up till four bubbling in the new season.

They got trapped because it happened in the early hours between six and ten a.m.

They woke groggily twelve hours later, fell into a deep depression realising they had no way out.

They hadn’t moved since.

Their aquiline heads evolved especially for life rushing through skinny winds and burly waters.

The currents convulse over their scales, shock therapy without the shock.

The scales are rechargeable impervious to electricity only in this specific breed that lived underwater and was susceptible to depressive thoughts rendering them incapable of movement.

Till they grow bloated and not at all like their natural selves.

The river beasts raised their heads and looked towards the only place they could sense human activity.

Not only beasts of the water, the

monsters were once often airborne.

But they were inclined to forget that information.

5

Pip Pip was screaming about the storm.

Soon he would be screaming for a different reason.

Next time he uploaded his photos he would see a new time for himself,

THE END OF THE WORLD. Then he would create it.

Pip was excited about the streaks of light corrupting the sky.

He didn’t notice the tidal wave of shimmering monsters with electricity arcing through their scales.

But he took a picture of the landscape in their direction.

Pip’s worst nightmares realised – an uncontrollable storm sending an uncontrollable wave of shuddering monstrosities over to him, bringing with them dark sludge from the bed they’d shared.

But not before turning the lakes into whirlpools during

The Unsheathing of Their Wings.

Two flashes lit up the fields from the old hospital to Watermead Dam. The searing light in the air synthesised with the flash on his camera.

6

Temi Everything she knew had always been green.

From the tops of the trees to the grass that stained her toes.

She walked barefoot.

Living alone among the leaves she wasn’t bothered by anyone.

Her spells kept her company.

Conjuring an animal guide for the night from the spirit realm was how she learned about The Rest of the World.

It was around seven in the evening on a summer’s day.

She was on one of her regular walks through the woods to collect ingredients for midnight.

Despite being a human invention midnight is the best time to cast.

The veil is at its weakest point.

She came across a clearing to set up her findings.

Weird for her mind, a flat leaf to roll, a stick, and some mud.

She drew a sigil into the mud, placed the leaf over it made it into a rollup with the silkweed.

7

Going out She smoked. Concentrating on the spell in the mud.

The air was the blackest blue, it was shifting.

Green light swirled around her eyes, rolled spirals into her head.

Throwing up mightily, she vanished, leaving her vomit to wash away the spell in the mud behind her.

When she woke up everything was dark.

The green light was still behind her eyelids.

Green eyes invented wispy grey figures come to grab in the darkness, breathing hard nails of smoke from their evaporating lungs. “I gotta get out.�

She sat up and peered around squintily.

The Blackness made up her surroundings until she spotted a silver staircase.

Shivers encircled her spine leaving in her an uneasy sensation.

The stairs travelled in the only way there seemed to be to go, up.

8

Upstairs Ascending the metal staircase the black soon revealed itself to be many different shades.

Travelling further up it morphed into inky blues, ribbons of orange running through, a startling violet and egg yolk.

As the colours displayed, they took upon themselves the appearance of rock.

Temi reached out, wanting to connect with something natural.

Bars gripped the rock attaching the stairs there.

Being from the trees she had never seen a man made material.

The metal was harsh, not at all like the moss and leaves.

She touched the rock gently, an outcrop at arms reach from the stairs, it crumbled away from the rest of the wall.

upwards.

floated slowly Then For the first time as she watched it float away, a tiny speck of light at the top of the stairs caught her attention.

A goal presented itself.

9

Floating Upon reaching the speck she came out into The Bright Place.

She realised it was a shimmering oil spill and she was drowning in it.

The light blinded her as it reflected off the metallics of the oil slick.

Staying afloat without anything to float on, except the moss in her clothes, was proving difficult. “Cause the oil was thick and wanted to suck her in.�

Her pupils turned to ant holes.

That most valuable sense eliminated.

10

An act of kindness Neon pink spaghetti

reached through the leaky sea

sending sparks to her body.

Her feet grew bigger

dragging her further down.

Seaweed tickled at

the bloated cheek of her.

Somehow she was still breathing.

It wrapped

itself seaweedy green and sweet

around her wrist to hold her hand.

Pulling gently until she was inside its mouth.

The sea spaghetti splashed in the last few puddles not leaked out yet.

Towards greenier waters - left, over there, the homes of its cousins.

The rivers and the lakes.

11

She was a tiny prawn in an enormous dazzling light box.

Looking down at her hands she saw disproportionate claws coming from her wrists and Pip’s skip, like a tiny gem clutched between the tips of her talons.

The device was a precious thing.

She was sure it would allow her to do a spell and get her the hell out of there.

Temi pushed some coloured squares across the screen.

The light around her pulsated.

She flung open the door of her box, still feeling quite prawny and grabbed Pip. His eyes were glazed.

As soon as he saw the skip he jumped to attention yelling at her.

Pip noticed the air around them shifting.

Grabbing the device, he tried to reverse the code Temi had just set into motion.

Pip’s carefully constructed world was gone.

12

Pip Speaks “Temi’s user experience was way different to mine.

The skip knew it.

I don’t think she’d ever even touched one before, it wasn’t used to her style.

Everyone has a different style led by their own individual experiences and desires.

Well, hers was different to mine.

It sent us to a warehouse full of mirrors.

I’d never asked it to take me there before.

Usually if it doesn’t recognise a code, it re-sets.

Temi was looking at herself in the mirror her features growing wider as time passed.

The oil had destroyed her clothes.

I didn’t have anything back at my place to offer her.

Plus she’d nicked my device pretty much before I could do anything to help.

Temi was almost crying.

I wanted the forest.

Right before she had the chance to get into the swing of her full-blown bawl fest, the mirrors turned to strip lights.

Our reflections became vacuum wrapped packs of dead meat.

It was all lined up neatly in front of the neon lighting, shining so brightly it turned each slab of flank into a bloody red light bulb.”

13

Up the road Temi didn’t get there until way after dark.

The neon town had glowed around them.

Lights from the windows turned the snow pink and yellow and blue.

After she and Pip had left the meat room’s own solitary luminescence behind them, they had to walk down a narrow lane.

Their hands were invisible an inch from their eyes but they could see the rays of the moon on the snow about a mile away if they looked to either side.

Straight ahead of them, though was just darkness.

They had to stumble into it to get to the city.

About half way down the lane they were headed towards a rise in the road.

Just as they started to climb it three rings of light slashing through the night startled them.

Pip yelled and began changing the code on his device again.

Following the rings came a car, headlights on full beam.

Temi screamed now.

When the car sped past them, Pip vanished.

14

Pip speaks about death

“On our way up that

never ending road

I was sucked into a dead portal

but it

spat me back out again.

On my way something

told me very clearly

how I am going to die.

Well, saying that, it

might be more truthful to say

my death flashed before my eyes.�

15

II

16

What K did next Living in a bunker hovering fifty thousand meters above the surface of Venus is a very old man. Inside, bars spiral over circular windows from the outside edge right in to the centre. The walls are grey but have some decoration, mostly posters and photographs of the Old Man’s life before Venus.

The main space of the bunker has a sink, a stove powered by gasses from the planet’s atmosphere, some storage for food and kitchenware, and a small rectangular bed that sticks out of the wall with drawers below it to keep the Old Man’s minimal wardrobe.

Two doors come off this room. Behind one is a toilet and a shower, behind the other is a tiny office cluttered with books and paper, a small armchair, and a desk with one of those spinny computer chairs. This is where we spend our time together, talking.

Sometimes when he’s done with the chitchat I can read a whole book in this room while he sits at his desk and plays his game. When I first got here he started sleeping in the armchair and let me have the bed, “I used to be a real gent, y’know.”

He rarely leaves his room if I’m around. The Old Man didn’t seem particularly surprised when he found me trapped inside the shower. The doors are fingerprint operated, but since I became a semi-permanent fixture in his home - and I always seem to get stuck in the shower when I turn up - the Old Man programmed mine in too. He turned on the shower, then opened the frosted glass door ready to get in and found me soaked through.

All he said was, “Huh”.

I’d never seen an old man naked before.

I said, “Hi”. I had to wear a pair of his jeans and a jumper so I could dry my clothes on a line. He had attached it across the main room of the bunker. I sat in his room in the armchair and after getting dressed he sat at the desk typing furiously, spinning round every so often to look at me.

It’s not so strange to be around him now. Like I said, I’ve become a regular visitor.

Sometimes my visits can last up to a month. But usually at around the two and a half week mark I end up back on Earth and have to pick up where I left off, trying to find the people I lost at the time of the storm. When I started to get more used to the transition from Earth to Venus and back again, I began using my time on Earth to do research. I wanted to get to the bottom of what this guy’s about. Like, how did he get here without anyone there knowing about it? But then I realised, nobody knew I came here either. They didn’t even believe me when I told them and I gave a highly detailed description of the view from the windows. So now every time I go to Venus I conduct interviews with him.

The only thing he won’t ever tell me is his name, so I call him Old Man and he seems OK with that, “I am very old”.

It’s been about ten months since I started visiting Venus and about six since I began interviewing the Old Man. I’ve been recording all our conversations on my skip. At first we mostly talked about me. I’ve started to make a real breakthrough recently, though. I listened to a couple of the newest tapes about a week ago. It’s weird how much you can forget when you’re just sitting around talking. This old man though, he’s introduced me to some pretty radical ideas.

*** 17

The dragon This creature had the face of a cat and

the body of an owl.

She breathed fire, stood half as tall as an old elm.

Her tongue was forked

and flickering

about the whiskers, tasting the vibrations to help her see over

the sound of techno.

Logically, K named her a dragon and tempted the dangerously nervous beast out of the glowing crater K had seen her fall into.

K took a picture on the skip.

It said they were in an Unidentified Timezone.

K felt pride like a bubble of the most pleasing liquix passing through the stomach up into the heart.

But it didn’t burst instead it made a chair around its chosen organ and sat still for a bit.

18

*** Around about the third or fourth time I interviewed the Old Man he sat at the desk on his computer playing a simulated reality game. I arrived in the shower just as I’d been running away from some slugs back on Earth. I couldn’t quite tell if it was a dream or not. Since the storm, I’ve been getting more and more unsure about what my waking reality actually is.

I arrived and stood in the shower cubicle panting with my hands on either wall to steady myself. After I’d calmed down a bit and stopped shaking, I pressed my palms against the glass door and it smoothly slid open. Stepping out carefully I walked through the now familiar rooms of the bunker. I knew I’d find the Old Man at his computer, so that’s where I went. He was playing his game. He didn’t turn to look at me when I sat on the armchair and put my skip on record.

“So, what’s the game?” I jumped right in, he wasn’t much good at conducting initial pleasantries.

The Old Man sighed heavily and spoke, “I knew you’d ask me this eventu-lly… The game is, in fact, Earth. As you know it.”

Nothing but a small sound that meant “go on…” left my mouth and he understood.

“I come from another planet, see. Where cities, tiny in comparis-n to the cities on Earth, were surround-d by gaping purple landscapes that stretched out from the very outside edge, right where the buildings stopped. As far as anyone could see.” The Old Man didn’t look away from his computer.

“Many childr-n of these cities went out into the uninhabitable Purple Country, searching for their purpose to be. The cities were all so unforgiving. Cities usually are.

Most of those childr-n were lost forever, even if they made it back.” He snorted loudly through one large nostril.

“Damn Earth germs, I’ve not been the same since you brought ‘em up here.” He was always complaining at me but I didn’t come here by choice.

“Why’d the kids go out to the Purple Country if they knew they were probably gonna die?” The Old Man sniffed again. “Now, that’s a very compl-cated question.”

He muttered. “Everyone has a purpose, right? Well mine is to look over your world and make sure everythin’ goes to plan b-fore it’s time for me to leave the next whoever to do this for some other sorry bunch.”

He got up to take a book down from one of the shelves. The cover was bright orange.

It looked heavy.

“Wow, OK… When do ph syou complete the game?”

“I’ve almost finished.”

“So… if you’re in charge of the Earth are you ‘him’?”

“No.” he chuckled. “If only it were so simple. Omnipot-nce is an idea I’ve been planting in everybody’s heads for a long time, it keeps people on their toes.” As he glanced over his shoulder at me, the Old Man saw my nose twitch and quickly moved back to the previous answer. “No, I’m a programmer.”

“What do you program, then?”

“Only certin things. I influ-nce certin people and events, but I don’t have control over the most of it. I just influ-nce and then I observe.”

“What d-you influence exactly?”

19

The Old Man looked away from the screen towards me. He told me there’ve been highs and lows. He once considered the highs to be down to his excellent craftsmanship, “I was pretty arrog-nt when I first start-d. At that time the lows, to me, were down to clicking the box ‘Free Will’ at the beginning before I realis-d there was no option built in to remove it, not that I would’ve if there had been.

“People are always stupid in the early days. Free Will means that no matter what, I can’t make anyone do owt they don’t truly want to do. All I can do is observe and influence. I can give nature a kick up the bum if I want though. That’s all mine.”

“What do you believe about the highs and lows now?”

“Now I believe the highs were down to my excel-nt craftsmansh-p, my input into all the good in your world, but I can’t take full credit. The lows? the lows were mostly down to my shoddy craftsmansh-p, but no simple observer with the ability to influ-nce millions of lives is perfect. Whoever watched my world most defin-tely was not. Forgive me this cliché but, we are in a const-nt state of flux.”

He was always saying this to himself. “A const-nt state of flux”, with a strange awestruck tone to his voice. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s so obvious, but maybe it just happens that by the time you’re done playing on the game, everyone in there knows more than you do.

“What are you working on right now? What does a programmer… observer… do when they’re at the end of the game?”

“Well that’s slightly more tricky, as you’re askin’. I’m working on settin’ a few things in motion that mean the next version of me is ready to go if they’re need-d.” The Old Man was tapping the mouse button repeatedly.

“What if they’re not needed?”

At this question, the Old Man spun round in his chair fully to face me. He had almost a sad look that covered all bases of his features.

“It’s lonely up here. For the first three years I coul-n’t stand it. I spent about ten minutes every morning scratching a mark in the wall with my fingernail because I was desperate to keep a track of the time. Time is different here but I still age at the same speed as before. I grew one nail really long, ‘special for it, but it got all bloody and broken and now it don’t grow anym-re. When I worked out I could get some pers-nal items up here, I got those posters to cover um up, as I’d rather forget I spent any time at all away before they dis-ppeared into space forever. What I’d really like to see is if it’s possible to avoid all this…” He gestured with his arms to indicate that by “this” he meant his general existence.

To wrap up the conversation the Old Man slapped his hands together and got up out of his chair.

“Now, I’m gonna end on this. The storm. Nothing directly dangerous or bad has come of it except that a few people dotted all over that little planet are starting to realise some things about the world. It’s not as hard as you think to make it do what you want it to do. Their influence will shape how Earth continues after I’ve turned my computer off. Because I do have to do that eventu-lly.” He opened the door.

“Why don’t we av a carton of squash?” I nodded my head, and followed him out to the fridge. The Old Man pulled it open and took out two cartons of juice. He stuck both straws through the silver foil covered holes in their respective cartons and handed one to me. I took tiny slurps of the squash, savouring the flavour. It had been too dry for me when I first tried it but now I crave it most days even when I’m on

20

Earth.

“An acquired taste.” He said after he’d sucked the last few drops from his carton noisily. “It’ll help us to relax, anyway.” I looked over to the largest poster on the Old Man’s wall. It was a brightly coloured optical illusion I’d spent many hours staring at, as I lay unable to fall asleep in his bed. One of the bottom corners had come unstuck and was curling upwards away from the wall. I could see a few marks of the Old Man’s tally underneath the poster – the edges were the colour of rust where his finger had bled from the effort of scraping.

“Time for bed I think.” He nodded towards me and slipped smoothly into the other room. It had grown dark on Venus and the Old Man’s electrical lights strung up across the top of the walls, flashed red, green and gold.

***

21

Planet rock and roll K: Old Man told me

never to go to planet rock and roll.

he said it made him feel

sick in his mouth to even say it.

Planet rock and roll is

lame and we must never

speak of it again.

He said: Try planet sweet things,

Heck! Try any planet that doesn’t

wear a leather jacket

AND sunglasses indoors!

K:

But if I know Pip, PLANET ROCK AND ROLL!!! is the place where he’ll be.

You’ll fit in just fine.

22

An unexpected surprise visitor She stood in the slipstream eyes stared at a fixed point. Unfocused.

A mass of grey sped past them.

There was a mist hovered at the edges of her thoughts.

Shortly be arriving at Est.minister‌ She was always cloaked

in talismans.

Silver, gems and steel boots transported her over to the oxybar.

Protected her from things.

Thirteen hours of a deadweight shift dragged her

kicking and

screaming towards sixteen.

Fifteen hours in a Time Traveller came.

K: Check ur devices!

Open all ur search engines

This is not a drill!!

The pages were loading

backwards and

oxybar was empty.

The Time Traveller looked over.

She could tell what it was from the way the eyes saw her

like they knew her.

K: Are you coming then?

There was only one answer.

Where?

K: Planet rock and roll baby!

23

24

III

25

CONFESSIONS:

I.

Temi: If I look up at the sky and

the moon is clear,

I feel good again.

Pip: I am more fearful

of the idea of people

than their actual selves.

Temi: Sometimes I think if

I climbed

to the top of one of

those dusty trees and

let myself

fall I would be

a mark in the soil.

I would fade over time and

I would become

the same thing as the soil.

And it wouldn’t be so bad.

Pip: Hmm (he agrees).

Temi: I have taken power from the moon tonight.

26

II. Pip: The only thing that scares me

about dying is living and knowing

I’m gonna.

Temi: So you’re in

a constant state of fear?

Pip: Pretty much.

Temi: Everyone has to live

with the fact they’re gonna die

one day, Pip. Pip: Yeah but not everyone has

seen themselves die

and had to carry on living.

Temi: Something that

scares me about death

is pain.

I hope I can die painlessly.

Pip: You know they are developing

programmes you can use to cancel

all pain leading up to the moment of death?

Temi: What a great idea.

27

Screen sickness Temi: Screensick, weird Pip: Yeah, totally weeirrrd…

Temi: Haha, like weird weird Pip: Yup Temi: You don’t understand, it’s

Like I’ve got another eyeball That’s rectangular Pip sighs Temi: and it’s scrolling through

everything in reverse.

My stomach is really swirling, actually.

Pip: You should stop looking at

my skip for once.

I never get to use it.

Temi throws up over the skip.

Pip sighs.

Pip: Now we have to

steal some rice.

Temi reaches for the skip Pip: I’ll take that – Temi: But it’s covered in my

sick, I need to save it for magical purposes.

Pip: soak it up in this tissue.

Temi: Genius!

A yellow sky sits

uncomfortably on the night.

The pair stagger under the weight of it.

Giant Slugs sleaze into

the periphery with their

complex set of desires

28

A riddle

Pip: I don’t know what to

tell you, we need somma

that rice.

Giant Slugs: You have to

look at me

for fifteen seconds.

Temi: Ha! Giant Slugs: Pip:

Each.

Ha.

They turn towards the Giant Slugs in different directions.

Both spinning about.

They can’t quite get hold of the Slugs

who stay at the edges of their vision.

Temi is the

first to notice.

She stops spinning.

Grabs the skip and

pushes Pip forwards.

The only direction she can’t see the Slugs.

They run.

Staggering still, this time under the bellowing belly of the heavy moon.

Temi: You know what I

just remembered?

Pip: What ?

Temi: There’s a bag of

rice in your bungalow.

Pip: You don’t even know what rice is.

Temi: You forget I can read, Pip. Pip: Oh yeah, you’re a

regular sharp spark.

29

What model’s your pelvis?

Pip: You don’t have an original bone

in your body.

Temi: Everyone has bones that are

uniquely their own. Even you.

Pip: That’s not true.

A lot of people have a whole

skeleton of mass produced bones

made from recycled microwaves.

They are all exactly the same. My

own sacrum is model #397.

Temi: That’s why it clicks

all the time. Yeah, you already

said. And my knees and

ankles are made out of

a couple of recycled

thermos flasks.

The rest of my bones are

original though.

30

*** Three months went by before I came back to Venus. Arriving was, as always, a surprise. I was hoping to find the Old Man in his office. I thought he might be able to tell me where to find Pip. What I found when I went into the main room was a very frail looking guy lying in the bed.

“K, you’re fin-lly here.” He croaked. “I sent out for you over a week ago, it never usully takes this long. I’m just glad you made it here in time. I need your help.”

I was stuck. Seeing him like this wasn’t right to me. “Hurry up, over here!” As the Old Man began to warm up his voice the croak left it slightly, his words were quick and sharp. Urgent. I was by his side pretty much instantaneously.

“You need to get me some squash and a fruit. I’ve not bin able to move for three days.” When I came back with a plum and the squash he shoved the plum all the way into his mouth with the palm of his hand then opened the squash and took a long drink. He spat out the stone onto the floor.

“Ugh, that’s better.”

Then the Old Man looked at me through sharp yellow eyes. “Don’t be ridicul-ous, now. I told you – my Game is up.” He laughed hard and choked on his own breath, releasing great heaving coughs that made my throat curl up.

“You knew this was gonna happ-n K.” “You said you needed to tell me something. If you’re gonna die then just tell me.

There’s no point waiting.”

“No need to be so cold. Ever-thing you need is in that or-nge book in the oth-r room.

You sh-uld keep it with you at all times. Now I have to sleep. You won’t be leaving for a few days.”

I went into the other room. I sat in his spinny chair for the first time and swivelled around for a bit. I was trying hard not to look at the computer. I could see little coloured squares flashing on the screen in what looked like a map. I guessed that if it was actually the Earth he was playing with, then it must be some messed up globe.

It started to make a noise though so I had to have a closer look. I ran my fingers over the mousepad and the noises got a little quieter. They were binging and blooping whenever the mouse hovered over them, each in a different tone that corresponded with the colour of the square. I decided to click on one of the pink squares and dragged it to the blank space at one corner of the screen. I moved a yellow square to be next to it. Once in position the squares made a satisfying ringing sound.

Not really sure what I’d just done, I clicked on a green square and took it over to a part of the map that was slightly further out. It made a sound like auto tuned leaves rustling in the wind. I thought that I’d probably just made someone pick their nose or something.

This island of pixels though was quite a way out from the rest of the map. When I zoomed in for a closer look I realised it was labelled – the bunker.

31

Pip & K K:

Our real purpose is to find out why?

Why do we exist and what is our place in this place we are in‌ Our purpose is to find our purpose and that’s why some people never came back.

Pip:

Why?

K:

Because they found out what it is I suppose.

32

*** “When I was a young man… a young boy, really… I took a pilgrim-ge. Like many young childr-n my age took at the time. I wander-d out into the Purple Country with no instructions, no one to follow. Because I was alone. And we all were.

The Purple Country was deeper and more riotous than any of the stories my grandparents told had been able to d-scribe. There were indigo trees wider than some houses and taller than the tower blocks I’d grown up in. I climb-d one of the trees to the very top and looked out into the vast horizon and thought how differ-nt the landscape was to what I was used to. It seemed bigger but I knew it was smaller because all the books told me it was so. Maybe the Purple Country seemed to stretch so much furth-r because there was a horizon there to see.

I walked fourteen rotations, day and night, one for each of my years. If I didn’t find what I was looking for by the fourteenth night, I’d decid-d, I would turn and go back.

The fourteenth day came and I was sitting in the very top boughs of a tree. I felt at home. I spent the whole day in that tree looking and thinking, letting my mind wand-r out into the space I could see. As the night curved slowly in I stopped looking out and began looking up. I could see lights appearing in the sky and I thought that I’d never looked up at the sky because before all I’d seen there was yellow glow. But here the sky really caught my eye. I lay on my back on the least precarious branch and stared up at the lights.

A few hours later I heard a trickle of water running through the leaves below me. A figure stepped up out of the branch-s and he started speaking to me. He asked me if there was a cert-n light I’d had my eye on the most. I pointed to one, not one of the brightest lights, but a particularly sparkly one, and he said good choice. He gave me a book and said I know you love reading, go home and read this book and you can have that star for your own.

Well my home was the top of this tree now so I stayed there and read the book cover to cover, frontways and backways so I knew the whole thing and he came back. He said so are you ready to begin? And I said yes and he took my hand and brought me here. We were togeth-r for a couple of months while I aged to become fully realis-d, and to apparently cram as many annotations onto the pages of the book as possible (which may be the same thing but I’d rather it were ambiguous to me…). But he left one day and I haven’t seen him since.

I do think he’ll visit me one day, before the finish.”

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After the Dam Clouds rise up mountainous above the buildings Sun gleams from around shivers of edges creating a thin line of golden light outlining the mass of grey dominating the sky.

Greenfin sways between the trees drunk on the promise of life after the Dam. Finefin jumps those rolling hills.

Rolling with the fuzzy airs of the day. I sit steadily in the grey, my fins are camouflaged.

I like to stay safe.

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The eclipse They drank wine and looked too fine, smoked weird to

pass the time in red fur. They couldn’t see the eclipse for the smog.

She had white pants on.

Charging under

the moon passing

over the sun as they filled up with blood.

They watched it happen

on one of the smaller screens.

When it was over they had lost two hours and nothing really seemed that different from before.

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