Micro-fiction 077 – Different (Post-Apocalypse series)

A tale of identity, entanglement, time and a voice that’s not quite what it seems to be

I have always felt different. Disorientation the doctor had called it, although he was clearly puzzled, and dismissive of my tendency to talk to myself. Then the town was bombed, the surrounding region with its industrial network was decimated too, leaving only a few structures upright. Apparently we were a legitimate strategic target in a war that nobody wanted, and nobody won. My whole family was killed, from grandparents to the little ones, our home, along with most everyone else’s collapsed in the blast. I was lucky, the only survivor, already marching out of the town, heading for glorious isolation away from my family, and the neighbours, each of whom talked about me as though they really knew me, whispered and pointed at me in the street. Well, once they might have, but they don’t know what’s going on in my head, what’s always gone on. After the bombs struck, I was the only one left from the town. Days later I found myself face down in a field, starving, thirsty, with the worst kind of headache.

My limbs unresponsive I struggled upwards and looked back at the shattered land that once was my home. Everything around me was silent, and the stale aroma of death overwhelmed the air. The patch of ground I had lain on, was green, but all else was charcoal grey. Ahead of me, away from the town I saw a ridge that marked the edge of the devastation, and a tumble of structures beyond. It was one of the many factories that had once provided work for our fathers and mothers, and theirs before them, stretching back through the generations.

I stumbled forwards, talking to myself with my dry, aching throat.

“Where are you off to now eh?” I’ve always had this inner dialogue.

“Find something, anything. Water.”

“I wouldn’t trust that now.”

“Tins. They’ll be ok.” I shuffled on, finding more energy in the hope, and moved a little faster, anxious to distance myself from the scorched earth.

“Come on, you can do it.”

“Okay, okay, I’m coming.”

“Look, the ridge is almost normal, the grass is just swept back as though a giant had breathed on it.

“Some giant huh, a technological marvel, a giant, fecking bomb.”

“Well yes, but look, there’s the old factory, still standing.”

“Protected by the ridge maybe.”

“Or something else.”

“Really?”

“You know how I feel.”

“Yes, yes, different, like I do.”

“I just think there’s something there.”

“Food. That’s what we want.”

“More than food.”

“Ah, here we are.” In front of me a broken building rose, the steel structure exposed to the air, with timber frames, and crumbling brick walls randomly discarded along the length of the delivery yard.

“Used to be a thousand people working here. The kilns have been quiet for years.” I peered in, as desultory sunlight limped through huge holes in the roof.

“Oh, look, the old steps.” I wandered over to the back of the factory where five stone steps were set in a dirt-crusted wall with pale, red ochre stone around a rough archway. It was markedly different from everything else in this state of abandonment. I shivered. It seemed ancient.

“You remember these?”

“Of course, it was just a joke.”

“Er no, all the stories in the papers, it wasn’t just our friends.”

“The disappeared.”

“Well, we couldn’t find them. And we had to run back and tell everyone.”

“That wasn’t fun. No-one believed me.”

“They did after a few days. Mike, Aya, Ellis, Tande. Still missing. Not that it matters any more. Everyone’s gone.”

“I was blamed for a while, but then the old stories came out, on the radio, TV. A lost generation of people disappeared.”

“Right, here.” I looked at the steps, now a few feet from me. They led nowhere. There’s nothing on the other side, no platform, no corridor, no room, just five steps up and a doorway in the old stone.

“Why did I not go up?”

“You were just last. The others pushed in front of you. The demon drink, too much fun, no thought about the danger.”

“But there’s no obvious danger. They’re just steps that lead to nowhere.”

“And we didn’t know what we know now.”

“Does that change anything? It still feels the same. Even though the entire town outside has been destroyed, this place seems to have stayed as it was .”

“Maybe we should go up.”

“I need food.”

“There’s no food here.”

“That’s why we came.”

“That’s why you came.”

“Er, you making a distinction between us.”

“Finally.”

“What the…”

“Look, trust me, you always have. We’ve go to go up those five steps, there’s nothing else we can do here.”

“But—“

“Everyone else has gone, there’s nothing to eat or drink, unless you want to wait for the rain, nothing to lose.”

“Oh, ok.” I ran up the steps, and, closing my eyes, flung myself though the opening.

I landed face down on the concrete floor on the other side. My head shouted at me and I could hardly breathe .

“No, you idiot, what are you doing? Take it easy. Listen to me.”

“Ugh, why didn’t you say?” I pushed myself up cautiously.

“You just ran up it like a madman.

“Well get on with it.” Painfully I brushed the dust and grit off my clothes.

“Walk up, one step at a time, and breathe in step one, out on step two, and so on, don’t change your pace.”

“Well, I can only just walk.”  I regarded the steps and wondered what was going on. I’ve been talking to myself since I can remember, but this felt different.

I took a first step. Breathed in.

A second step, breathing out.

Third, breathed in.

Fourth Breathed out.

Fifth step. Breathed in and closed my eyes.

A sixth step and breathed out

A seventh, breathed in. Now I felt myself being buffeted, shouldered.

An eight step. I breathed out and opened my eyes wide! Utter darkness surround me, but I could hear and feel an ocean of murmuring joy.

“Oh my—” Everywhere there were people, all pushing past, moving in the opposite direction.

A voice bloomed around me, as though speaking from every part of the air itself, its fingers susurrating my flesh, banishing the pains of my fall, and I felt myself step forwards, but now stepping out of myself.

“Welcome. We have waited so long for your return.”

“I—” My words drifted out, but they were an echo of themselves, there were two of us responding to this new voice.

“You are the first seed of your world, we sent you when universe was new, and we have sought your return, for we have many other worlds to create.”

“Uh.” I found myself suspended on the edge of breathing in, I could no longer breathe out.

“Your human vessel will return with the others. They have been a pestilence in our realm, wandering and wailing while we seek you. Now all can return.”

“How long?”

“We do not measure such things, we dwell in the moment before your universe  was created. In your terms, we have searched for you for seventy millennia. But what is such a thing? You may leave now.”

“Good-bye old friend.”

“Uh.” I stumbled back, the surge of people heading to the door overwhelming me as we flooded backwards through and down the five steps into the abandoned factory.

Hundreds of people milled around, looking at the sky through holes in the ceiling, theirs eyes scrunched in the agony of sunlight. And more poured through.

I breathed out.

I cried at the emptiness in my head.

But somehow, when I closed my eyes I could still feel the darkness, the fingers on my flesh, and the distant voice of myself, my pair, my old friend.

I have always felt different, but now I know why.

[end]