The Fallen Grace

Do not judge my fall. If you had suffered as I have, you would sympathise with me. I daresay you have done the same. Desperation corrupts the purest grace, banishing them from their rightful place in paradise.

When disaster first warred, my husband, son, and I were on a visit to my mother’s home, in Winchester. Having as yet enjoyed the day, we crowded around the television, so as to watch Courage The Cowardly Dog. The cartoon was interrupted, though, by the news. The broadcaster reported of mass bombings having rained down over the heads of Londoners. From the safety of the leathern sofa, we saw the Shard floating in the River Thames. Bridges were decimated, with cars being full of survivors who were desperate not to drown. All the ghastlier were the corpses bobbing up and down, with their rent flesh deteriorating in the water. Those outside of London were advised to flee farther, and avoid returning at all costs. The television blurred then pixelated from the loss of signal.

Our son, aged ten, was distressed by these images of fiery doom. His blue eyes were fogged with crystal tears. He darted around the house, screaming and crying the while. As I tendered to my mother, who was also in distress, my husband solaced our son. Gathered together, my husband averred the judicious course would be to evacuate, as per the admonishment. We planned to drive to Reading, where we would pick up his parents. When nearing Beech Hill, however, we saw a squadron of planes soar above us. An amethyst brume was being released from them; it lingered in the air, fuming and foaming. Noticing this, my husband impromptu halted the car. Having driven with celerity, we were all thrust forward. A crack resounded, as my mother had been crippled by the headrest. Distraught, I shouted at my husband, reproaching him for having been so incautious. Our son bellowed in fear, as blood trickled down my mother’s forehead. Before we had the opportunity to check her condition, missiles were havocked over Reading. They dropped in copious spates, producing pervasive whistles as they pitched. Even from where we were, these tenebrific imps, shoaling in this purple brume as fish would, dove down. Upon impact, thickets of smoke mushroomed upward, like molten Satan’s boletes. I pictured dust, dirt, and people being whisked up by its torrent. Blazes fired, then all silenced, before an audible quake thundered.

Knowing his parents must have been affected by this misfortune, my husband became terrified. He could not control himself. Convulsing, with his pupils blackened, he wept in fury. For the sake of calming him, we changed seats. We skid off, with us boding it best to be directed towards Salisbury, and follow the southerly route. I certified that we skirted around Salisbury, and any cities, towns, or villages hereabouts, which could be under possible threat. As we did so, my husband catered to the state of my mother. She was alive, but on tenterhooks from the physical pain. She, nonetheless, managed to respond without impairments in her speech. My mother appeared well enough for survival.

At length, we stopped on a random road, and diverted to a pathless track. Before us was the gloom of an immense forest. When looking at our telephones to see where we were, we realised the inutility of them. They were static, with waves of chiaroscuro purling on their tiny screens. It was as if some pathogen had borne itself into them. By whom? And why were we being attacked? We knew not, and nor could we find out.

Parking the car where it was occulted by a bosk of trees, we tarried here for the night. Being unprovisioned, our stomachs flurried in acidulous grumbles. The berries we foraged somewhat satiated our hunger. On the other hand, our thirst was quenched. For, wading through the bowery dark, we located a rivulet, pearled from a breach where the moon could penetrate through. I recall drinking with unstinting ardency, and plashing the water over my face. In the wan light, I noted our son’s shivering silhouette. Embracing him, we stood thus in a trance. It was my husband who had us disentranced, by saying he could hear wheezing from my mother. Indeed, we had misjudged the extent of her injury. She described her mind as being subjected to electroshock, as well as being trampled by the feet of an elephant. I couched on some rank grass beside her, and promised that all would be better soon. How I wish I had not deceived her so, for I was aware of how false I had been. For some hours, I clung fast to my mother, infantilised by the dread of her dying. Throughout the night, the still of nature was entrenched by those identical whistles and quakes. When the sun rose, shafting gold at us, my mother would wake no more. She was pale, breathless, and cold. I shed compassion for both her, and my son, who was having to witness what no child should ever. As a proper funeral was impracticable, we paid her a requiem by laying her body in the rivulet, and blanketed her amongst leaves. She had been posed like Ophelia. As I spoke from the heart of grief, all three of our eyes were glassy.

Decamping thereafter, my husband conveyed us to Newquay, by dint of a map. In time, we would be dependent on its guidance alone. We had qualms about whether Newquay would be destroyed also. If so, we decided to continue southward, hopeful that we might stumble upon some kind of life. To our benefit, Newquay was still unblighted. Public mania, however, was rampant. Some were floundering on the concrete, flailing as ragdolls. Others, with murdersome smirks, flitted from shop to shop, marauding all they could. There were no approachable faces, for they had been tainted by the torment of what throes loomed. Hangdog, my husband proposed we do likewise, and supply ourselves with the food, water, medicine, fuel, and whatsoever else. I was bashful at assenting, though we had little choice save partaking. I remained with our son, as my husband braved the bedlam of thieves, fledgling criminals, and the natal decay of society. He hopped from pharmacy, Wickes, petrol station, to a giant Tesco. Whilst waiting for him, I spotted the neck of a woman be cut, the chest of an elderly man be stamped upon, and iniquities besides. This was further exemplified when my husband emerged again. From a brawl over some fuel, he had been whipped with rusted wire. My husband had won, yet been marked with a palpitant wound. It dumbed our son into fixating on his father. He no longer cried aloud. Rather, he swallowed his sorrow.

Agonised, I imparted that I would drive. With rage, my husband jettisoned the idea of me doing so. He was adamant on being strong enough, and would not concede otherwise. Onwards to Penzance we journeyed, with my stubborn husband debilitating himself in the process. I searched the map for vicinal hospitals, but they were either in flames or hysteria. Needless to say, my husband was stoic to there being no possibility of remedying him. Having stolen some medicine – such as codeine, disinfectant, and bandages – he cleansed and wrapt himself. He, I, and even our gawking son, knew this to be impotent against a maligner, infectious malady.

For a whole day, we slugged through interminable roads, both desolate and bustling, till we attained Penzance. Here, law and order was on crutches, with frenzy being less rife than in Newquay. From a frowning paperboy, we caught word of the devastation spreading, festering, tumefying throughout Britain, America, Oceania, Asia, and Eastern Europe. The bombs were reputed to not be nuclear. Instead, they exploded, flattening all to dross, and poisoning the atmosphere through gaseous toxins. From where or whom? – none had certitude. The paperboy advised us to hurry to the docks, where we may board a keel to go abroad. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands were accepting British refuges. Thanking the paperboy, we teetered with our bags of provisionments to test our lot. I could discern how aggrieved my husband was, for he urged us to stop on numerous occasions. Sulphurous-tinged drops were being perspired from his skin. His visible adversity proved providential, though, as one out of the twenty captains on the dock condoled with my husband.

Our captain was named Ahab, with a birchen peg for a right leg. He detailed that we would be adventuring to Africa, not Westernmost Europe. He regarded it vain to swiften to where was next on the list of decimation.

After ushering us on, Ahab jilted multitudes that knelt upon their importunate knees, wetting the ground beneath his feet. Impervious, Ahab refused them by gesturing with his viridian hat. At maximum capacity – seven of Ahab’s mariners, and twelve civilians (including ourselves) – we were ready to depart. As we unharboured, people lunged at the rifting gap between the keel and the dock. Some plunged in, and two bubbles would be all that resurfaced of them. Queerer, though, was the obtrusive sight of a doddering priest. His frosty hair cast snow in the wind, contrasted by his face which was scorched. A complexional scar ran down his left side. He was gazing at the offing, and raving:

“He cometh from otherwhere, whence man hath yet to plumb. Descry yon, seeth how He froth with wrath! Spit doth he at thine recusancy, at thine contumely of His legacy. Eftsoon He descendeth from the welkin, and revenge doth He mete out to ye. How thus, asketh ye? By razing the garden of earthly delights! See ye not how thy folly beest unshriven. The madness, sewn on thy mouths; ye mischieve hast ends meet. Widen thy arms, brood of Icarus, for His bosom be soever sweet!”

Discomfited, I fastened to my child, and glanced at my shuddersome husband. To soothe himself, he was opiating his senses by indulging in codeine. Concerned, I unrolled his navy chinos, and examined the wound. Nauseated by it, I veered to the rosy horizon. Its alpenglow lured me away from my husband, divesting me of my will. I heard a squeal from my son, the fretful astonishment of the mariners, and the retching of a youthful woman. And yet, I walked to the edge of the keel, and emplaced my hands on the wooden taffrails. Who knows how long I stared, but I could have sworn that this horizontal phenomenon was unnatural. Not the magic of diffraction. No, it was more akin to the swollen belly of an explosion.

This must have been an omen of ill, presaging that we had not bilked tragedy. Try as we might, but we were haunted by damnation. Helming the North Atlantic Ocean was fraught with unruly billows, uprearing against the bow as Leviathans. The clouds murked to be impenetrable. A bothersome mist slithered into the fore, inhibiting the ease whereof we sailed. Grimmer still were the veins, supercharged with the violet anger of Zeus, about to lash us. A Neptunian storm was imminent.

Alarmed, the mariners scuttled, like ants defending their queen, across the deck. Two of them climbed the rigging of the keel, and operated the sails, which were rendered flimsy. Ahab shrieked in continuum, instructing his crew, as well as the civilians, to be mettlesome. We wrangled at length, embattling against the tempestuous batterings, and unrestrainable squalls.

On a freak, a violaceous bolt fulgurated upon a mariner amidst the rigging. Electrified, he toppled overboard. That woman retched once more, rolling around in her own vomitus. A sequent bolt, indigo this time, struck Captain Ahab, whose pegleg staggered him backward till misstepping off the stern. Peril permeated. With our son glued to me, and my husband squeezing my hand, we were all three reduced to existential fright. Never before had I begged God. In those moments, I vanquished all my unbelief, and mustered the devoutest prayer I could. As I murmured the final syllable, a yawning billow consumed the keel, and blinded me.

When I awoke, I was luckless enough to have survived. With brine encrusting my eyelids, I scampered around with my fingers, and felt my surroundings. They were sodden and hard. Repossessed of my vision, I distinguished that I was stranded on a basalt rock, somewhere remote from the resins of society. It was massive, and unpopulated by either human, animal, or flora.

A freighted voice alarmed me; turning, I saw our son…or, rather, my son. I presumed my husband to have been luckful. Death, however, had cheated my son and I. We were forsaken to maritime purgatory, with no provisions whatsoever.

My son was frantic, and showed signs of having been maimed when the keel had wrecked aground. Salting the abrasions, he cackled from how it panged him so. He needed not confess his hunger aloud, for I could surmise it by glimpsing at his voracious expressions. To my surprise, though, instead of grovelling for food, he asked:

“Where is dad?”

I admitted to not having the faintest clue. Puling, my son dropped upon the comfortless ground. Succouring him dear to me, I fabled how his father was at peace with the stars, flying through the meadows in heaven. This did not souse the sorrow within him, but it ripened his lively imagination. His irises mirrored the seraphic fantasy I had elicited.

That night, my son and I studied the skies, which had vestiges of constellations, now blunted from the pollution of war. I wished upon one, and kissed my son’s cheek. Sleeping thereafter, we were encroached by a lunatic paddling in water. My son was unstirred. Inquisitive, I investigated what was awry: it was another survivor. A young mariner had swam for his life, and propped himself upon a rocky isle, similar to ours. He had begun anew, after ascertaining the dereliction of his. If he had foreknown of ours being identical, then, in all likelihood, he would have refrained from doing so. Exhausted from his expenditure, the mariner slept, whereas I dozed.

At dawn, he was obstinate on fishing, or procuring something edible to fortify us. In truth, I had no care for such sustenance. I had a morbid avidity for surrendering, rather than pretending as though we had a veritable chance. We never saw the mariner again. What I did see, however, was a red pool thawing throughout the cerulean of the sea, with serrated fins circumscribing it. I averted my son to look in the opposite direction, where the rosiest glows, shimmering, furled upon the horizon. Death was ineludible.

Another day elapsed, and still we had neither eaten nor drunk. Scabs, from dehydration, encysted our face, as the gelid weather chilled us to the marrow. My son shrank inward, and complained of how tumultuous his stomach groaned. He had underexaggerated, for I would have delineated it so: with the acid having frittered out, its contents was superseded by a hollowing effect, ever deepening to be more chasmal than the Mariana Trench. Lest I forget the scaly texture when licking our lips, and the horrid sensation of sinews shrivelling up. The irony being that, all around us, was a perfidious infinity of blue-gold. If we succumbed, and tried its liquid satiety, would we so derange as was rumoured to happen? At night, on this same day, we staked our sanity by sipping from the sea. Its briny granules scathed our moistureless tongues. We were sickened to deliria.

My son had developed what I deemed as flu, for he shook, coughed, and crackled with phlegm when he whispered. All throughout the night, I clenched him, and was unremitting in my zeal. His arms were laming, and his vocal tenor was subding fast. Keening and kissing him time after time, he sobbed muter and muter, incapable of dewing tears. My son could not overmaster his bodily anguish. In the morning, I felt his frozen temperature, beheld his porcelain pallor, and heaved at the ineffable temptation. I rejected the conception of sinking my son, and have him drift down fathomless leagues. After what assailed the mariner, it bids fair that my son would be denied the serenity he so deserves. Besides, by staying he can enhearten me from solitude…and appease my stomach instead with just one bite…or two.

I have since deserted any scruples towards the fever in the sea. If anything, I bathe myself in its maddening delight. In theory, brisking me hellwards. Indeed, I now believe that such places exist. Not from divine clarity, or a godly revelation. No. My faith is in hopes of happier tidings having sent my loves heavenwards. Delirious I may be, but I am not shameless or remorseless enough as to think I belong with them. My hereafter lies with atoning for a sin comparable to Saturn’s.

Will they both forgive my desperation for convincing me to do so? If they are of like mind to me, then I doubt it. Why else would I have rid them of their names?

As I pine and waste away, I wonder how the rest of the world fares. Humans must be on an identical, purgative trajectory.

For a while, I heard muffled whistles, saw dotted squadrons unleash tenuous things, shaped as inverted birds, whereupon Satan’s boletes mushroom. No more does this occur at present. There is but an inquietude stilling what subsists. In a few hours, I hazard that I may be the loneliest survivor left. The least enviable wretch to have ever lived.

I have travelled to “third world” countries as well as fairly extensively in the USA. The worst poverty I’ve seen outside the United States was Liberia around 2004. That was the end of their civil war that lasted 16 years. There’s only one place I’ve been to in the USA that compares:

Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

This is the poorest county in America. 97% live below the poverty line. No commercial infrastructure or industry.

Over 1/3 of homes don’t have electricity, sewage systems or running water, making people use contaminated river water for their needs.

An average of 17 people live in each home, many with dirt floors.

The infant mortality rate is off the charts.

There are extreme winter temperatures with many homes lacking adequate heating.