-- THE TOWN --
by HOGAN

At the end of the world it is always hot. God promised the next time He destroyed the world he would do it by fire, but I have never seen a naked flame. We have nothing to burn, only things to lose – in this land without wood there are dilapidated buildings made from log and timber. The only thing burning I can see is the sun above, dominating an empty sky day after day, casting endless heat upon the vast and empty plains below.

It’s why I’m usually inside, and there are a lot of options in this town. Sheds, houses, and storehouses are scattered across the plain in a general clumping, before the marks of civilisation ebb away into the dry beyond. Some parts are made from brick, including the watchtower. When we’re finished we like to climb its winding stone stairs and look out over the plain; the empty land that stretches on and on while colour fades from the sky. She keeps a lamp for the way back down.

Some days I don’t know where she goes or what she does and it feels like I’m alone on this planet, but she’s always nestled away somewhere. There’s nowhere else to go; nothing out there to hunt or find. We like to make use of the full range of abandoned buildings in this town; the Mayor used to live where we sleep – I wish I could remember his face.

I have had a lot of trouble with my head since the accident. I’m sure I was born here, although I cannot remember the house – I only know which one it is because Rose told me it held my things. My mother died in childbirth and my father died before the end of the end, and I know these things because they have their own graves. The town buried them in plots marked by crossed stakes in the ground, themselves symbols of the lost art of stonemasonry.
Rose had come to town shortly before my accident.

They interrogated and feared her, and those who minded our stores loathed her. With her stories the town leaders debated whether to send an expedition outward – if Rose had walked here then clearly people lived elsewhere; it never went because nobody figured out a way to transport food. These things I remember in patches and flashes that come sometimes, among them my father’s excitement for a world that carried on outside, as well as the first time I saw Rose.

When I woke up much had gone. Her soft white face lingered over mine and a cool, uncalloused hand touched my head. I blinked open slowly with a powerful headache, aggravated by her joyful sputtering.
“What happened?”

“You’ve been asleep for a few days,” she said, and then she sobered. “Something has happened.”

There is no doubt the building I spend the most time in is the Library, although it was not built for such things. I have seen from a note on a book inside it belonged to David, who left behind swathes of neatly ordered literature when he died. Here remains the total work of every major contributor to world literature, at my fingertips, because what remains here is all that there is of world literature. If there’s somebody missing, well, I’ve never heard of him – and who is there to tell me otherwise?

When I’m done reading I leave the Library and go to the Sanctuary, the only place where she is not to come and visit. My work lives there, and perhaps some books I’ve taken with me piled up in the corner. Stored in the drawers below is what she found after the end came – two enormous piles of blank paper and a single black pen. I double-side every page and write in handwriting so small my palm aches, with the fear that my pen, encased in white plastic so I can’t see the cartridge below, will run dry.

Reading great literature is essential to writing great literature. She doesn’t understand that; sometimes she thinks I’m plagiarising. She doesn’t read anything but she listens to the poems I write, and sometimes I disguise the poems and stories of others because I know she’ll like it or I want to see what she thinks; my only misjudgement was when I read out the Revelation. Those stories are mine alone, and I have worried about what will happen to them when I die.

Death used to worry me more. Despite the confusion my waking day had chilled my blood with dread. She guided me through ghost streets, the only inhabitant on the earth, holding my hand and talking slowly and asking me questions to work out what I could remember and what I couldn’t.
“My father …” I said, “yes. I remember,” although the only thing that sticks out in my mind around his death is a crowd of people surrounding a hole in the earth. Rose had to tell me how he died.

“But what about everyone else?” I cried, the lots of houses overwhelming me by their emptiness. “What happened?!”

She took a deep breath and narrated. “Another woman arrived two days after your father died. She was talking to the Mayor on the edge of town when you fell. That night we’d done everything we could for you and now we had to wait, and everyone except me came to see the new woman. Things were exciting again. She’d come in a different direction from me, and people were sure there had to be more out there.

“Everybody died of plague over the next two days. That woman did first, she wilted in the sun complaining of a fever, and then it seemed everyone was sick. I wouldn’t let anyone in to see you because we couldn’t feed you anyway. I sat with you for four days, and when I came out everyone was gone.”

Her voice had become soft and reflective and I knew her feeling was fragile, but I was too overwhelmed to speak. I rubbed my eyes. We had already gone inside some buildings, and I saw even the corpses were taken away.

“I buried everybody in a big ditch out past the watchtower,” she answered. “You woke up that evening. When I left you to sleep I went and laid down and wept like I’ve never done in my life.”

We built our routines from there, until one morning a long time after we went out to admire the plain. I looked sideways at her, shoulder to shoulder in the shadow of the watchtower.

“What are you doing today Sam?”

“I think I’m going to skip the reading.”

She made a noise.

“I’m feeling inspired,” I replied. “I don’t know. What about you?”

“Oh, I’ve got some preparation to do,” she said. “I’ll be home when you get there. Love you.”

Then she kissed me on the cheek and turned. I watched her go and then I went too, along an unusual path; I wanted to walk past that other building which stimulates me so much – the church.

The church was built on another planet. It is taller than the watchtower because its stone spires reach up into the sky, shaped and moulded by artisan hands whose craft has been lost with their names. It stands with coloured glass still in its walls and has a fine green carpet within. Upon its altar long ago I found the last Bible in the world rested open, the epistles of Paul sounding out without audience. I remember when I brought it out and stored it in the Library, Rose cried out with surprise as if she’d been burned.

I feel that after me and Rose, the church is the next-closest living thing in the village. I was drawn in by its energy, where an enormous cross stood over pew and after pew and decay waited, even though the church had been abandoned before the plague. Only one person had ever gone in there – Mojo – an emaciated man with knotted and shaggy brown hair who lived there alone. I don’t know anything more about him, but my memories of him are from before my fall.

I found his body that morning, laid on its back and with his arm across his stomach and wide open eyes. He was not killed by plague; Mojo was starved to death. I paced around the church and found two more – nobody bore sign of cannibalisation. I turned and hurried through the church doors with the feeling these were a people under siege.

I sat in the Sanctuary for hours to think about it, and did not write for the rest of the day. It was on my mind when I walked home. Rose was bringing things to the table when I came in. I kissed her and following the niceties I asked:

“Have you ever been in the church?”

She glanced up at me, and her face had not changed a whit. “Νο. Why?”

“You’ve never been in there before?”

“I guess not. Why? Is there something in there?”

I stopped and thought. “No. Not really.”

Though our house was hot and decaying she was warm and soft, the softest thing left in the world. And when she saw me she smiled and kissed me, and asked questions about my day, about my work. And I stopped and thought that tomorrow, tomorrow, and all days after would look much like the days before – reading in the morning, writing in the afternoon, hot supper and love in the watchtower in the evening.

I remembered what she promised that day I woke up, that she would take care of me. I looked into her eyes and she smiled, and glanced down at the table. I saw two tall glasses of fresh water, the cold still visible on the glass.

“Look,” she said. “Meat for dinner.”

I put Mojo and the plague from my mind. I believe everything she tells me.

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Pub: 02 Feb 2025 12:42 UTC

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