The end of the world for us came slowly and silently, easing itself into everyday life, making it more comfortable for us all to stomach. The bodies didn’t pile high in the streets like something from a dystopian nightmare, but were disposed of efficiently in order to not cause alarm. First it was the elderly, then the old, then the infirm, followed lastly by the very young. That was the hardest part; young, ostensibly healthy people with their whole lives ahead of them dropping like flies as the air grew thick and toxic, too dark for the sun to breach long enough and with enough regularity to secure crops.
Despite any best intentions of the global hierarchy — world leaders, captains of industry, the caring corporations — everything happened with sufficient speed that any action was too little and too late. Besides, they too were dying, the rich old men in their ivory towers who thought their hoarded wealth would protect them from the damage they and their predecessors had wrought upon the world. By the time things began to even themselves out, as these things eventually do, ⅞ of the population of London had gone. Swathes of the capital were empty of people entirely, transformed from a bustling metropolis into a desert.
I was taking my morning walk from Clerkenwell to Westminster in search of food. I recall a night at a party maybe 20 years ago when we had watched a film about a post-apocalypse and chuckled now at the notion people in the old days had had about cities of marauding gangs warring for turf and black market goods. The collapse of communication systems has wreaked havoc on organised crime and the scarcity of basic materials meant that we had no weapons to speak of and who would want the turf exactly? My chief concern on my travels was the packs of wild dogs that ruled much of central London and would rip an unsuspecting person to shreds if the mood took them. She had loved dogs when they were a thing you could keep in your house, that you could teach tricks to and have as some surrogate for a child. Now that they stood at their smallest a good seven feet in height and had long forgotten social niceties, that seemed a ludicrous concept.
Nature had itself not quite behaved as the scientists had predicted. Animals and plants had adapted to the change in atmosphere far more quickly than people, thriving rather than weathering the catastrophe. Not that a human could even think of eating either as the change in the air conditions left both toxic to people. Under my feet passing through Farringdon, the tarmac was overwhelmed by plants, mosses and grasses almost waist height and poisonous even if I were to so much as gently brush them with an ungloved hand. There was no cure; you became short of breath as your arteries gradually ruptured, causing you to bleed to death from the inside over a number of hours
That was how I had lost her one afternoon. We had previously not realised the plants we had cultivated in our home to create an oasis of calm while the outside world went to hell would turn on us. I watched her convulse on the floor, blood pouring from her eyes and her once exquisite mouth crusted in fluids and twisted in agony, unable to offer any solace more than kind words; “I love you” “I’m sorry” “it’ll be over soon”. When she eventually was at peace, I had to burn the body immediately as was the instruction from the patchy public information services that remained. I would never be happy again.
Happiness, much like the concept of work, leisure or seeking pleasure, was something from before that no longer had a place here. Maybe that was for the best. Our endeavours as a species to create meaning was replaced by the notion of surviving. But surviving for what? Despite the efforts of whatever organised government existed — shady individuals no one knew or saw since we no longer had the technology to see them — telling us to pull together, share our rations, look out for our neighbours. We knew what we saw with our own eyes. People, human beings, were over. Even the fittest succumbed eventually, whether to disease, hungry birds and immense beasts, the malevolent and vengeful flora, the thick toxicity of the atmosphere outside breaching even the thinnest cracks in doors, windows or brick, or simply out of choice. Every morning from the Holborn Viaduct hung countless bodies of those who had decided to cease to persevere, swaying like macabre Christmas decorations against the soupy air. Public service workers had initially cleared them a few days a week but it was like we had collectively begun to accept these as a part of life now. I wonder often if or when I’ll join them, if the last sight imprinted on my retinas will be carcasses in various states of decay being torn to pieces by the phantasmic pigeons with claws the size of scythes nesting among the thick and grim vines that cover the environment humans once owned.
I take a diversion to avoid Holborn as the warning sirens blare from that direction. This used to act as an indicator of noxious fumes emitting from the sewer grates that caused any insufficiently protected human flesh to rot within minutes, eating through muscle and bone as if it were butter. Now it’s uncertain whether this is just a malfunction of the automated system or not, but better to be safe than sorry. I pass the buildings that once made up UCL, a world renowned centre of learning when that was such a thing. The people within those walls first identified what was happening, but by that point nothing we could do could stop the inevitable. She had studied here, learning about the art and architecture she had so loved, the men who had created the great temples to a higher power adorned with arches, glass, spires and gargoyles with names like Hawksmoor, Pugin, Gilbert Scott. She would take me to see their great works, waxing lyrical about the meaning of each part, the purpose of these spaces in days long gone by. She was so proud, so excited by all that we as a species could achieve. It seems such a waste of time now. Where is god now there is no one with a heart or mind for him to reside in?
As I reach the border of Soho, I must show my pass and have my baggage searched. This enclave is heavily guarded and fortified, for whom I do not know. The buildings which once contained creative types now were coated in panels of electrified metal to protect those within. The streets are patrolled by the few who had the gene which caused the same mutation we had seen with the animals, standing taller and stronger than the rest of us, immune to the plant life, and strong and frenzied enough to fight off any animal able to penetrate the border. There had been a brief attempt for these people to breed enough to sustain the population even a little, but the offspring had either been stillborn or just simply were unviable. I am polite and cooperative, taking the escort to the edge of the border at Regent Street. We walk this 15 minutes in silence and I am glad for the lack of small talk. There is little for anyone to say to one another these days beyond condolence where appropriate.
The last leg of the journey through St James is perhaps the hardest. Here the trees and plants grow up to 3 feet in a single day; you can see them stretch out their green limbs like tentacles, curling around everything in their path. St Martin-in-the-fields was a house of god and is now a shelter from the chemical storms that brew upon the Thames, guarded by the larger of us with flame throwers to hold back the advance of nature. Trafalgar Square’s unique position at the end of a wind tunnel from the river saw the first batch of mass casualties from the storms and those bodies are still there somewhere under the greenery, rotting and feeding their aggressive growth. Westminster council used the last of their dwindling funds to construct a wall along the south side of the Mall as a modicum of protection from the winds off the river and still offer a little shelter. I follow this along to my destination.
The short stretch of the road between Green Park and St James’ Park is treacherous. I recall her delight at seeing the rose-ringed parakeets gliding in small flocks across a perfect blue sky one afternoon in June, squawking merrily and nesting in the plane trees. We had opted to drink wine in the park after work to enjoy the remnants of the day, not a care in the world. I told her that I loved her, made plans for our exciting future that seemed at the time to stretch out endlessly, talk of seeing the treasures of far off places I had only seen in pictures, eating, drinking, enjoying. Those same birds now snarl, their screeching closer to a roar, my speed and wits the only thing preventing me from becoming their sustenance. The flowers that line what used to be paths emit fumes in hope of sedating whatever living being happens to be passing for long enough to be enveloped in soft leaves and slowly consumed.
Finally, Westminster Cathedral. Somehow this enclave has remained untouched by all that is happening around us. The cult which once held this building as the centre of its operations in England believe that the almighty protects it for believers who will ascend to a better place. There were those who at the apex of the terrors taking hold that walked out into the parks and gardens of this once great city to the deadly embrace of the vegetation, as it was said that their suffering, like that of the son of the lord millenia ago, would guarantee their place on the ethereal plain. They said what was happening was his judgement on our hubris and we should accept it willingly to atone for what we had done. I had dismissed them as foolish; there would be someone who would fix this, make things normal again. I cannot with good conscience say, knowing what I know now, that I don’t wish we both had joined them then.
It now functions as a place to gather food, or what could be called food. A grey powder containing all the nutrients the body needs to continue its normal functions. When we had first collected our ration, she had said it was akin to vanilla ice cream, albeit grittier and leaving a thin fur on the tongue. We had made a joke of it back at our little haven from the world where we found solace and small joy in the company of one another in the face of the horror. She sipped at it as we sat by the window, grasped together, watching the monstrous hounds, rats and cats wander the streets in ravenous packs. She would pick out individuals, talk poetically about how soft their fur would be, how pleasant they would be to hold were they not to tear away your face with their claws. That was typical of how she saw life, a thing full of opportunity and charm. I never realised at that time how much comfort that brought me. In the months since her passing, I felt a desperate pain where that had gone. I clung to her clothes as I slept hoping to catch her familiar scent and reminisce of better times, to see her in my dreams. When life is merely fading memories, what is it for? Without love, why do we continue on?
I collect my rations from the desk, pack my things and prepare for my return journey. The brief hours of the day where there is any kind of daylight is beginning to fade and it is at least an hour back if I take the quickest route. Whether I make that journey successfully or not is of little consequence to anyone, least of all myself. I think to myself she would want me to continue on for as long as I can, but who can say if that is true or just some deeper human instinct to survive. Survive, I laugh to myself, as if that is an achievement in itself. Survive for what or who? Life holds nothing for me or anyone but a perpetual struggle stretching out forever into a grey abyss until the inevitable comes. Yet, nevertheless, I go.